Re: Half of all Chinese people can't speak Mandarin!

Lee Sau Dan wrote:

The National Language Commission's survey also found that many of the 53 percent of China's 1.3 billion people who can speak Mandarin are not frequent Mandarin users.

So, if you think this web-page is credible, then the literal meaning of that quoted sentence tells you that

a) 1.3 billion of people CAN speak Mandarin; 

I'm sorry but it says

many of
  (the 53 percent of China's 1.3 billion people)
    (who can speak Mandarin)
are not frequent Mandarin users.

So it's saying that only 53% of the 1.3 billion can speak it, and that
many of those 53% are not frequent users.

This is the one parsing, and I don't see that yours is possible at all.

b) 53% of these 1.3 billion people are not frequent Mandarin users (but they ARE Mandarin users, as stated in (a) above). 

No, the 53% is both the frequent and the many non-frequent.

(a) implies that 1.3 billion people can speak Mandarin. 

Not at all.

(b) implies  that 47%  of the 1.3billion,  or 611 million,  people
 are frequent Mandarin users.


No, the 47% are those that don't speak Mandarin at all.

The article is self-contradictory: On the one hand, it starts
by saying that nearly half of the Chinese population *CANNOT*
speak Mandarin. However, when it comes to giving the figures,
it says 53% of the 1.3 billion *who can speak Mandarin* are not frequent Mandarin users. So, these 53% *ARE* "Mandarin speakers"!!! And they *cannot* speak Mandarin (as claimed in the
beginning of the article)? What a ridiculous contradiction!

My impression: The author doesn't know what he's talking about. 

Or maybe you should reread it.

Further, the articles states that: "In non-minority areas, schools must teach in Mandarin and television and radio stations are required to use Mandarin in broadcasts." This is again untrue.
In the city of Canton (Guangzhou), Cantonese radio and TV broadcast has never stopped, despite the Putonghua campaign pushed by the Communist Party. Not even during the Cultural Revolution! Canton citizens can and could turn on the radio and
listen to news in Cantonese. 

Now it's you doing what you mistakenly accused the artcile of: the
article says they must teach/broadcast Mandarin, not that other
languages are forbidden. You can teach/broadcast more than one
language during the day.

And a further paragraph: "Historically, Chinese people did not need Mandarin to communicate because there was little trade among
cities and provinces." I doubt (..) If ancient China had a lot
of trade with other countries (via the Silk Road or various sea
routes), it's quite hard to believe that it didn't have much intra-national trade. 

That there was little trade I do not know, but did the cantonese
conduct their businesses with the vietnamese in Mandarin? If so,
you're right; if not, the article has a point, though a somewhat dumb one.

So, I doubt the credibility of the "facts" stated in that article. 

I don't put any money in the facts, but you seem to go out of your way
to misrepresent them. Your 3 quibbles with the artcile are all wrong.
--
am

laurus : rhodophyta : brezoneg : smalltalk : stargate
.

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