Do you speak Chinese? If you do, you’re part of the statistics that makes it the number one most spoken language in the world. You probably already knew China has a population of over a billion people. Add the number of Chinese descendants in the world to that and it’s no wonder Mandarin makes it to the top of the language list. When these people migrated to their new settlement, they brought with them their native language.

For today’s purpose, let’s take a look at some Asian countries where Mandarin is quite a predominantly spoken language.

Singaporeans Speak Chinese Too!

Around 76% of Singapore’s population are Chinese descendants who speak a mixture of the standard Mandarin and colloquial Mandarin. The standard Mandarin is also known as Putonghua, which is also the standard Mandarin of Mainland China.

Interestingly, you’ll hear more colloquial Mandarin being spoken in Singapore. This is the standard Mandarin that has been localized, infused with some Taiwanese, Hakka and Cantonese dialects. The main reason is because most of the Chinese migrants came from the regions in China that speak these dialects. Besides, in the early 1950s, most of the books and literature in Singapore came from Taiwan and Hongkong. However, in the recent years, the government has been stressing the need to speak Putonghua.

The Malaysian Chinese Language

It is hard to differentiate the Malaysian Mandarin from the Singaporean Mandarin due to their linguistic similarities. The Chinese immigrants in Malaysia largely came from Fujian and Guangdong provinces, which explains the Hokkien and Cantonese influences in their Mandarin. In addition, other dialects spoken include Hakka, Teochew and Hainanese. Over time, these dialects became  mixed with the local Malay language and English to become the standard Malaysian Mandarin.