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

Lee Sau Dan wrote:
"John" == John Swindle <jcswindle@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:


John> As for defining who speaks Putonghua vs Mandarin--in English
John> I can't even ask the question properly. For "putonghua" I
John> say "Mandarin," as did the Taipei Times. How do you make
John> the distinction in Chinese? 

PTH is <pu3tong1hua4>.  Mandarin is <guan1hua4>.

But  other than  the academics,  few  people can  distinguish these  2
concepts.   Many Pekingers claim  that they  speak PTH,  when actually
they use  a lot  of Peking slangs  and Pekingish pronunciations  to an
extent that  people from other regions cannot  understand.  And Jiang1
Ze2min also thinks he speaks  PTH, when his public speech always carry
an accent with entering tones!   (Check out how he pronounces the name
"HKSAR".  The word for "special" contains 2 syllables with an entering
tone in Jiang1's idiolect.)



Thinking of the entering tone word tebie (d@kbit) one of my favorite memories of the night of the handover, when all the high officials had to swear alliegance to the new HKSAR of China in the early hours of 01 Jul 97, the Chairman of the Executive Council, SY Chung, got flustered and in his thick accent swore alliegance in putonghua to the Hong Kong "Especially Nervous Region" (Xianggang tiebe jinzhangqu 香港特別緊張區 instead of "...Administrative Region"...xingzhengqu 行政區).

I guesss you had to be there.
.