[General] I believe that Mandarin Chinese is.....

[Silverobama]

Today I watched a video. A man was being interviewed and he tried to speak Mandarin Chinese clearly. He can't because of the dialect he spoke. In some parts of China, people speak dialect for their whole life. This man could be an example of them. Because his Mandarin Chinese is mixed with his dialect, what he says in the video is very funny. I downloaded this video and shared it with others saying "I believe that Mandarin Chinese could be the most difficult language in this world".

Is my italic sentence natural?

 

[GoesStation]

"This world" is possible, but not very common. Stick with the world. With that change, your sentence will be correct and reasonably natural.

 

[Silverobama]

Much appreciated, GS. I still have two questions.

1) "I believe that Mandarin Chinese could be the most difficult language to learn in the world".

Is the above sentence also natural?

2) "I believe that Mandarin Chinese could be the most difficult language in the world".

How can I explain this "could"? I don't think it's the past tense of "can". I know it's right to use it but I don't know why.

Please enlighten me.

 

[emsr2d2]

I'd be much more likely to say "I think [that] Mandarin might be the most difficult language in the world".

 

[Tdol]

It doesn't make much sense logically as you know very few of the languages of this world, so you aren't in a position to say this. Can you honestly explain why Mandarin Chinese is harder that Hungarian or Hausa?

 

[Silverobama]

It doesn't make much sense logically as you know very few of the languages of this world, so you aren't in a position to say this. Can you honestly explain why Mandarin Chinese is harder that Hungarian or Hausa?

Yeah, that's why I think emsr2d2's version is better.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

Might and could are both fine. You're not presenting academic findings. You're just making a casual off-the-cuff remark. You're exaggerating to make a tongue-in-cheek point.

And by the way, your video fellow isn't alone. Most English speakers stick with one dialect for our entire lives.

 

[GoesStation]

And by the way, your video fellow isn't alone. Most English speakers stick with one dialect for our entire lives.

"Dialect" has a distinctly different meaning with respect to Chinese. It really means language, as most Chinese "dialects" are not mutually intelligible. They're written the same, though.

A Chinese person who moves a significant distance across China has to learn the local dialect as if it were a different language.

 

[jutfrank]

"Dialect" has a distinctly different meaning with respect to Chinese. It really means language, as most Chinese "dialects" are not mutually intelligible. They're written the same, though.

A Chinese person who moves a significant distance across China has to learn the local dialect as if it were a different language.

Right. A great example is Shanghainese, which, as a dialect of Wu, is mutually unintelligible with Mandarin. Even dialects within the Wu language group are unintelligible with each other. The Chinese government, quite understandably in my opinion, continues to push Mandarin as a lingua franca.

 

[jutfrank]

Yes, this is indeed a concern for many people, to say the least. I really just meant to say that I think the enterprise itself is understandable. I deliberately chose not to mention the way of going about it, and the effects this is having. I have no intention of criticising the Chinese government here.

 

[GoesStation]

… Mandarin is often presented as 'pure' Chinese, with other languages/dialects regarded as inferior. While the other languages/dialects are not banned, speakers of them are often made to feel second-class citizens.


Even with Mandarin dialects, Beijing Mandarin is much more highly valued than other dialects.

That's an unfortunate tendency all around the world. An Israeli friend once told me "I speak seven languages, and I have a foreign accent in all of them." When I asked whether my father's first language, Yiddish, was one of them, he said "Yiddish isn't a language." This idea was spread during the rebirth of Hebrew as a way of discouraging Yiddish. It was all too successful — Yiddish is the butt of jokes and derision in Israel. The Ashkenazi dialect of Hebrew is similarly despised, despite its having kept its version of the language alive for a thousand years and more.

 

[probus]

I certainly agree it's an unfortunate tendency. My mother was born into a bilingual family in Quebec City. Her French had the thick accent of the region and was disparaged by speakers of metropolitan French. But the truth is that Quebec was cut off from France from about 1600 until the advent of modern communications technology. Quebec French has changed little since 1600, and there's an argument to be made that it is therefore pure.

 

[GoesStation]

… there's an argument to be made that it is therefore pure.

I reject such arguments categorically — but that doesn't reduce my appreciation of the Quebec City dialect. I have too much trouble understanding Montreal French (well, many speakers there, anyway) to be able to appreciate it fully. :-?

 

[probus]

If you can't understand the Montrealers you don't stand a snowball's chance in Quebec City. .;-)

 

[GoesStation]

If you can't understand the Montrealers you don't stand a snowball's chance in Quebec City. .;-)

As best I remember, I did okay there. But comprehensibility depends so much on the speaker that it might have just been luck of the draw.

 

[Tdol]

That's an unfortunate tendency all around the world.

It's a good opportunity to trot out George Bernard Shaw's maxim:

It is impossible for an Englishman to open his mouth without making some other Englishman hate or despise him.

 

[Tdol]

Quebec French has changed little since 1600, and there's an argument to be made that it is therefore pure.

You will hear English closer to Dickens in South Asia than you will in the UK.

 

[probus]

You will hear English closer to Dickens in South Asia than you will in the UK.

You can also hear the world's plummiest BrE from the Parsees of Mumbai. Puts the crowds at Ascot and Henley in the shade.

 

[Tdol]

Channel News Asia is a good source.