Hello.
I have trouble remembering which term to use when referring to spoken Chinese.
If I were to say, "I speak Chinese" or "I can speak Chinese", which term would be appropriate? I have heard the following:

I speak Chinese
Wo jiang Zhongwen

I speak Chinese
Wo jiang Hanyu

I can speak Chinese
Wo hui shuo Zhongguohua

Are all of these correct? I thought "Hanyu" referred to written Chinese, but I could be wrong....

All of those are correct. "Hanyu" and "Zhongwen" is more formal. but it you write some personal letters, all of them are okay

yeah...that's correct

In fact,there are some differences among them.

1)Zhongwen(中文）and Hanyu(汉语）are the same meaning in modern lingustics,
mean Chinese language. But we often use Zhongwen（中文）when we compare
with the other languages,such as English（英文）,French（法文）,German（德文）.

2)In the narrow meaning, Zhongguohua has the same meaning with Zhongwen,
Hanyu. In the wide meaning, Zhongguohua includes Hanyu and other local dialects, such as Tibetan,Mongol, Uygur.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/17/2009 10:06AM by Fulee.Yang.

语(yu3) - has the sense of spoken language
文(wen2) - has the sense of written language

Zhongguohua = Zhongwen (Speaking and Talking)
Zhongwen = Mandarin(普通话) + Cantonese(广东话)


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Learn to speak the Chinese (Mandarin) language online confidently and naturally

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/17/2009 10:44PM by Learnchinese8.

Yes, All of those are correct.
HanYu:Han(汉) is the name of a nationality. Over nine-tenths of the inhabitants belong to the Han nationality in china. HanYu is the language of Han nationality . Now, HanYu(汉语) is the official language. Most minority nationalities have their own language, but most of them speak HanYu(汉语) also. Becouse historical reasons , in a other word, becouse lack of communication, Different province have defferent localism, for exemple Cantonese, Quatrafluvian, ShangHaiHua etc. They also are HanYu. But the tone or dialect is defferent with mandarin.
ZhongWen（中文）:The language of china.
Defferent:becouse the official language is HanYu(汉语) in china, so I think the defferent between HanYu（汉语）and ZhongWen(中文) is very little. I don't think HanYu referred to written Chinese, Or ZhongWen referred to written Chinese. If you realy want to know the defferent between HanYu（汉语）and ZhongWen(中文), I tell you,
first:If You want to strongly emphasizes it is HanYu(汉语）not is the minority nationalities( Tibetan,Mongol, Uygur),you can use HanYu（汉语).
If You want to strongly emphasizes it is ZhongWen(中文) not is English（英文）,French（法文）,German（德文）. You use ZhongWen(中文).
Second：If somebody ask you what are you doing(你在做什么？) , you said 我在写中文 is better than said 我在写汉语。but if you ask a chinese what are you doing(你在做什么？) he will tell you 我在写字。
So The distinguishment of nearsynonyms is difficult. the only way of command them is speak HanYu（汉语) in a cultural background and environrment of the Chinese.
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Zhongguohua use in Speaking and Talking.

And then there's also the pǔtōnghuà, 普通话.

你说的全是正确的！一个句子有不同的说法，但是意思终究还是一样的。如果你想学习中文我可以帮助你呀~正好我想学习英文，我们可以多交流交流。

Hellow every dody
the best way to learn a language is to talk with native
i am a chinese and willing to make friend with you
please contact me
msn:liulijunjun@hotmail.com
skype:comfortablecn
qq:46999153

The first is the most normaly used ,the second is normaly used,the third is ralely used.That you can rarely hear a Chinese say"zhongguohua".

I was speaking with a Cantonese man in Mandarin and he used "guo yu" to refer to Mandarin Chinese, like the Taiwanese do. What about Putonghua? I hear that used as well. Anyway, I thought Zhongwen only referred to the written language. Cheers.

JPS at Focus Language

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/29/2009 05:41PM by Shenlord.

Chinese and Zhongwen is same,it includes manderin(hanyu),cantoness,and many native language.

中文 is more prefer to character( 文字） while 漢語/汉语 is more prefer to chinese language（語言/语言）.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/07/2009 02:25PM by Mj1988.

I Usually go with:

Wo hui shuo putonghua.

I've never heard of a Chinese actually say "zhong guo hua" ....just use "zhong wen" and you can't go wrong.

They are all correct. In China, we don't distinguish them

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All those are correct sir !
Have a look on this Chinese dictionary : www.hanzidico.com

For some reason I always say guo2 yu3 国语 after living in Shanghai for several years. But obviously that is distinguishing between Mandarin and other forms of Chinese.

Probably better to go with putonghua to make it clear you mean Mandarin. Although I guess it's rare to meet foreigners speaking dialects anyway,