Is Mandarin the Same as Chinese? Dialects Explained

Mandarin is a form of Chinese, and it is the standard form that nearly every course, textbook and exam teaches. “Chinese” in English can mean Mandarin specifically, or it can mean the whole family of related languages that includes Mandarin, Cantonese, Taiwanese Hokkien, Hakka, Wu and others. So the two words overlap without being identical, and which one a person means depends on who is talking.

For a learner the practical answer is short. If you are studying for Taiwan, “Chinese” means Mandarin as spoken in Taiwan, which Taiwan calls 國語 (guóyǔ), written in Traditional characters. The rest of this page explains what the other words mean, where 台語, Hakka and Cantonese fit, and why the word “dialect” causes so many arguments.

What “Chinese” Can Mean

In English, “Chinese” is used in at least three ways.

1. Mandarin. In everyday speech, “I’m learning Chinese” almost always means Mandarin. Course titles, apps and the TOCFL all use the word this way.
2. The written language. Written Chinese is a shared tradition. A Mandarin speaker, a Cantonese speaker and a Taiwanese Hokkien speaker can all read the same newspaper, because formal writing follows the grammar and vocabulary of standard Mandarin.
3. The language family. Linguists use “Chinese” (or “Sinitic”) for the whole group. By this definition, Mandarin is one member and Cantonese is another.

The Chinese terms show the same range. 中文 (zhōngwén) and 漢語 (hànyǔ) are broad words that cover written and spoken Chinese. 國語 (guóyǔ), 普通話 (pǔtōnghuà) and 華語 (huáyǔ) name the standard spoken form.

Mandarin in Three Names

The standard language has a different name depending on where you are.

Name	Pinyin	Used in	Notes
國語	guóyǔ	Taiwan	Literally “national language”. What Taiwanese schools, media and the TOCFL assume
普通話	pǔtōnghuà	Mainland China	Literally “common speech”. The name was chosen in part to avoid calling it a “national language”
華語	huáyǔ	Singapore, Malaysia and the international learner market	Literally “Chinese speech”. Taiwan’s TOCFL is the 華語文能力測驗, and Taiwan’s teaching programs are 華語 programs

These three names point to the same standard, with differences in vocabulary and some pronunciation. A reading such as 垃圾 differs between standard Taiwan usage (the MOE dictionary gives lè sè) and Mainland usage (lājī), and 星期 is xīng qí in the MOE dictionary where Mainland usage is xīngqī. The full list of vocabulary, pronunciation and script differences is in the guide to Taiwanese vs Mainland Mandarin.

Mandarin the Standard and Mandarin the Group

“Mandarin” also names a large group of regional varieties spoken across northern and southwestern China. The Beijing dialect belongs to it, and the standard language takes its pronunciation from Beijing speech. Other Mandarin varieties, such as those of Sichuan or Shaanxi, can be quite different from the standard and from each other. So “Mandarin” can mean the standard that learners study, or the group of dialects that people grow up speaking at home.

This explains why a person who says they speak Mandarin can still have an accent a textbook learner finds hard to follow. Learners usually meet only the standard, so a strong regional variety can be hard to follow even though it is Mandarin.

Language or Dialect?

The word “dialect” is where most of the confusion and offence arises.

In Chinese, 方言 (fāngyán) literally means “regional speech”. It has been used for centuries for any local variety, from a single village’s speech to major branches such as Mandarin or Cantonese, regardless of whether the speakers can understand one another. In China the standard position is that these are all dialects of one Chinese language. That reflects a shared written language, a shared culture and long periods of political unity.

In linguistics, the usual test is mutual intelligibility: if speakers cannot understand one another without learning the other variety, they are speaking different languages. By that test, Mandarin, Cantonese and Taiwanese Hokkien are separate languages. A Mandarin speaker who has not studied Cantonese or Hokkien will usually understand very little of either. Linguists usually describe Chinese as a language family, much as Romance is a family that contains Spanish, French and Italian. The comparison is an analogy rather than an equation, because the Chinese varieties also share a writing tradition that the Romance languages do not.

Both usages are real, and neither is a mistake. Two practical habits follow.

• Use the name of the language. Say Cantonese, Taiwanese Hokkien or Hakka. These words are precise and respectful.
• Avoid “just a dialect”. Speakers of these languages often hear it as a claim that their language is lesser. In Taiwan, where policy once favoured Mandarin in schools and media, the history behind that feeling is recent.

Where Taiwanese Hokkien, Hakka and Cantonese Sit

All three belong to the Chinese family, and none is a form of Mandarin. A few everyday words show how different they are.

Meaning	Mandarin	Cantonese (Jyutping)	Taiwanese Hokkien (Tâi-lô)
to eat	吃 chī	食 sik6	食 tsia̍h
ten	十 shí	十 sap6	十 tsa̍p
thank you	謝謝 xièxie	多謝 do1 ze6, 唔該 m4 goi1	多謝 to-siā
to have eaten your fill	吃飽了 chībǎo le	食飽喇 sik6 baau2 laa3	食飽 tsia̍h-pá

The Hokkien readings are from the Ministry of Education’s 臺灣台語常用詞辭典. Cantonese and Hokkien keep a final -p, -t or -k sound in some syllables, which Mandarin lost, and this is one reason they sound so different.

• Cantonese (廣東話 or 粵語, yuèyǔ) is the main spoken language of Hong Kong and Macau and of Guangdong in southern China. In Hong Kong, formal writing follows standard written Chinese, which is based on Mandarin grammar and vocabulary and is read aloud in Cantonese. Written Cantonese, with its own spoken-style vocabulary, appears in informal and entertainment writing. The Mandarin vs Cantonese guide compares them for learners.
• Taiwanese Hokkien (台語) belongs to the Southern Min group. It is widely spoken in Taiwan and shares ancestry with the Hokkien spoken in southern Fujian and in parts of Southeast Asia. The guide to 台語 for Mandarin learners covers what you will hear and how to start learning it.
• Hakka (客家話, kèjiāhuà) is spoken by the Hakka communities of Taiwan, southern China and elsewhere. In Taiwan it is concentrated in Taoyuan, Hsinchu and Miaoli, with communities in the south and east as well. See the guide to Hakka in Taiwan.

The Language Atlas of China lists ten primary groups (other classifications list seven), among them Mandarin, Wu, Yue (Cantonese), Min (which includes Hokkien) and Hakka. Some of these groups contain many varieties that cannot be understood across the group.

Taiwan’s Own Answer: National Languages

Taiwan has a legal answer to the “which one is the real language” question. The Development of National Languages Act (國家語言發展法), promulgated on 9 January 2019, defines national languages as the natural languages used by Taiwan’s established ethnic groups, plus Taiwan Sign Language. Article 4 states that all national languages are equal, and Article 9 makes national language classes a required subject in basic education.

The Act names no language and ranks none. The Hakka Basic Act (客家基本法) says that Hakka is one of the national languages, and the Indigenous Languages Development Act (原住民族語言發展法, 2017) says that Indigenous languages are national languages. These cover the languages of Taiwan’s 16 officially recognised Indigenous peoples, counted officially as 16 languages with 42 varieties. In practice the category also covers Taiwanese Hokkien, Taiwan Sign Language and, by most accounts, the Matsu language, alongside Mandarin. This is why you may hear Mandarin described in Taiwan as one national language among several. It also explains why you will hear 台語 and Hakka in public announcements and on television, covered in the articles linked above.

The question whether Taiwanese is a different language from Chinese also depends on which meaning of “Chinese” and “Taiwanese” is intended, and has its own guide.

What This Means for a Learner

• When a course or app says “Chinese”, it means Mandarin. Zhong teaches Mandarin as spoken in Taiwan, in Traditional characters. It does not teach Cantonese, Taiwanese Hokkien or Hakka.
• Reading transfers further than speaking. Learning to read Traditional characters opens written Chinese used in Taiwan and Hong Kong, even though the spoken languages differ.
• Choose by where you will live. Taiwan means Mandarin first. Hong Kong means Cantonese for daily life, with Mandarin as a useful second language.
• Expect other languages to leak into Taiwanese Mandarin. 台語 loanwords such as 歹勢 (pháinn-sè, said in 台語 even within Mandarin speech) appear in everyday Mandarin.
• Check the script too. The script question (Traditional or Simplified) is separate from the language question. A Mandarin speaker in Taipei writes Traditional characters. A Mandarin speaker in Beijing writes Simplified. The guide to Traditional vs Simplified covers that choice.

If you learn Mandarin in Taiwan, you will meet other Chinese languages through the people around you.

Related Reading

• Is Taiwanese a Different Language From Chinese?
• 台語 (Taiwanese Hokkien) vs Mandarin: What to Know
• Hakka in Taiwan: The Language and Its Speakers
• Mandarin vs Cantonese: Differences and Which to Learn