MCLC: 400 million Chinese can't speak Mandarin (1)

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: Han Meng <hanmeng at gmail.com>
Subject: 400 million Chinese can't speak Mandarin (1)
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Those who can't speak Mandarin are in rural areas all over the country.
See:

http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=6786

Han Meng

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From: Wenyuan Shao <wnfrdshao at gmail.com>
Subject: 400 million Chinese can't speak Mandarin (2)

Reply to Judy,

People who cannot speak Mandarin mainly concentrated in poor rural and
ethnic minority areas. Based on my personal observation, most of them are
over 40 years old, who did not have the opportunity to learn Mandarin
Chinese in school when they are young, because of social unrest and
insufficient education investment. I've done several field works in
southwest China where I can easily communicate with those young students.
But every time I encountered an old people, I will ask those young
students to help me with translating, since they can only speak dialects
and minority languages.

Wenyuan