# Chinese language



## Cantiuka

Hi!
I'm going to create a title page for my Chinese lessons (I'll start the A1 level, the basic one, so I know nothing about chinese) and I want to wite "Chinese" in that language.
I looked up in some books and on the Internet and I found this characters: 
- 汉语 (漢語): hàn yǔ
- 中文: zhōng wén
And there are another web pages that says another names for this language.
So what should I choose? Well, if I can use 汉语 (漢語) as well as 中文, for example, I could write both in order to have two ways for mentioning the same language.
Thanks!


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## xiaolijie

Welcome to the forum, Cantiuka! 

I'd use 汉语 because this refers specifically to the variety of language you're learning. It also signals that the learners are non-Chinese native (the approach is not the same as that by Chinese children learning their own language). From this explanation, you can probably guess why there are so many words for "Chinese language"


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## Cantiuka

Thank you so much!


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## DarkSun

作为海外华侨，我想我的中文还是非常棒的！
Do not know which place you want to learn Chinese language?


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## kong.zhong

There are 56 nationalities(民族) in China, and Han Nationality(汉族) accounts for more than 90% who speak 汉语. It's the Chinese official languange. That is why we also call it 汉语 as well as 中文。
By the way, does nationality mean 民族？


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## Canaan0806

kong.zhong said:


> There are 56 nationalities(民族) in China, and Han Nationality(汉族) accounts for more than 90% who speak 汉语. It's the Chinese official languange. That is why we also call it 汉语 as well as 中文。
> By the way, does nationality mean 民族？



yeah  when you mention “nationality” you can use “民族”


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## Ghabi

跟本帖沒有關係，但想說「民族」應是ethnicity啊。


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## SuperXW

Yeah...Should be 56 ethnic groups, or ethnicities; and Han ethnicity, not Han nationality. 0_o


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## MèngDié

Actually I think nationality can be translated as either 民族 or 国籍, depending on the context, with the latter meaning being more common. For example, in 2006, Canada recognized Quebecers as a Nation. This does not mean, however, that Quebec became an independent country apart from Canada. 

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2006/11/27/nation-vote.html

_The prime minister has said he is using the word nation in a "cultural-sociological" rather than in a legal sense.

_Also, the term "nation state" is generally used to describe a country which has only one ethnicity or where one ethnicity makes up almost 100% of the population, such as Japan.


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## Canaan0806

Ghabi said:


> 跟本帖沒有關係，但想說「民族」應是ethnicity啊。



其实想说ethnic minority也可以 但是在官方的翻译中用nationality也完全可以 因为大家都知道想表达的是什么意思~~无伤大雅~~~


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## Youngfun

我都习惯把汉语的口语也叫做中文

比如：我会讲中文

这种用法对不对呢？
是不是书写的语言才能叫做中文？


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## xiaolijie

Youngfun said:


> 我都习惯把汉语的口语也叫做中文
> 
> 比如：我会讲中文
> 
> 这种用法对不对呢？
> 是不是书写的语言才能叫做中文？


中文 is the general term Chinese speakers refer to the language they speak, and it's not restricted to "written Chinese". As implied in my post above, there are many other terms for "Chinese": Chinese living abroad often refer to the language as 华语, whereas people in Taiwan 国语. It's also not rare to hear it referred to as 中国话， 普通话, etc.


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## SuperXW

I USED TO think 漢語 is prefered for "spoken Chinese" and 中文 is prefered for "written Chinese", considering the subtle difference between 語 and 文. BUT soon I found they are not so different at all. You can say 我會 講 中文/漢語, or 我會 寫 漢語/中文. They all make perfect sense.


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## CHNI

This is pretty interresting. It's not very difficult to understand the difference in Chinese, but I think they make the same sense at the end.
中文：中国的文字，The language of China
汉语：汉族的语言，The language of Han ethnicity which present more than 90% of the chinese population and their language is the chinese official language
中国话：中国人说的话，The languange used by Chinese people
国语：国家的语言，The national language (This word is more used in Taiwan)
华语：中华民族的语言，The language of the China nation (This word is more used by chinese people who live in foreign countries)
普通话：建国以后对中国官方语言的一种称呼，这种语言是以中国北方方言和北京方言为基础的。The common languange, mandarin, the Chinese official language which is Han Ethnicity language, and based on the pronunciation of the dialect of north China and Beijing, it is defined after the creation of New China


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## hkenneth

As a Chinese, I prefer 漢語 because it is linguistically more correct, but they basically mean the same thing. In contrary, for "English", I used to say 英文 when I speak Shanghainese or 英语 when I speak Mandarin. In the end, it's just a custom.


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## wwq963

Both of them are OK.But I prefer 汉语.Most of people is the Han nationality in the Chinese.


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## hkenneth

And because it is the origin of Chinese language.


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## Cantiuka

Thank you for all your answers! You have helped me a lot


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## Matsu Cheng

I think there is a difference between 漢語 & 中文, it is not the problem of spoken and written Chinese.
Hong Kong people knows 中文, mainlanders know 中文, Taiwanese know 中文 (they called it 國語)......but their so-called 中文 are not actually the same, in terms of both grammar and pronunciation.
So I think 中文 is just a general term describing the common Chinese language used by people over the world, and to differentiate different language systems (e.g. 中文 vs English / French / Spanish.....etc)

漢語, as kong.zhong mentioned above, is a term describing the official language used specifically by the Han (漢人) which have been used over 3000 years.  It is used to distinguished from the languages of other races (e.g. 滿州語, 蒙古語......) which were co-existed in the same community in the past (due to historical reason?)  Nowadays 漢語 is being used as the standard language in China, and other languages (滿州語, 蒙古語......) become dialects. 

But I wonder if the dialects like 上海話, 客家話...etc can be classified as a part of 漢語?


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## hkenneth

Shanghainese, Hakka, Cantonese, they are all Chinese, or 漢語, or 中文. In fact, Chinese is not a single language (wait... am I politically wrong?), it is instead a language family. But not like any Indo-European language, since Chinese characters do not depend on pronunciation (in most cases), although each sub-language/dialect has its own distinguish pronunciations and grammar pattern, "Chinese people" still can mutually understand the written language.

Linguistically speaking, Shanghainese is not a dialect for Chinese, but a dialect of Wu-Chinese 吳語, and Wu-Chinese itself is a sub-language of Chinese. The same rule applies to Cantonese and Hakka. Mandarin（北方官話）, along with 四川話（西南官話）, 蘇北話（淮南官話）... are dialects of 官話, which is a sub-language of Chinese. An extreme example is 白族語, they are thought to be another language and language for another ethical group, but it actually shares a common language structure as Chinese, therefore some even consider it as an distant sub-language of Chinese (wait, am I politically wrong again?).

Since the long evolution history of Chinese language(s), it becomes very diverse. But for me, I will consider any language/dialect derived from middle-ancient Chinese (中古漢語) as "Chinese".


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