Survey: Nearly half of Chinese cannot speak Mandarin

Survey: Nearly half of Chinese cannot speak Mandarin

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BEIJING (AFP) - Nearly half of China's population cannot speak their national language fluently, with the majority of non-Mandarin speakers residing in rural areas, state press reported Wednesday.

According to a recent survey by the education ministry, 53 percent of 500,000 people queried could "effectively communicate" in Mandarin, Xinhua news agency reported.

In urban areas 66 percent of residents spoke fluent Mandarin, while in rural areas only 45 percent of those surveyed could speak the language fluently, the report said.

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China has several known dialects. Some that I know are Haka, Fookien or Hookien, Hai nan, Chieu Chow, Cantonese & Mandarin as China's national language.

This is a bit of a surprise to me. When I was in one of the provinces of Guanzhou, (Cantonese speaking part of China) I met some people from various China's provinces and none can speak Cantonese. They were all using Mandarin to be able to communicate with each fellow Chinese.

But anyway, 53 per cent of 500,000 people that were queried may not conclude that this is the case. It also depends on which part of China they did the research.

China's population is more than 1 billion.




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