Speaking Chinese - The Many Dialects of China
Mandarin, Cantonese and ...
Whrn a client asks for a Chinese speaking investigator, they often do not understand that there are several dialects of Chinese. Mandarin is the official language in China and Cantonese is used in Canton, centered in Guangdong and Hong Kong regions, but many people outside of China don't know that China has many more separate and distinct local dialects used all over China. Each area has it's own language, some similar to the official language of Mandarin and some completely undecipherable to people outside that local area. These dialects are not accents, such as are found in the US, the UK and Australia in which the same or similar words are spoken differently. The dialects in China differ from each other much more than that.