Ch 32 · Lesson 24Mandarin · Chapter 32 · Lesson 24 · Themed review
Singapore and Malaysia
Mandarin as 华语 (Huáyǔ): the Speak Mandarin Campaign, Chinese schools in Malaysia, and words borrowed from Malay and English.
Practise this lesson
14-word session
A quick mix of exercises - recognise, recall, type and build each word. Miss one and it comes back round until it sticks.
Worth knowing
华语: Mandarin in Singapore and Malaysia
Go south from China and Mandarin has a third name. In Singapore and Malaysia it is 华语 (Huáyǔ), the Chinese language, beside 普通话 (Pǔtōnghuà) on the mainland and 國語 (Guóyǔ) in Taiwan. Both countries write simplified characters, so what you have been reading is what you will see.
Singapore
Singapore has four official languages: English, Malay, Tamil and Mandarin. Chinese Singaporeans used to speak a range of southern Chinese languages, Hokkien, Teochew and Cantonese among them, and Hokkien was the common tongue of the Chinese community.
That changed on purpose. On 7 September 1979 the 政府 (zhèngfǔ), government, under Lee Kuan Yew launched the Speak Mandarin Campaign, so that Chinese Singaporeans would share one Chinese language. In 1980 Mandarin was the main home language in about 13 per cent of Chinese households; by 1990 it was about 33 per cent. Singapore switched fully to simplified characters in 1976.
Malaysia
A little over a fifth of Malaysia's citizens are ethnically Chinese: 22.4 per cent in the official figures for 2024. Malaysia has more than 1,300 Chinese primary 学校 (xuéxiào), schools, where lessons are taught in Mandarin, and they are open to children of any background. The Mandarin there carries the sound of Cantonese and Hokkien, the 当地 (dāngdì), local, languages many families spoke, and it is often described as tonally flatter than Beijing speech.
Words from the neighbours
Mandarin in Singapore borrowed words from Malay and English, written with characters chosen for their sound.
| Singapore | From | Mainland Mandarin |
|---|---|---|
| 巴刹 (bāshā) | Malay pasar, market | (shìchǎng) |
| 甘榜 (gānbǎng) | Malay kampung, village | 村 (cūnzi) |
| (déshì) | English taxi | (chūzūchē) |
Speakers in both countries also 混 (hùn), mix, Mandarin with English and Malay in the same sentence. Where most people grow up with more than one language, that is not careless speech. It is what the 城市 (chéngshì), the city, sounds like.
Which Mandarin is right?
The one you are learning works in all of them. The written standard is the same, the grammar is the same, and a speaker from Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, Taipei or Beijing can talk to the others without trouble. The local words are the fun part, and people will be pleased you asked.