What is the difference between Hokkien and Mandarin?
Mandarin is the official lingua franca of Chinese used in China, Taiwan, Singapore. Hokkien aka Ming-nan yu 闽南语 (Ming Family) is a dialect spoken in southern Fujian province (eg. Xiamen, Quanzhou), Taiwan and Singapore.
Can Mandarin speakers understand Hokkien?
To a Mandarin speaker who hear it for the first time, it is gibberish to them. They can’t even understand a simple Hokkien word such as ‘lang’ the word for person.
Is Hokkien easier than Mandarin?
Reasons why Hokkien is harder than Mandarin ： Hokkien contains many archaic chinese languages features that are not existent in Mandarin Chinese, this is evident in ancient chinese vocabulary found in Hokkien. Hokkien has more tones than Mandarin. Hokkien has 7–8 tones while Mandarin has 4 tones only.
Is Hokkien older than Mandarin?
The reason for such a huge difference is that, Hokkien is a much older language, older than Cantonese. It might have descended directly from old Chinese. Hokkien is called Fujianhua (福建话) in Mandarin. From this definition, it seems that it is the dialect spoken in Fujian province.
Is Mandarin and Cantonese the same?
Mandarin is the official state language of China and the most widely spoken Chinese dialect in the country. Mandarin is spoken widely in Singapore and Taiwan. Cantonese, however, is spoken largely in Hong Kong, as well as in Macau and the Guangdong province, including Guangzhou.
What country speaks Hokkien?
Hokkien is spoken in Taiwan and in parts of China including Fujian Province. It is also called Taiwanese, Min Nan (Southern Min), or Holo. There are several dialectal variants of Hokkien; this textbook uses the variant spoken around the Tainan area, where Hokkien is most prevalent in Taiwan.
Is Hokkien a language or a dialect?
| Hokkien | |
|---|---|
| Language family | Sino-Tibetan Chinese Min Coastal Min Southern Min Hokkien |
| Dialects | Amoy/Xiamen Quanzhou Zhangzhou Taiwanese Singaporean Penang Medan Philippine Southern Peninsular Malaysian |
| Writing system | Chinese script (see written Hokkien) Latin script (Pe̍h-ōe-jī) |
| Official status |
What languages are mutually intelligible with Mandarin?
No. Mandarin is part of the Sino-Tibetan language family, whereas Japanese, Mongolian, and Korean are not. Even within the Sino-Tibetan family, most langauges are mutually unintelligble. Even worse, within the Chinese family, most regiolects and topolects are mutually unintelligble.