Nowadays, most of people think that CHinese is one language. But actually, Chinese has got a lot of meanings.

Such as in overseas CHinese society, somebody speak Cantonese, while others are speaking Hokkien or Mandarin. Those kinds of people claim that they are speaking "Chinese", but they could communicate with each others.

It is because in somebody's mind, Chinese can be used for all languages in China, including traditional or simplified Chinese. So when you ask people how to say that in CHinese, especially in Hong Kong , Macau or overseas Chinese societies, it should be careful as people may answer you in non-official Mandarin.

This situation is common in US, Canada or south east Asia, I always meet some tour guides who claimed that they are speaking "Chinese", but they say "食飯sik6 faan6" in Cantonese, "謝謝xie4 xie4" in Mandarin and some are even from other dialects. As they mentioned, they are all from their "Chinese friends".

Please recognize the definition of "CHinese" carefully.