Difference between written and spoken Mandarin.

[Shi Tong]

Hello all,

As you can appreciate, a lot of people who can speak Mandarin (relatively) fluently are also victims of the fact that they can't write and are only able to read a little.

I am one of these people, because I speak Mandarin quite well, I can read some, but I can write very little, (to the extent that when I got a study text book the other day I had to practice and learn about 7 characters from the first page of the book!!!!).

So one of the things which I have real trouble with is the difference between written and spoken Mandarin, because I've noticed that a lot of words you would never say are written down and people understand them.

From the perspective of myself, being someone who learned to speak Mandarin, I've only got the ability to hear someone say something and ask "what did you just say/ what does that mean", but I also can't ask what is written, since I dont have any study partners or much help in that respect, so now that I'm starting to read and write, I consantly read words and think "how would I use that if I was going to SAY it", or "In what context is that word applicable when used in the spoken sense".

To give you an idea of my level, I can usually understand about 70-90% of what's written, if someone is writing a casual letter, and then a lot less if it's in a book or in the news.

So.

1) Are there any particularly commonly written characters which you would never say?

2) Can you tell if a character you see written down can be used in a spoken context (I'm guessing the answer is no.. grrrr!!)

3) Is there any guidance you can assist me with?

Thanks!!!!!:mrgreen:

[renzhe]

It's not just characters that are more commonly written or spoken, it's also words. Sometimes very common characters get used in less common (and more formal) words.

Just to give you an example, 此 and 而 are commonly used as conjunctions in written Chinese and rarely used in this way in speech. But they appear in phrases such as 不告而别 and 原来如此 which you will occasionally hear.

And it's hard to draw a hard line and say that there are things that you would never say, or never write, it's usually somewhere in between. Writing tends to use more official and formal words, and speech generally uses more colloquial phrases, but you can usually find both, depending on how formal the speech or writing is.

For you, I would recommend getting a good vocabulary list, such as the HSK lists (which were built from both spoken and written corpora) and go through them with a good SRS flash card programme. You will likely be familiar with many of them, you'll just need to learn the corresponding characters.

Personally, I'd concentrate on learning the most common 3000 characters first -- in your case traditional characters -- and once you have a handle on those, start getting used to the simplified forms. Once you have a good reading level, this step is usually rather painless.

Edited February 22, 2010 at 03:30 PM by renzhe

[anonymoose]

The difference between written and spoken language is certainly more distinct than it is in English, but nevertheless the distinction is still fluid, so it's difficult to say there are written words/characters that would absolutely never be spoken.

However, there are a lot of words that are frequently seen in writing, which are used rarely in oral communication. Perhaps what you need is a book specifically on written chinese.

Anyway, I used to have a similar problem not knowing which words to use orally, and which to reserve for writing, but I think after you expose yourself more to Chinese, you will begin to develop a feel for it anyway.

[Shi Tong]

Thanks for the responses so far!

It's true that it will be pretty easy for me to distinguish some of the more commonly spoken compared with written, since I know a lot of what is spoken.. but what I dont know, I will come across something new and be wary of weather or not it's something that you only write or generally speak.

Just to give you an example, which is quite funny.. Usually in Taiwan people say "zai yi ci", to mean "one more time", and when reading my new text book I came across "zai yi bian".

I've never heard ANYONE say zai yi bian to mean "one more time", but apparently asking my wife she said that it was pretty common!!

So obviously I've never managed to hear that!!!

I suppose one thing I can imagine is that if I use a text book for conversational Chinese, I can pretty much guarantee that all I'm learning to write would be something I can say as well.. and then when I get good enough to move onto literature, if I see something I've not said or heard before, it might be something that's more commonly written than spoken.

And also, I guess this comes from experience and just a lot of learning!!!

[taylor04]

I hear zai yi bian and zai yi ci a lot. I can understand everything in a conversation without a problem while only understanding 80-95% of the words depending on the topic. One thing I've noticed is that I'll learn a word, think I've never heard it, but after I learn it find out how often it's used. With any language, there are so many ways to say the same thing.

[imron]

再……一遍 and 再……一次 also have a slightly different meaning. 遍 typically emphasises an entire process from beginning to end, whereas 次 emphasises the number of times something has been done.

[Shi Tong]

Aha.. yes of course..

Things like "this time", when talking about a particular thing are probably always "zhei ci", correct? Also, you have "yi ci, liang ci, san ci" etc which mean 1 2 or 3 times, whereas "zai yi bian" might suggest a whole set of events, like what? Is this like deciding that you're going to somewhere again, and because it's a whole day out, then it's "bian", or, it's a whole sentance or a whole lesson which you have to do again, therefore "bian"?

That's really useful and interesting.

taylor, you're absolutely right, vocabulary seems "rare" until it's learned and then suddenly you hear it all the time.. a bit like when you buy a new car which you dont think anyone else has got, then suddenly you see loads of them!!:lol:

One thing I noticed, while talking about traditional and simplified characters, Taiwanese and Chinese give them different names:

Taiwan calls them "nan zi" and "jian zi". China calls them "fan zi" and "jian zi". I think I've heard fan zi a few times, but not many.

Would this suggest that the Chinese consider fan zi- "bi zhao ma fan"?, and that the Taiwanese consider the easy ones as "tai jian dan" and the traditional ones as "nan dao zhi yo taiwan ren dong?"

ho ho ho.

Seriously though, does the word "fan" suggest annoying more than the word "nan" which I know means difficult? Can the word nan also mean annoying?

[Daan]

Taiwan calls them "nan zi" and "jian zi". China calls them "fan zi" and "jian zi". I think I've heard fan zi a few times, but not many.

I'm pretty sure I've never ever heard 難字 nánzì meaning 'traditional characters' here on Taiwan. It's 繁體字 fán​tǐ​zì​ 'traditional characters' and 簡體字 jiántǐzì 'simplified characters'. 難字 does exist, but is used to describe dictionary indexes for characters whose radicals are difficult to identify. My dictionary tells me there is also a homophone 喃字 nánzì 'Vietnamese characters', which I have not previously heard.

Would this suggest that the Chinese consider fan zi- "bi zhao ma fan"?, and that the Taiwanese consider the easy ones as "tai jian dan" and the traditional ones as "nan dao zhi yo taiwan ren dong?"

I presume your bi zhao ma fan was meant to be ㄅ一ˇㄐ一ㄠˋ ㄇㄚˊㄈㄢ˙, 比較麻煩, which is bǐjiào máfan in Hànyǔ Pīnyīn. Your theory does not hold, because as you can see, the fan in 繁體字 is not 煩 but 繁. (Note 有 is yǒu not yo.)

[Chief123]

Question: If you wrote exactly like you spoke how often would you be wrong?

[Lu]

Hello,

I'm looking for a job, and then I saw in the newspaper the other day, I think it was Monday, that you're looking for a secretary. I've been a secretary in the past, and I'm really good at it, so I'd love to come work for you! Can I come in for an interview one of these days?

See you soon then!

-------------------------------------------------------

In other words, you wouldn't be wrong exactly, your writing would just look unprofessional and too casual.

[chrix]

Also have a look at the two books discussed in this thread:

http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/23465-written-chinese

(they also each have their own thread)

I personally have 汉语书面用语初编 "Expressions of Written Chinese" and can recommend it warmly...

[Shi Tong]

I'm pretty sure I've never ever heard 難字 nánzì meaning 'traditional characters' here on Taiwan.

Funny, my wife, all her friends and also I, call them nan zi (yes, that's 難字).

If they're trying to be very official, they may say "fantizi" I guess.

I presume your bi zhao ma fan was meant to be ㄅ一ˇㄐ一ㄠˋ ㄇㄚˊㄈㄢ˙, 比較麻煩, which is bǐjiào máfan in Hànyǔ Pīnyīn. Your theory does not hold, because as you can see, the fan in 繁體字 is not 煩 but 繁. (Note 有 is yǒu not yo.)

Hah.. indeed. Hoped it would make you laugh though!

Interesting that the fan isn't the same fan that I'm thinking of. Means complicated instead of annoying.

Question: If you wrote exactly like you spoke how often would you be wrong?

You would never be wrong unless you were using coloqualisms which dont exist when written or your grammar was particularly bad.

The problem with written compared with spoken Chinese is that the written is a lot more official and uses a lot of words and phrases you may never, or rarely hear people say, making it almost like another language, which is why I posted this thread!

Chrix, I'll have a look at those things later when I get the chance, thanks!!!!!!

[skylee]

I have never heard 難字 meaning traditional characters, either. IIRC, in Taiwan 正體字 is also used to mean traditional characters.

IMHO, to understand the difference one has to understand what are being compared. If the OP can already understand spoken Mandarin and can speak it quite well, then it is important to learn to read and write Chinese (or at least learn to read it) before trying to compare written and spoken Mandarin. I think it is difficult for an illiterate to do so.

But this is just my opinion. And I am not good at debating.

[Scoobyqueen]

One of my teachers in a news reading class distinguished between two types: formal 正式and 书面语。Formal language can also be used when speaking at meetings but not otherwise. He mentioned Chinese people show their intelligence not through words but through their 知识面。I think this is strange since Chinese has got some nice structures you could easily use in conversations eg 之所以。。。是因为 but whenever I use that particular structure, people always comment on it saying that is only really used in writing or in formal speech (and there are a range of others like this one).

Does anyone think that in the west you can use formal or high-level language to speak to peers eventhough the context is fairly informal? Also, an indication of intellectual level can be judged through your choice of words? This is not the case in China apparently.

Edited February 27, 2010 at 03:43 PM by Scoobyqueen

[chrix]

I guess it would be hard to generalise for "the West" in general, but I can think of several informal situations where using overformal language would sound pretentious...

[Shi Tong]

I have never heard 難字 meaning traditional characters, either. IIRC, in Taiwan 正體字 is also used to mean traditional characters.

I'm going to have to quiz my other half about this, since I'm sure she (and I) use this phrasiology all the time!!!

IMHO, to understand the difference one has to understand what are being compared. If the OP can already understand spoken Mandarin and can speak it quite well, then it is important to learn to read and write Chinese (or at least learn to read it) before trying to compare written and spoken Mandarin. I think it is difficult for an illiterate to do so.

I totally agree with you.

I can read between 400 and 500, and I've been learning to write 10 new chinese characters a day, and I'm starting from a base of probably 150, so I'm probably up to around 230 by now, which is really few.

Most of my spoken language is used mostly in a casual context, and I dont really know about certain subjects, so this will always be a challange. I need to get to a point where I know the characters, but not necessarily the ci, in which case I will learn that to find out a new word.

知识面

Yeah, I've heard of this as well, this is what makes it hard for people like me who cant really read well!!!

[trien27]

There's too many words which are similarly written and also pronounced somewhat the same, so it's hard to remember how it's written, especially when the character's pronunciation is totally different than the phonetic. Example: 史, shǐ, &亻+史 doesn't exist, whereas 吏, lì, & 使 shǐ. 使, "" seem not to carry the pronunciation of 吏, as "lì" but rather the pronunciation of 史 which is "shǐ",

喃字 nánzì 'Vietnamese characters'

= "Chu Nom"

actually should be 字喃 according to how it's pronounced.

In this following site, you can see how "Chu Nom" is written in Chu Nom, and it's totally different, but pronounced almost the same in Vietnamese as it is in Cantonese. Vietnamese borrrowed from Cantonese, not Mandarin.

http://omniglot.com/writing/chunom.htm

I'm the one who contributed the contents for "Chu Nom" & "Xixia" languages on that site a long time ago. But I go by a different alias.

Edited March 13, 2010 at 05:16 PM by trien27

[Hofmann]

...and today is March 14th and I remember not long ago I said Cantonese is too new for much of its vocabulary to make it to Vietnamese...uhh...

[Kenny同志]

之所以。。。是因为 but whenever I use that particular structure, people always comment on it saying that is only really used in writing or in formal speech (and there are a range of others like this one).

Hehe, well, I think this phrase is perfectly acceptable in conversation.

I've never heard ANYONE say zai yi bian to mean "one more time", but apparently asking my wife she said that it was pretty common!!

Similar situation as that of learning English. Textbooks tell me it is right to say delicious food while there're professionals who keep telling me it is wrong and that I should use tasty instead. Then I hear native speakers say delicious food. I also find that native speakers rarely use "how do you do" to greet people, but it was introduced as a greeting in my junior school textbook.

Edited March 15, 2010 at 10:09 AM by kenny2006woo

[calibre2001]

I also find that native speakers rarely use "how do you do" to greet people, but it was introduced as a greeting in my junior school textbook.

It's still used although it adds a rather formal tone to the conversation. That's why 'how's it going?' is pretty popular these days. Surprisingly, it hasn't been incorporated into English learning books yet.