The word 'putonghua' is correct and usable in written English.
It is a Mandarin Chinese term meaning "common speech/ language", and is often used to refer to Standard Chinese or the official spoken language of China. One example of using 'putonghua' in written English would be: "The government of China has implemented policies to promote the use of putonghua as the common language in schools and workplaces." Another example: "Many foreigners are learning putonghua as a second language to better communicate with Chinese speakers."
It announced this month that 400m people, nearly a third of the population, are unable to communicate in Mandarin, and that many more cannot speak it well.That may seem a lot of people unable to speak their own national language but, as recently as 2007, nearly half China's citizens were unable to communicate effectively in what is known, in Mandarin, as putonghua ("common speech").
As China's most global city, Hong Kong needs skills in both English and Mandarin, or putonghua, China's common language.
Mandarin Chinese in the form spoken in and around Beijing forms the basis for Modern Standard Chinese Guoyu, "National Language," usually called putonghua "common language" by the Chinese.
Beijing residents speak a dialect of Mandarin Chinese that forms the basis of Modern Standard Chinese (Guoyu), or putonghua ("common language"), which is commonly taught throughout the country.
By far the most important Chinese tongue is Mandarin, or putonghua, meaning "ordinary language" or "common language".
Pinyin romanization, however, is not intended to replace the Chinese characters but to help teach pronunciation and popularize the Beijing-dialect-based Putonghua.
He and Yumi were talking by this time, though the strain on her was considerable, since words in the national dialect, putonghua, kept cropping up in his speech.
Slogans multiplied in pursuit of a unified, national tongue which, though it had by now been renamed Putonghua (common language), was still the standard based loosely upon the Beijing dialect.
These have recently taken up "bye-bye" in a sing-song tone, chorus of the universal Chinglish of Hong Kong.At the university of Shantou, in the centre of the individual-minded region of Chiu Chow, on Guangdong province's northern coast, there are signs ordering students to speak Putonghua.
Communist leaders these days argue that Putonghua stands at the vanguard of economic reform.
