{"id":176586663,"date":"2017-11-07T16:52:27","date_gmt":"2017-11-08T00:52:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lingq.com\/blog-new\/?p=176586663"},"modified":"2026-05-13T13:38:03","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T20:38:03","slug":"chinese-dialects","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lingq.com\/blog\/chinese-dialects\/","title":{"rendered":"Just How Many Chinese Dialects Are There?"},"content":{"rendered":"

No matter where you are in your Chinese learning journey, you\u2019ll definitely have noticed the huge variety of \u201cdialects\u201d that all fall under the term \u201cChinese.\u201d This is a huge interest area of mine, and it seems the more I read about it the more I have to learn. Today, I want to introduce this topic in a way that I hope can stimulate your own interest. We\u2019ll explore some well-known varieties of Chinese as well as some that you\u2019ve probably never heard of.<\/span><\/p>\n

Before we begin, a word on terminology. Most people use the term \u201cdialects\u201d but I prefer the more neutral word \u201cvarieties.\u201d In addition, some argue that the proper word is actually \u201clanguages.\u201d This point of view is certainly not without merit, but it\u2019s not quite how Chinese people themselves tend to view the situation. In linguistics, the word \u201ctopolect\u201d is also used, which is a translation of <\/span>f\u0101ngy\u00e1n<\/span><\/i> \u2013 literally place-language or place-words.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Main Chinese Dialects<\/h2>\n

The language situation in China can be broadly divided into \u201cfamilies\u201d – that is, collections of topolects that are more or less similar. But this isn\u2019t as easy as it sounds, as there are literally hundreds of topolects within China, and the majority of the population can speak at least two (usually three or more!) This makes it hard to confidently make the tiny distinctions necessary for topolect classification. All of these families evolved from Middle Chinese, starting close to 2000 years ago. China\u2019s been around for a long time!<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Just<\/p>\n

Mandarin<\/h3>\n

What is Mandarin Chinese<\/a> ou ask? Well, it is the official language of China, Taiwan, and Singapore, and is widely spoken in Malaysia and Hong Kong (though we\u2019ll get back to Hong Kong in a minute). You\u2019ll also hear it on the street in scores of other countries around the world, thanks to its widespread use in the Chinese diaspora. It belongs, fittingly, to the Mandarin family. It\u2019s by far the most spoken variety, and the prescribed \u201cstandard speech\u201d has its roots in the language of the Beijing aristocracy.<\/span><\/p>\n

Let\u2019s take a few words in Mandarin as an example:<\/span>
\n\"Just
\nVariants of Mandarin are spoken over a vast area of China, not just Beijing. Northeast and Southwest Mandarin are different enough that native speakers usually have a hard time understanding each other if neither of them makes an effort to \u201cstandardize\u201d their speech. Speakers of Sichuanese in particular are very proud of their topolect, and you can find a number of talk shows or comedies filmed in this variety.<\/span>
\n\"Learn<\/a><\/p>\n

Cantonese<\/h3>\n

The term \u201cCantonese\u201d refers to the speech of the people in Guangzhou and its environs in southern China. Today, Cantonese is an official language in Hong Kong and Macau, and is also widely spoken in ethnic Chinese communities overseas, particularly in North America. It belongs to the Yue family, and many people today use this word instead of \u201cCantonese\u201d. The speech of Guangzhou and the speech of Hong Kong differ slightly, but speakers of each variety can understand the other without difficulty. Cantonese has a certain level of prestige and allure worldwide thanks to Hong Kong\u2019s enormously popular film, television, and music industries.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Just<\/p>\n

We\u2019re just starting off, but let\u2019s take a brief look at these two. How similar are they? A lot of words are recognizable as cognates in both varieties, but full sentences are different enough that understanding is difficult to impossible. In addition, a few very common words or phrases are completely different, like the words for \u201cwhere\u201d and \u201chow much.\u201d If you\u2019re a native or very advanced Mandarin speaker, you definitely have a big advantage when starting to learn Cantonese \u2013 but it\u2019s no freebie. Cantonese has six tones compared to Mandarin\u2019s four, and a small collection of vowels that even native Mandarin speakers have trouble with.<\/span><\/p>\n

How do our examples from before look in Cantonese?<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Just<\/p>\n

Hokkien<\/h3>\n

Moving on, some readers may be familiar with Hokkien. It\u2019s from the Min language family, and thus another name for it in Mandarin is M\u01d0nn\u00e1nhu\u00e0. Whatever you like to call it, this variety of Chinese originated from a southern province called F\u00faji\u00e0n in Mandarin or Hok-ki\u00e0n in the local topolect. <\/span><\/p>\n

The majority of Han Chinese that settled Taiwan were originally from this part of China, and thus today most Taiwanese people can speak or at least understand Hokkien\u2013indeed, in Taiwan it\u2019s also known as Taiwanese. But people from Fujian didn\u2019t just go to Taiwan\u2013there are also sizable populations of Hokkien speakers in Singapore, Malaysia, and parts of Indonesia and Thailand. Although Hokkien doesn\u2019t have anything like the media presence that Cantonese does, there\u2019s still a variety of music, radio, and television out there for Hokkien learners to practice with.<\/span><\/p>\n

Let\u2019s take a look at our examples in the Taiwanese variant of Hokkien:<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Just<\/p>\n

Wu<\/h3>\n

The last family we\u2019ll touch on is called Wu, but it turns out this name isn\u2019t as popular among native speakers. Shanghainese belongs to the Wu family, as do the topolects spoken in Hangzhou, Wenzhou, and Suzhou on the east coast of China. Chinese enthusiasts who live in Europe may be familiar with Wu, as a large percentage of ethnic Chinese in France and Italy can trace their roots, and their speech, to Wenzhou. <\/span><\/p>\n

Wu is famous for having a great deal of internal variation, to the point that Wenzhounese is completely unintelligible to people from Shanghai. There are some TV shows in several Wu varieties, as well as a few scattered learning resources on the internet aimed at foreigners. Mostly, though, a native speaker tutor is your best bet for learning Wu.<\/span><\/p>\n

And last, we\u2019ll add Shanghainese to our example words:<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Just<\/p>\n

So far we\u2019ve discussed four main families of Chinese, but would you believe that some linguists classify up to eleven? These include Ping, Gan, Xiang, and Hakka just to name a few. These families represent enormous diversity, but then there\u2019s all kinds of internal variation even beyond that.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Learn<\/a><\/p>\n

Learn Chinese using content you love<\/h2>\n

It’s no secret that the more you read and listen, the better you’ll become at understanding Chinese. Even polyglot Steve Kaufmann agrees<\/a> (he speaks 17 languages FYI).<\/p>\n

However, reading Chinese can be difficult at first, especially since the characters are completely foreign to native English speakers.<\/p>\n

But there’s a way to start reading right away…so you can learn faster.<\/p>\n

Rather than looking up new words using a dictionary every minute and ruining your flow, check out LingQ. It’s the best way to learn Chinese online<\/a> because it has a built in dictionary so you can easily look up words, save them, and review them in the ease of one platform.<\/p>\n

\"Learn<\/p>\n

Not only does LingQ make reading Chinese easier, it also is filled with thousands of hours of Chinese content. For example, if you’re a beginner, I recommend the Chinese mini-stories (pictured above).<\/p>\n

These have been professionally transcribed so you can read and listen to the audio at the same time (and look up new words too). Not only that, but if you are feeling adventurous, you can import Chinese content<\/a> from the web and study using videos from YouTube, podcasts<\/a>, and much more. For example, you can import the transcripts from Chinese dramas (from the website Viki) and listen and read without any barriers. Best of all, you’ll learn at the same time. Last but not least, LingQ is available for both Android<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0iOS\u00a0<\/a>so you can take your lessons wherever you go \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

Go check out LingQ today and make your Chinese studies a whole lot easier using content you love. Good luck.<\/p>\n

***<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Alex Thomas first started seriously learning foreign languages five years ago and has never been the same since. He has traveled to more than 20 countries and currently uses German, Mandarin, and Indonesian daily.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

No matter where you are in your Chinese learning journey, you\u2019ll definitely have noticed the huge variety of \u201cdialects\u201d that all fall under the term \u201cChinese.\u201d This is a huge …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":176586709,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[80,105],"class_list":["post-176586663","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-learning-chinese","tag-basic-chinese","tag-english"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nJust How Many Chinese Dialects Are There? - LingQ Language Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"You might be surprised at just how many Chinese dialects there are, but China has been around for a long time! 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