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I am still a beginner, but after 1 year I'm still not sure about the difference. I've been talking with some citizens from China mainland on the Internet, when I mentioned that I'm learning 國語, I seemed to offend people, and it sparked some rows in comment sections before.

I have lots of confusion. Now I know 國語 means "the national language", and 普通话 is "the common language", and is a standard. I'm learning based on Taiwanese materials, and they refer to 國語 as the language there, which is for all intents and purposes the same as 普通話.

I'm unsure why it causes so much fuss. Is 國語 an unpopular term outside of Taiwan? If so it makes sense where confusion comes from.

My teachers and materials seem to make no real distinction, and both terms are even interchangeable from how I've been taught. I would love to have this cleared up.

Mou某
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Henry Kingston
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  • If you understood the rivalry between Mainland and Taiwan by now, you should't be confused at all. – Enrico Brasil Jul 05 '18 at 17:38
  • I would suggest avoiding the use of 國語 outside particular contexts to refer to Mandarin. 國語 means "national language", and there are lots of places where 國語 ≠ Mandarin. For example, on Malaysian radio, "學好國語" means “learn Malay well". – Flux Apr 05 '19 at 04:52

4 Answers4

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「國語」is not an unpopular term outside of Taiwan.

It literally means national speech, and is used in places where「普通話」may make less sense. Since「普通話」literally means common speech, regions with populations which prominently speak other languages may avoid the term「普通話」to various degrees, because in those regions the common speech is not necessarily Mandarin.

You may hear「國語」in Hong Kong, Macau, and Xinjiang to refer to Mandarin, interchangeably with「普通話」. Although「普通話」is overwhelmingly more common in the Mainland,「國語」shouldn't incite a reaction there; if it does this could be due to various reasons, e.g.:

  • Some people may take it to be a form of Han/Northerner/Mandarin Chauvinism, aggressively discriminating against other topolects or languages as not being part of the nation;

  • Some people may have political interpretations of the term, and identify「國語」inappropriately with anti-CCP leanings (note that CCP decreed that Mandarin was to be called「普通話」some time in the 1950s, officially making the word「國語」obsolete in Mainland China).

  • You're on the internet, so be prepared to attract angry comments about everything and anything.

Another word for Mandarin is「華語」, which is used by Malaysian Chinese. This is appropriate in their situation because Mandarin is neither the national language nor the common language of Malaysia.

For something that shouldn't incite inappropriate reactions, consider using「漢語」or「中文」instead.

dROOOze
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    I agree with your answer, except for the last sentence: 汉语 (language of the Han) could be interpreted as condescending. – Philipp Jul 02 '18 at 19:31
  • @Philipp really? That's interesting, I've never come across that situation before. You should write an answer that details a situation like that, it'll be quite helpful I think. – dROOOze Jul 02 '18 at 19:33
  • Take a look at this answer: https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/10411/how-to-say-in-chinese-in-chinese/28025#28025 – Philipp Jul 02 '18 at 19:44
  • @Philipp I don't see anything about being condescending in that answer. "Language of the Han" is just a literal translation of 漢語. I mean, 中文 is "the writing of 中國", which makes it as offensive as 國語. – dROOOze Jul 02 '18 at 19:57
  • @Philipp I don't understand why or how 汉语 could be a condescending term? Can you elaborate? – dan Jul 03 '18 at 01:16
  • @Philipp in fact, Modern Standard Mandarin that collectively refers to the varieties spoken in China, Taiwan, Malaysia, and Singapore is widely called 現代標準漢語. – dROOOze Jul 03 '18 at 04:24
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historically, the national language (國語) of china changed, according to dynasty.

in 清 dynasty (1644-1911), the national language (國語) is manchu language; some regional dialect / accent were mentioned as "北音" (mandarin?), "中州韻", "吳韻"

enter image description here

in 1911, the chinese empire was succeeded by the republic of china. afterward, the kuomintang "assigned" the mandarin language as the national language (國語). then, in 1949, they went to taiwan, together with 國語.

then, in 1955, the communist called the mandarin language as 普通話.

nowadays, i would say that, there're subtle differences between 國語 & 普通話. mainly the words used, and attitudes, manners of speakers, (see this closed thread)

it's understandable why you'd trigger negative feelings in "that area", when you mentioned that you're learning 國語. if you need further clear up, it'll be a politic question.

i'd say: "you have good karma, to learn mandarin in taiwan"

accept it, c'est la vie :)

last, want to guess what was the national language (國語) in 元朝 (1271 - 1368); when mongolian ruled most of the asia & europe?

水巷孑蠻
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The key character is 国 -- it could allude to independent countries to some ears--, which could evoke some political arguments. Some with a strong political mindset would probably care about it. Talking about politics here is improper.

中文 is a neutral term you can use to steer away of it. In my opinion, majority of people wouldn't care that much, but some still would.

dan
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  • Not neutral, it changes meaning.中文 might be referring to the Chinese languages, too board. I don't think there exsists a neutral term. –  Jul 03 '18 at 01:37
  • @神秘德里克， I don't see any problems if OP put 中文: i'm learning 中文; 我正在学习中文; 我中文说得不好；etc. which is completely fine in those contexts. – dan Jul 03 '18 at 01:48
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国语 is "Standard Chinese" as standardised and used in Taiwan. 普通话 is the same in PRC. Two "independent countries" must have different standards if they speak essentially the same language, right? The difference is predominantly political these days, with somewhat cultural roots in pre-revolution China.

There exist two standardised forms of the language, namely Putonghua in Mainland China and Guoyu in Taiwan. Aside from a number of differences in pronunciation and vocabulary, Putonghua is written using simplified Chinese characters (plus Hanyu Pinyin romanization for teaching), while Guoyu is written using traditional Chinese characters (plus Zhuyin for teaching). There are many characters that are identical between the two systems.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Chinese#Putonghua_and_Guoyu

There are minor vocabulary differences like 网络 / 网路 and the Taiwanese version has slightly more purely foreign loanwords than the mainland's. Again, political reasons - America's influence.

Vitaly Osipov
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  • 国语 is "Standard Chinese" as standardised and used in Taiwan. 國語 needs to be prefixed with 中華民國 for this to make sense. For example, this article most definitely isn't talking about the variety of Mandarin standardised by the ROC. – dROOOze Jul 03 '18 at 04:31
  • @droooze You might want to check the Wikipedia link. I am not responsible for the usage of some provincial newspaper.

    I bet this usage was politically motivated. Yet the "official" meaning is what I offered. If you ask a Taiwanese what language they speak (assuming they speak standard Chinese), they will say guoyu, and a mainlander will say putonghua. I bet you're from Taiwan yourself :)

     – Vitaly Osipov Jul 03 '18 at 07:33
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    國語 is used in many regions outside of Taiwan to refer to Mandarin; you should check out the Chinese wikipedia article, which goes into more detail about the use of the word 國語 and lists Taiwan’s variety as officially 中華民國國語文. Also, not that it has anything to do with the question, but I’m from the Mainland. – dROOOze Jul 03 '18 at 14:41
  • I'm more concerned with colloquial use, not official term. this word seems to be extremely debated due to politics, so wahtever most people use it colloquially is fine. – Henry Kingston Jul 04 '18 at 20:57
  • @droooze From as in "originally from" or "in, right now"? If in, then given your persistence in using traditional characters on mainland, you must be one of those 北大 literature department purists :) I thought only students did that, because kids want to be contrarian. Anyhow apologies for turning this into an unrelated chat. – Vitaly Osipov Jul 05 '18 at 09:35
  • I'm originally from. Anywho, even if I were still living there, there is no "persistence in" - this is a discussion in language, and (1) many papers published in Mainland China still use Traditional Characters when discussing about the Chinese language/linguistics, (2) it is inefficient to use multiple character sets, (3) Simplified Chinese represents the language slightly worse than Traditional Chinese for many reasons, (4) it is easier to archive Traditional Chinese in the long run - machine conversion works well from T>S but not the other way round. – dROOOze Jul 05 '18 at 09:42
  • Yet traditional chars responses to questions posed in simplified chars are confusing to most people who ask them (not this q, in general). It'd be nice to show more care that people actually understand your answer without going through hoops. PS all simplification has been based on handwritten forms of last few hundreds of years, you don't think it represents at least 白话 well？Vast majority here is not after 古代漢語 / 文言文 !. – Vitaly Osipov Jul 07 '18 at 04:18
  • (1) You did a S response to a question in T. (2) I don't answer if I think OP is at a level where they don't know T. Also, SE across all topics is about reusability, hence the up/downvote system - S is far less applicable/reusable for other Chinese topolects and East Asian languages. (3) You may have a point if T doesn't represent 白話, but it does. Using a consistent system for all of 白話, 文言, and 古代漢語 is more efficient. BTW all simplification has been based on handwritten forms of last few hundreds of years is false, and even if it were true, T was still more common during this period. – dROOOze Jul 09 '18 at 03:15
  • (1) The number of learners (and overall participants) who can read traditional but not simplified is a negligible minority if not zero among the audience of stackexchenge. The other way around, can read simplified but not traditional, is a huge majority, given nearly everyone (sans the students that go directly into classical, but those are special) learns the language of PRC. I'm a lazy pragmatist, not a purist :) PS please disprove simplification is not based on handwritten forms. How many of ~500 chars and components? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Character_Simplification_Scheme – Vitaly Osipov Jul 09 '18 at 03:44
  • (1) Pragmatics, for learners, favours T over S, because (i) T can be machine converted into S, and (ii) T learners won't find S entries in T dictionaries (Taiwanese dictionaries don't usually contain S entries), while S learners (if they are using good S dictionaries) can find T entries in S dictionaries. S is not practical. (2) This warrants an SE question, if you care enough to ask it. "How many" possibly can't be answered without extensive research, but see this. – dROOOze Jul 10 '18 at 15:30
  • Also, for those that are fluent readers of Chinese, S readers are better at reading T than the other way round, because media exposure for the most common demographic at this point of time is unidirectionally mainlanders being exposed to Taiwan dramas, pop, and subtitles from Korean dramas. I think you're under the rather false impression that T is a step up in difficulty from S, when in fact they're almost equally difficult at the start and T gets far easier as you continue. T learners cannot just read S - the character components in S are too obscure. – dROOOze Jul 10 '18 at 15:37
  • "S readers are better at reading T than the other way round" - I meant learners, not natives. 95%+ learners (basic-intermediate) cannot and do not care about reading traditional chars."You're under the rather false impression that T is a step up in difficulty from S" - no, just pointing out it's an unnecessary additional load in most cases, again, for the audience of this stackexchange. You seem to be under false impression that majority here is HSK6+ levels or even actually advanced in their Chinese ;) – Vitaly Osipov Jul 13 '18 at 02:55
  • Apologies for a late question - @droooze what is your opinion of shinjitai (which are largely the same as simplified Chinese characters) then? Do they represent Japanese worse than kyujitai and Japan has done itself/its language wrong? – Vitaly Osipov Aug 07 '18 at 02:34
  • Shinjitai are not largely the same as Simplified Chinese; see this. Among the characters that were Simplified, I’d say the Simplification was...pointless. Some were 1-2 stroke reductions (専), some were 1-2 stroke additions (歩), some components were inconsistently (not) simplified (see this); the latter is a source of complaint for many learners. – dROOOze Aug 07 '18 at 02:47
  • My position is that Simplification with the aim of purely reducing strokes is not beneficial; restoration of Simpler forms which also reveal character component function is the most ideal. There are some SC which does this very well (e.g. 达云从) which I would say is the ideal way to simplify, but most SC is just broken and doesn’t do anything. Shinjitai cares more about preservation so most of their forms seem to be obscure variants found in Kangxi, akin to digging up old spelling mistakes, so they really didn’t do their language any favours. – dROOOze Aug 07 '18 at 02:58