4 ms·
OT and Nit: Mandarin refers to one of the ways to read Chinese characters (there are other ways e.g. Cantonese, Taiwanese). So you can say "I don't speak Mandar
by yegle 7y ago
OT and Nit: Mandarin refers to one of the ways to read Chinese characters (there are other ways e.g. Cantonese, Taiwanese). So you can say "I don't speak Mandarin", but not "I don't read Mandarin".
- yomly 7y agoYou can definitely write Cantonese so I'm not even convinced you are correct.
- bobthepanda 7y agoYou can definitely say "read Mandarin", because particularly in informal contexts there is definitely a difference between "Standard Chinese" based on Mandarin and, say, spoken Cantonese written down.
- Loranubi 7y agoYou are partly correct. Mandarin usually refers to the spoken language and Chinese to the written characters. However there are still differences in writing / vocabulary even if you disregard the existence of simplified and traditional versions. It's similar to US and British English. Books are are often translated to both versions and it's similar for (Mainland) Chinese, Hong Kong Chinese or Taiwanese Chinese text with even more extreme differences.