40% of Chinese can not speak Mandarin.....

[flameproof]

While still searching for Podcasts I found this interesting article:

40% Chinese cannot speak putonghua

http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200609/05/eng20060905_299608.html

[snowwhite]

I think most of them know how to speak, but just not good at listening and speaking. The case is just similar as english for chinese. We learn it for a long times since the education system in both Hong Kong and China are required. A lack of practise cause the problem of weak language ability.

[Lu]

I wonder how that was defined. "at least 40 per cent of Chinese are still unable to speak standard Chinese", does that include the people who can speak putonghua but only with a thick accent? 40% seems like a lot to me.

[flameproof]

I think country side people often can't speak it. Even official Mandarin areas often speak "difang hua". And then you have Dongguang, Yunnan, Xinjiang, Tibet, Qinghai where people speak completely different languages.

I meat a girl in Zhongshan, originally from Guangxi. Spoke very good cantonese, but extremely poor Mandarin. After 3 years of English could not say "how are you?" either.

Remember also that in the countryside schooling is kept to a minimum. It all contributes. Not a big issue though, they still speak something else.

[Lu]

Been in Yunnan, they spoke Mandarin there just fine. In fact, isn't Yunnanhua a Mandarin dialect? Met a Tibetan (not in Yunnan), he spoke Mandarin, although he did speak it pretty much at the same level as I do. This is not to say that all people in Yunnan and all Tibetans speak it, but still, 40% seems a very high number to me.

[kdavid]

It's actually something like 32%

Think of it this way: of the 1.3 billion people in China, 885 million of them "can speak Mandarin". That number was pulled from a list of "the ten most popular spoken/written languages in the world", with Mandarin, of course, being #1.

Does anyone know what percentage of China's population is strictly rural, and therefore probably speaking their native dialect as opposed to Madarin?

[Lu]

I think my question is: what is the definition of 'can speak Mandarin' here? Do only native speakers count, does it count if they speak Sichuan Mandarin but not biaozhun putonghua, would someone who learned it as a second language count (Tibetans, Xinjiangnese, the girl from Zhongshan), and if yes how proficient would they have to be? How good and how biaozhun does someone's Mandarin have to be to be counted as 'can speak Mandarin'?

Does anyone know what percentage of China's population is strictly rural, and therefore probably speaking their native dialect as opposed to Mandarin?

I don't know the percentage, only that it's very high. But what they speak is not always 'opposed to Mandarin'. Large areas in China speak a Mandarin dialect, and not just in the N-E. And even people who speak something else don't necessarily speak no Mandarin at all.

[Shadowdh]

You know I get the same feeling about english in the UK... lol...

[atitarev]

http://www.chincommunications.com.au/news_more.php?id_news=11

300 Million Chinese Can't Speak Mandarin

300 million Chinese can't speak Mandarin, according to a professor in the Chinese Social Sciences Academy. Some targets have been put forward: by 2010 to popularise Mandarin and by 2050 for everyone to speak it.

300 mln is less 40%

[Lu]

300 million Chinese can't speak Mandarin, according to a professor in the Chinese Social Sciences Academy.

At which I would ask the same questions as I did in my previous post. The different number is maybe because both surveys had different definitions of 'can speak Mandarin'.

[atitarev]

Interesting that these surveys/researches are done by foreigners (correct me if I am wrong). Whenever I ask a Chinese person about the situation, they would say everybody knows (can speak, etc) Mandarin but many people use their dialect in most situations. Were they asked if they can speak Mandarin if they wanted to? Just a thought, there might quite a number of people who can't speak Mandarin at all.