Language Confusion.
Confused about the difference between Simplified and Traditional or Mandarin and Cantonese?
Simplified and Traditional are for writing, which are the two main methods of writing Chinese. Mandarin and
Cantonese refer to the spoken language and are the two main dialects.
Mandarin Chinese is most wide spoken around in mainland China and Taiwan and understood by most Chinese as they have learned
at school. There are various local languages which are derived from the Mandarin (PuTongHua) like Sichuan Hua, but the
pronouncation is very close with little differences in the tones. But generally speaking most people understand Putonghua.
Most people in Hong Kong, Guangdong province and the immigrants outside China speak Cantonese. But nowadays with China
becoming a keyplayer in the worldmarket, more and more people who have Cantonese as their motherlanguage learn
Mandarin.
Simplified characters are mainly used in mainland China and Singapore and Traditional characters are used in Taiwan and Hong Kong.
The difference is already explained in the names: traditional characters are the original characters and simplified are more simple of shape.
Since 1949 (founding of PR China) the government reformed the characters by reducing strokes so it was easier to remember and write.
Both types characters can be pronounced in Mandarin and Cantonese. In Taiwan people have traditional characters but speak Mandarin,
in mainland China people use Simplified characters but speak Mandarin and in Hong Kong people write traditional and speak Cantonese.
In a report of the United Nations Chinese is predicted to be the No. 1 language on the web by 2007. That could be nearly a billion users with a local language of Chinese.
;)
