Reading Chinese without knowing Mandarin

[Struan]

My grandfather from Taiwan just recently turned 95. He grew up in Japanese Taiwan, and attended up to elementary school before he had to start working. To my knowledge he doesn't speak Mandarin, only Taiwanese (and I suppose Japanese).

Yet I would say that his written prowess in Mandarin is excellent, as is his reading comprehension (he reads books, newspapers, etc). But he doesn't seem to understand or speak the spoken language, and this leaves me baffled. How does he do it?

I understand that the written and spoken components of a language don't necessarily have to go hand in hand... in my case speaking came first. And I'm always voicing (even in my head) characters out loud when I read, which may explain why I'm so slow. But can anyone shed light on this phenomenon?

[Riyukoni]

I too think this is weird but I was recently reading about china's history and such cases as this used to be the norm. A long time ago the chinese writing system was the only thing that was the same between the different provinces and places and such. Apparently all chinese people (the literate ones anyway!) knew the character 老师, for example, ment "teacher" however, depending on who you asked these characters were pronounced in many different ways. This lead to officials being able to write to other parts of the country and know they were understood, however, messengers could not physically talk to each other. Isn't that crazy? I believe this is why most "chinese" languages are grouped together as "chinese" because of their unifying written language although their speech is entirely different.

So to answer your question it is possible to be able to read and not speak a word of mandarin, I believe that your grandfather learned the written part but never the spoken. Or perhaps he learned the written language instinctively so he was never taught pronunciation.

[calibre2001]

I believe this happens in Hong Kong too where they write Mandarin but with Cantonese pronunciation. Of course this is prevalent amongst those born prior to the 97 handover with little or no spoken Mandarin exposure. Written Chinese and spoken Chinese have always had a tradition of being 2 separate things.

[Hugh]

Yep, historically you even had the bizarre situation where Chinese, Korean and Japanese intellectuals could all read Classical Chinese (and used it in their own countries), but not speak each other's oral languages.

[rezaf]

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Yep, historically you even had the bizarre situation where Chinese, Korean and Japanese intellectuals could all read Classical Chinese (and used it in their own countries), but not speak each other's oral languages.

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<div>Yes, but when learning it or using it would they still think about some kind of pronunciation? Even now when we learn classical Chinese most of us use the modern Mandarin pronunciation which is different from the original pronunciation. So I think the OP should ask his grandfather if he thinks about Taiwanese or Japanese pronunciations when he reads or writes in Mandarin. If yes then it wouldn't be that surprising but if no then it would be a little bit strange although I guess there are many deaf Chinese who do the same. </div>

[Hofmann]

The Japanese, Koreans, and Vietnamese probably spoke the contemporary standard (e.g. Middle Chinese) if they could write Chinese. If not, then the version of it after it has been transferred to their own language.

[tooironic]

Fascinating, yes. Bizarre, no. Europe, you could argue, had a similar use for Latin throughout its history.

[renzhe]

Yet I would say that his written prowess in Mandarin is excellent, as is his reading comprehension (he reads books, newspapers, etc). But he doesn't seem to understand or speak the spoken language, and this leaves me baffled. How does he do it?

He most likely vocalizes it using Taiwanese (Hokkien) pronunciation. The syntax and vocabulary are still Mandarin, but he uses Taiwanese pronunciation for each character.

This is not as surprising as it seems (though comparatively rare today). The written vernacular is several hundred years old, and was widespread throughout the Chinese-speaking world long before Mandarin became standard. Things like "Journey to the West" were widely read by people who could not speak or aurally understand spoken Mandarin.