Originally Posted by
Skyman65
Originally Posted by
jiejie
...In the context at hand referring only to "Can you speak English?" (spoken language is the focus), yingyu is better than yingwen, though even with use of the latter, a Chinese listener will understand your meaning.
The best way to express this orally is 你会说英语吗？
Perhaps it is a regional thing, but here in Taiwan, 英文 and 英語 are both perfectly correct in this context.
When I learn English, I also learn that "grammatically correct" English may not be as "English" because the native speakers don't use or say it like that. Same principle applies to Chinese/Mandarin.
Even though contextually both "英文" and "英語" may refer to "English",
here in Taiwan, none of the native speakers would say or ask in Mandarin, 你會說
英語嗎?. At least I've never heard of it.
When expressed orally with doubt, we always ask, "
你會說英文嗎?" or "
你會講英文嗎? (do you speak English)?" And we write
Traditional Chinese Characters (繁體字) as well.
Originally Posted by
moondog
Based on my experiences, 文 typically refers to the languages in a general sense (but, with an emphasis on reading/writing)...
So far, so good. I agree "文" by itself is more about written forms, as in 語文 or 文字.
But...
Originally Posted by
moondog
...,whereas 话 and 语 imply spoken words; case in point, speaking classes are often labeled 口语.
The Chinese textbooks we use in grade school are called
國語課本, "國語" being the national/official language, a.k.a. Chinese. As for middle school and beyond, the Chinese textbooks become
國文課本. And no, we don't have speaking classes for Chinese.
So my point is when the reference is made for a specific language, the terms "文" and "語" are not that black and white no more.
Anyway, this line of discussion is way above the pay grade for daily 30-min language learning of 2 weeks.
