{"id":7904,"date":"2016-10-14T05:33:56","date_gmt":"2016-10-14T05:33:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.digmandarin.com\/?p=7904"},"modified":"2016-11-21T08:07:54","modified_gmt":"2016-11-21T08:07:54","slug":"how-to-learn-chinese-regional-dialects","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.digmandarin.com\/how-to-learn-chinese-regional-dialects.html","title":{"rendered":"How to Learn Chinese While Remaining Sensitive to Regional Languages and Dialects"},"content":{"rendered":"
The modern Chinese dialects are classified into seven major groups, and Mandarin (\u666e\u901a\u8bdd) is the e standard foundation language. About two-thirds of Chinese people speak Mandarin as their first language, which covers all of north and southwest China. Some dialects, such as Cantonese and Hakka, can sound like totally different languages from Mandarin; in fact, these dialects are often treated as such. In addition, in many countries\u2019 Chinatowns, the emigrants there speak Cantonese and Hakka. Foreigners who encounter these dialects often feel confused and frustrated because they are so different from standard Mandarin. However, most Chinese, especially the younger generation, can speak and understand Mandarin without any problem, whether Mandarin is their first language or not. If you intend to learn Chinese, it is still recommended to learn Mandarin first.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n
Editor in Chief | Cao Jing<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n
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To learn Chinese is an experience unlike any other language that I have studied before.\u00a0 I\u2019ve spent two years digging into this ever-more complex pile of vocabulary, slang, and sentence structure and yet, somehow, I only recently realized that no teacher or professor has ever actually defined \u201cChinese.\u201d<\/p>\n