Selecting the Right Chinese Dialect for TranslationA Definitive Guide

Over the past decades, the Chinese economy has grown at an exponential pace...

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positioning The People‘s Republic of China (PRC) as the second fastest growing economy in the world, the largest exporter of goods, and the second largest economy overall (following the United States). It has attracted countless foreign business ventures and international attention.

It has also resulted in a significant increase in demand for Chinese translation services. However, with hundreds, often mutually unintelligible, varieties of Chinese spoken by over 1.2 billion people (16% of the world’s population) in the People’s Republic alone, how do you know which one to choose?

Read on to understand the difference between some of the most influential Chinese language varieties and standards of writing. By the time you finish reading this guide, you should have a basic understanding of which dialect to choose when translating documents, websites and other content. Of course, if you’re still unsure, your Language Service Provider’s (LSP) translation and localization specialists will be able to assist you in selecting the correct dialect for your audience and purpose.

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Regional DialectGroupsThere are 10 major dialect groups in China, based mainly

on the region of their origin. The differences in speech tend

to increase with the distance between regions.

MANDARIN HAIWU

MIN

JIN

YUEPING

XIANG

HAKKA

GAN

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Regional Dialect Groups by Population Share

Mandarin

Wu

Min

Yue

Jin

Xiang

Hakka

Gan

Huizhou

Pinghua

Mandarin 70.9%857.8 millionSimplified Mandarin is the

official language of PRC

Wu 6.5%77.2 millionIncludes Shanghainese

Min 6.0%71.8 million

Includes Taiwanese Hokkien

Yue 5.0%60 millionIncludes Cantonese

Hakka 2.5%30.1 million

Gan 1.7%20.6 million

Pinghua 0.2%2 million

Huizhou 0.4%4.6 million

Jin 3.8%45 million

Xiang 3.0%36 million

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Regional varieties are not true “dialects.“ Differences among some

of them make them mutually unintelligible, traversing more than just

disparities in pronunciation, but also containing different actual words for

the same meaning.

On top of all the different varieties, language groups and dialects, there

are also 2 primary character-based writing systems, which also vary by

region and purpose: Traditional Chinese and Simplified Chinese.

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First, let‘s clear up that most of the

dialects and varieties of Chinese

write using essentially same (with

only minimal differences) sets of

characters. However, the same

characters, or hanzi, will not

necessarily mean the same thing

across language varieties.

As a reference, consider the

following example: In Old Egypt,

hieroglyphs represented a thing or

an idea. In the Latin alphabet (i.e.

English, Spanish, French, etc.), each

letter represents a sound. Chinese

hanzi, however, employ several

different strategies of representation.

Speaking isone thing.When writing Chinese, however, you have to choose: traditional or simplified characters.

Writing

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Pictograms

sun日

Rebus

a long time ago

自

up上

Simple Ideograms

river

rest休

Compound Ideograms

to verify

TransformedCognates

Phono-semanticCompounds

Different and mutually unintelligible Chinese language varieties will often rely on the same characters to represent a different meaning with the same pronunciation (homophones), and, vice versa, will use pictographic and ideographic characters to mean the same thing, but pronounce them differently in speech.

河 考

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Characters that express iconic meaning. Ex: 上 shàng “up“ and 下 xià “down“.

Common principles of character formation include:

CharacterFormations

Characters that represent an object denoted. Ex: 日 rì for “sun“ and 木 mù for “tree“.

“Borrowed“ characters that represent an unrelated word that has a similar, homophonic pronunciation. Ex: 自 zì, “a long time ago“, it used to mean “nose“, and now, it only means “oneself“.

“

Characters that are made up of two parts: a semantic indicator (suggesting the general meaning of the character) and a phonetic indicator (suggesting the pronunciation of the character). Ex: 河 hé “river“ (composed of 氵 on the left, which is a reduced form of the character that means “water“ and the right side is a clue to the pronunciation of the word).

sun

Pictograms

Rebus

Simple Ideograms

Phono-semantic compounds

Compound Ideograms

Transformed Cognatesan uncommon character category, where similar characters, over time, split to mean two different things. Ex: 考 kao “to“ verify and 老 lao “old“ were once the same character, meaning “elderly person“.

Characters that combine two or more pictographic or ideographic characters to denote a third meaning. Ex: 休 xiu “rest“ (composed of the pictograms 人 “person and 木 “tree“).

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Traditional Chinese refers to writing based on a character set that does not

contain any characters created after 1946.

In appearance, traditional characters look more complex and use more strokes

than their simplified counterparts.

Traditional Characters

Taiwan Macau & Hong Kong

Simplified Chinese is the official writing across the People’s Republic of China. This standardized character set was introduced by the government to Mainland China in the 1950s in an attempt to increase literacy.

In appearance, characters are less complex and use less strokes than their traditional counterparts, though some characters remain unchanged. Also referred to as Standard Chinese, the latest version of the Table of General Standard Chinese Characters contains 8105 characters.

Simplified Characters

SingaporeMalaysiaChina

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For a mid-way recap:

There are hundreds of regional dialects and multiple ways

to write them.

So, with all of the options, how do you know which Chinese

to choose for your translation project?

Let’s take a closer look at each.

5 Options

Cantonese

Traditional Mandarin

Shanghainese

Taiwanese Hokkien

Simplified Mandarin

One Hour Translation offers 5 different options:

Simplified Mandarin, Traditional Mandarin, Cantonese,

Shanghainese and Taiwanese Hokkien..

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Mandarin Chinese, sometimes also referred to as Standard Chinese, is the official language of China, Taiwan, and one of the official languages in Singapore.

Spoken by over 850 million people as their first language, Mandarin’s vocabulary comes from much of northern, central and southwestern China.

Mandarin has derived from the official language of the courts and officials, as early as the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). Around the 19th century, the “official language” had been re-established on the Beijing dialect, and in 1909, it was declared to be the national language, and around 1955 it was dubbed the “common speech.”

Today, Standard Chinese (Mandarin) is used by the Chinese government, the educational system and the media. Since most people in China and Taiwan speak it fluently, it also becomes the way of communication for speakers of mutually unintelligible dialects.

Mandarin Chinese is also the dominant variety taught in school outside of China, with Cantonese being a close second.

Mandarin, like most other dialects, will use either the simplified or the traditional writing standards. Most content on the mainland of the People’s Republic of China will use Simplified Mandarin. The islands and the outlying regions, however, rely on Traditional Mandarin for their official communication, when not writing in their respective dialect’s standard.

Mandarin

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Simplified Mandarin

Traditional Mandarin

Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau and in many Chinese communities outside of Southeast Asia.

In territories listed above, most text will be printed with traditional characters. That includes educational text books, most Chinese TV programming, newspapers, business documents, web content, displays and product packaging, etc.

There are some cases where traditional characters are used in mainland China. However, they are most often reserved for signs (on older, historical, educational or religious buildings), some storefronts and advertisements, certain works of art like poetry books and books on ancient literature, some blogs, dictionaries and scholarly articles. As well, certain cultural imports from Hong Kong and Taiwan to the mainland use traditional characters. These may include music, karaoke, movie and TV series subtitles.

While most people in mainland China and Singapore do not use traditional characters on a regular basis, they can still usually read and understand them.

Where is it used:

How is it used:

China, Malaysia, Singapore In Malaysia , where Chinese is not an official language, most Chinese students learn simplified Chinese, though older generations still prefer to use traditional hanzi.

Since simplified characters are the official writing standard, they are used for official publications, government-controlled press and are taught in schools. Except for a few traditional uses, Simplified Chinese is the primary system for non-government, private use as well. All mainland-produced media, from TV to the web, most printed literature, product packaging and manuals, business communication and even personal letters use simplified characters.

When translating into Chinese, the rule of thumb is: when in doubt, use Simplified Mandarin.

Where is it used:

How is it used:

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Cantonese is spoken and written primarily in Hong Kong, where many people do not speak Mandarin.

In formal communication, Cantonese speakers use traditional written Chinese to communicate with the larger Chinese population. Cantonese, however, has its own written script based on the Traditional Chinese hanzi, but which also includes some new characters for words that don’t exist in Mandarin.

It should be noted, however, that written Cantonese is not completely standardized and some characters differ from each other.

Where is it used: Hong Kong and limited in the Guangdong Province

How is it Used: Written Cantonese is used in legal proceedings, tabloids, chat rooms, social networking sites and instant messaging, some TV and movie subtitles, sections of newspapers and advertisements. However, standard Chinese is usually used to write Cantonese in more formal settings, including textbooks, more serious sections in newspapers and official documents, including business communication.

With the two unique standards of writing one spoken languages, it can get quiet confusing. Generally speaking, unless targeting a younger audience in an informal content setting (billboards, online chats, store signs), use traditional standard Mandarin characters to write in Cantonese.

Cantonese

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About 70% of Taiwan‘s population speaks Taiwanese Hokkien (Taiwanese), even though the official language in Taiwan is Standard Mandarin Chinese, which is the primary language for about 12% of the population but is spoken by most of the population fluently. Taiwanese is not mutually intelligible with Mandarin.

Taiwanese does not have a written standard, and is written using mostly traditional Chinese hanzi characters, with a number of unique Taiwanese characters. As of 2009, the Taiwan Ministry of Education has published 700 standardized characters to write Taiwanese Hokkien words.

Where is it spoken: Taiwan. Taiwanese Hokkien is used more in rural areas and by older people and artists.

How is it used: Informal writing, some broadcast and entertainment media, some online blogs, literary and poetic works. More formal content is generally written (and spoken) in Mandarin.

Taiwanese Hokkien is not to be confused with Hokkien in regions outside of Taiwan, where there is no standardized way to write it.

Taiwanese Hokkien

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About 14 million people, out of the Shanghai’s 23 million people population, speak Shanghainese. Like many other Chinese dialects, Shanghainese is unintelligible with Mandarin. In fact, Shanghainese was discouraged as a language for some time, with most students in the region only learning Mandarin. However, the city government has been attempting to bring back the culture of the language since the early 2000s. Most young people in Shanghai today speak “Modern Shanghainese,” which has a heavy Mandarin influence in the way it is spoken.

Like Taiwanese, Shanghainese also does not have a standardized way of writing it. When written, it uses Standard Simplified Chinese hanzi characters, and often relies on using homophones (characters that sound similar even though they may mean two very different things in both languages).

Where is it used: Shanghai and surrounding regions

Where is it written? Some Shanghainese textbooks, online blogs, chat rooms, local music and other works of art and literature. Since Shanghainese does not have a long a strong written culture, it is mostly only seen in very informal settings.

Shanghainese

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Choose:

Simplified Mandarin: when translating for use in Mainland China for most occasions.

Traditional Mandarin: when translating for use in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau and regions outside of China for formal, business or official purposes.

Cantonese: when translating for use in Hong Kong and the Guangdong province for informal purposes and local entertainment media- but also for legal proceedings (or in cases when spoken Cantonese needs to appear exactly as it was said).

Taiwanese Hokkien: when translating for use in Taiwan for informal or media purposes.

Shanghainese: when translating for use in Shanghai for informal purposes.

Please keep in mind, that this is only a generic guide to the languages and the written dialects

of Chinese. When you are looking to translate any content into Chinese, it is imperative that

you do your research on where that content will appear, who is it targeting and how will it be

used. Based on that information, you can use this guide to make an educated selection to which

Chinese you should choose for your translation project.

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