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Originally Posted by rewboss Chinese dialects are mutually unintelligible |
Chinese who live Heilongjiang Province (North), Beijing and Shanghai (South) speak different yet mutually intelligible dialects of Standard Mandarin.
(Psst. The comparison wasn't between the Cantonese "language" (spoken in Hong Kong) and the Mandarin "language" (spoken on the mainland).
More clearly, Chinese nationals who speak both Mandarin and Cantonese have more opportunites than nationals who speak only one or the other. Variety is power. The same holds true for dialects. Mandarin, like English, has more than one mutually intelligible dialect. Nationals don't have a choice in the dialect matter; you speak whichever dialect the people around you speak. However, if you travel around China, you have opportunity to learn more dialects of the same language, or are required to do so, especially if you want to communciate your wants and needs. How different is that from learning English? If you travel to English speaking countries or to countries where English is used as the international language for communication, you need to know its different dialects. People in those countries learn different varieties of English, too. So, given EFL in China, what dialect should an English major learn? Isn't it obvious?
Both BrE and AmE is recommended.
