Perhaps it is a regional thing, but here in Taiwan, 英文 and 英語 are both perfectly correct in this context.

To be honest, if you say either I'm sure any Chinese person will understand.

All I know is that the Pimsleur course teaches you to say: Nǐ huì shuō yīngwén ma? ;)

The few times I've used it, the person I spoke with understood me.

What is taught in the US and/or in textbooks while may be proper Mandarin (for written), it's often not used verbally in China and you'll get weird looks.

Examples:

1. Mainland Chinese don't call waitresses 小姐
2. They don't use full phrases, for example last night is not 昨天晚上 but 昨晚
3. Same for grammar. For example, you want to say I slept pretty well last night. Proper Chinese is 我昨天晚上睡觉睡得狠不错。 In China you'd just say 昨晚我睡得很不错。

...whereas in Taiwan, this is perfectly acceptable.

I assume you meant 『昨晚我睡得很不错』, right?

These would work.

美女 or 姑娘

Yeah, and in Taiwan, these would sound very strange in this context.

In Taiwan...
 

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. ;)

So far, so good. I agree "文" by itself is more about written forms, as in 語文 or 文字.

But...

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. :D

a.k.a. "REAL Chinese" ;)

(Sorry, I just hate simplified characters. I think they're ugly and devoid of soul. :))

Oops, fat fingers. Yes, will correct it.

Don't tell that to the Chinese gov... :eek:

The PRC view towards language is more about function than art. And, the fact that both simplified characters (now common in Japan/Korea) and pinyin are smashing successes, demonstrates that the powers that be are not morons in this respect. I also wonder if literacy rates -- which correlate directly with productivity/GDP -- would have soared through the roof if people were still expected to draw dozens of small pictures in order to express themselves.

For better or for worse, the practice of physically writing Chinese characters seems to be following the same path as the "penmanship" that many of us learned in school... it's all about computers and cell phones these days, and pinyin is rapidly displacing bpmf.

Lest you get too concerned, almost everyone in first/second tier cities can still read 繁体字... thanks, in large part, to KTV.

Which one? :p;)

Agreed, so the actual "utility" of simplified characters has become much less significant. Too bad they've already become so used to the ugliness of the simplifieds. Personally, I still like bpmf as a tool for kids and new learners of Chinese, because it is easier to juxtapose the phonetic next to the character. But I agree that Pinyin is far more easier to learn and type, and easier to use for character input systems.

That's hilarious. :D

Cantopop is OK.
Taiwan songs not too good.