Talk:Mandarin Chinese

Lost in translation?

I'm not capable in either, but do Mandarin and Cantonese both use the same translations of the same ideograms? Or would they produce different English transliterations (if that's the word to use from ideogram to letters...)? 184.70.60.42 (talk) 20:04, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

Much of Mandarin and Cantonese vocabulary is cognate (i.e. the same morphemes written with the same characters, but pronunciation shifting over time), but a huge chunk of it isn't—I've seen figures as high as 50% of vocabulary being different between Mandarin and Cantonese. Many morphemes present in both varieties have simply evolved divergently over time. I have been learning Mandarin, I can read some written Cantonese—but I can listen to and understand no Cantonese whatsoever.

For example, the Cantonese copula ('to be', 'is'/'am'/'are', etc.) is 係, which was actually originally used like a copula much more in Classical Chinese, compared to the Mandarin copula 是, which originally meant 'this' (a proximal demonstrative) in Classical Chinese.

There are also some grammatical differences—in Cantonese the indirect object in basic sentences usually comes after the direct object in the sentence, while it comes before in Mandarin: 给我笔 is "give me (a) pen" in Mandarin—in Cantonese, this is usually 畀笔我 "give (a) pen (to) me". (The pen is the direct object, because it is what is being given, while 'me' is the indirect object.)

Also, a lot more loan words from English etc. in Cantonese. hope this helps! Remsense留 00:02, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

It's worth emphasising that the answer is "normally yes", as normally written Chinese corresponds to Mandarin rather than Cantonese: Vernacular Chinese in particular is just written Mandarin, and is widely used even in Cantonese speaking territories such as Hong Kong, even for things meant exclusively for use in HK. --2A04:4A43:903F:F303:659B:EBB6:9243:6050 (talk) 18:05, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

Confusion Between the Group of Languages & Standardised Version

This article is about the group of languages, "官話". However, Reference 1 actually redirects to "普通話", which is the standardised version of Mandarin. Therefore this reference is not relevant to this article, as the statistics only includes those who speaks Standard Chinese. RockyLi0601 (talk) 12:09, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

The full Ethnologue entry is behind their paywall – without a subscription only a small excerpt is shown. There is confusion within the Ethnologue entry: the autonym is given as 普通话‎, but the detailed description is of the group, and the speaker figures refer to Mandarin dialects. Kanguole 12:59, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for your information, and that also proves the fact that there is indeed confusion in this regard. We should then seek other references to replace reference 1. RockyLi0601 (talk) 13:21, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

Mutual Intelligibility Beijing dialect with others contradicting Wikipedia

In the Beijing dialect article, it says that it is mutually intelligible with other Mandarin dialects, but here it states that many Mandarin dialects are not mutually intelligible with the Beijing dialect. One of these statements is false. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.104.203.97 (talk • contribs) 23:11, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

The statement in Mandarin Chinese#Mainland China is supported by several references, while the one in Beijing dialect#Mutual intelligibility is unsourced. Kanguole 07:45, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

Requested move 23 June 2025

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: not moved. Favonian (talk) 12:28, 30 June 2025 (UTC)

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Mandarin Chinese → Mandarin languageMandarin language – WP:COMMONNAME, known widely more popularly as just Mandarin. AimanAbir18plus (talk) 12:01, 23 June 2025 (UTC) This is a contested technical request (permalink). AimanAbir18plus (talk) 12:01, 23 June 2025 (UTC)

• oppose – This group is not a language, because it contains varieties that are not mutually intelligible. The current name is consistent with articles on other branches of Chinese, for which similar considerations apply. Kanguole 13:26, 23 June 2025 (UTC)

  Agreed since as Kanguole said, Mandarin is not just Chinese. Oppose. » Gommeh (he/him) 20:26, 23 June 2025 (UTC)

• Oppose as per Kanguole ch (talk) 05:13, 24 June 2025 (UTC)
• Oppose per WP:COMMONNAME. The term "Mandarin language" is so rare that it doesn't even show up on Ngrams. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 18:32, 28 June 2025 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Five tones

If the majority of sources count them as four, saying there are 4 tones in Mandarin is still wrong. There are 4 contour tones, or there are 4 tones plus a neutral tone, would be better ways of phrasing it. This takes into account the way Mandarin is understood by Chinese speakers, but without saying something that's factually incorrect, because how natives describe their own language isn't always the whole truth. Consider "long" vowels in English, for example, or the single liguature that once existed for d͡ʒ because it was thought of as a single sound. Pinyin is written with 5 different options for tone marks, where no mark is one of the options. However, Zhuyin originally did contain a fifth mark. So I'm not the only one who sees it this way. From a linguistic perspective, there are also plenty of minimal pair examples where the neutral tone changes meaning. DAVilla (talk) 04:07, 21 September 2025 (UTC)

I done some fairly rudimentary studying of Mandarin so maybe not the best replier. But I agree with you and get what you are saying. Given very few sources explicitly says 5 tones tho they def exist, and there are a good number of sources agreeing on the nuance that there's 4 tones and an additional neutral tone. I see no reason to omit this verified fact. So I support changing it to "Most Mandarin varieties have four contour tones and a neutral tone" and have minimally added it to lede. JaredMcKenzie (talk) 20:48, 20 May 2026 (UTC)

Norman (1988) prefers to speak of unstressed or weakly stressed syllables, saying (p148): The term "neutral tone" implies that weakly stressed syllables are a kind of "fifth tone". From both a synchronic and diachronic perspective, this is misleading. Kanguole 22:18, 20 May 2026 (UTC)

That is why I was careful not to outright say 5 tones. On this issue, China's state media writes: There are four main tones and one neutral tone in mandarin Chinese (or, as some say, five tones). Whether it's 4 or 5 is not universally agreed on but given the neutral tone doesn't have its own fixed pitch contour like the 4 lexical tones; I get many linguists like Norman tend to prefer to categorize it as as a form of unstressed or weakly stressed syllable. So if preferred, I can revise lede to say; Most Mandarin varieties have four lexical tones, alongside unstressed syllables often described as having a neutral tone. Such an edit avoids claiming the neutral tone is a universally accepted fifth lexical tone while still acknowledging its common description as "neutral tone" per learning resources. JaredMcKenzie (talk) 22:51, 20 May 2026 (UTC)

Also phonological status is still heavily debated among linguists. There is no universal concensus. And given syllables spoken this way do in fact sound completely distinct from the first four tones - others do regard it as a tone (albeit not equal-status tone to other 4) given its contrastive role and characteristic pronunciation. So I made a final edit that helps acknowledges both viewpoints fairly without presenting either analysis as universally accepted. JaredMcKenzie (talk) 23:10, 20 May 2026 (UTC)