Most people regard “Chinese” as being a single language, as did I while growing up in Canada. My first interest in learning Chinese began about 10 years ago as a result of my having many Chinese associates. I was very curious about the language they used to speak to each other, so I picked up my first Chinese textbook and tried to practice what I was learning with them. I soon found out that what I was studying and what they were speaking were two different languages. That was when I learned that the Chinese you hear out West can usually be classified into either Cantonese or Mandarin. At the time, the vast majority of what “Chinese speakers” spoke outside of China was Cantonese. This confused me as I now had to decide whether to learn the official language of China or learn what people on the street were actually speaking.

Fast forward to a few years ago when I first landed in Taiwan and began to seriously learn Chinese. Surely, living in a Chinese speaking country and constantly hearing what I was studying would greatly speed up the learning the process? I made a new discovery. While people could understand what I was saying and I could understand them when they were speaking to me, I couldn’t understand them when they were speaking to each other! (Deja vu!) After more research, I learned that what most people in China learn and speak at home isn’t Mandarin! Every province or region has its own “dialect” that people use to speak to each other, that are as different as English and French or Italian and German. In total there are about 50 distinct dialects across China and overseas Chinese communities, not counting regional variations between them.

This leads to an interesting situation for foreigners learning Chinese and wanting to communicate with Chinese people. A great analogy I heard is to imagine yourself walking into a party dressed up while everyone else is dressed casually. You might hear “Wow, you look great!” or “Nice outfit!” and while it feels great to be complimented, you can’t help feeling left out for being the only “non casual person.”

The prospects aren’t gloomy though. All media is broadcast in Mandarin as that is the official form. Similarly, for business transactions or formal occasions, you can expect Mandarin to be used. It is also the language used when traveling or when strangers meet, so it is definitely the language to learn. The only time local dialects are used is when locals speak with other locals from the same region. For most learners, I would recommend keeping your focus on the big picture (Mandarin), although you can win yourself some points by learning a few key phrases in the local dialect to show respect.

This post could act as a counter to the “Is Chinese Really That Hard?” post. One aspect of Chinese that it took me some time to grasp was that meanings in Chinese and English don’t always exhibit a one to one relationship. In the beginning, each time I came across a new word in Chinese, I would look for the English equivalent. That worked fine for common nouns - boy, girl, China, America, but then I started to discover that some words had overlapping meanings between Chinese and English.

Many words have multiple meanings. I learned early on that yīnggāi means “should.” Simple enough I thought, until one day when someone looked at me and said Nǐ yīnggāi shēngbìng le. “You should be sick”? I thought. Why should I be sick?? That’s when I learned that it also has a meaning of “must” as in “You must be sick.” Ok, easy to fathom - it has multiple meanings, just like many words in English.

I then came across words that describe different levels of intensity than their equivalent English counterparts. One of the first words I learned - hěn was taught to me as meaning “very” in English. So to answer Nǐ hǎo ma? you answer Wǒ hěn hǎo as in “I’m very good.” But what if I wasn’t very good? What if I only wanted to answer “I’m good”? Logically that should be Wǒ hǎo. But that was wrong. You had to have the hěn in there, since it actually is a less intensive “very” than its English counterpart. To really answer “I’m very good” you would say Wǒ fēicháng hǎo. Never mind that the dictionary describes fēicháng as meaning “extremely” since its actual intensity lies somewhere between “very” and “extremely” in English.

This creates an interesting situation where it’s possible to describe situations in different degrees in Chinese than in English. For example many teachers are described as being hěn xiōng. Yet if you look up that word in the dictionary you get a meaning of being “fierce” or “terrible.” Hardly words I would use to describe an ordinary teacher (although there undoubtedly are extreme examples who could fit that category). At first I assumed “strict” or “stern” might be a better definition but there are other words in Chinese to describe those terms, so at some point you have to give up on looking for an exact definition since there isn’t one.

For an exercise in futility, you can skim through words in a Chinese-English dictionary to look at all the extraneous definitions (great way to pass the time). Take a look at the variety of definitions for the following words:

Jiāo - to deliver / to turn over / to make friends / to intersect (lines) / to pay (money)
Dōu - both / all / even / already
Jiù - at once / then / only / to approach / to undertake / already
Dài - band / belt / ribbon / tire / area / zone / region / to wear / to carry / to lead / to look after / to raise
Sòng - to deliver / to carry / to present / to see off / to send

So what is the solution to this mess? Learn new characters within context. Don’t worry about extraneous meanings. Learn to use new words within the context you discovered them and master those current definitions before moving on to other usages. While the English meaning is great for getting your foot in the door, rely on examples in different contexts before being satisfied with a definition.