putonghua is the chinese for mandarin, it's modern chinese, and mostly it refers the oral chinese. while we can say hanyu include putonghua and the ancient chinese and even sometime some local tones. generally speak it include oral chinese and the writing.

Well, "putonghua" is just the Chinese name for madarin and "hanyu" is the chinese word for "Chinese language". See? So, like, you couldn't say "putonghua" and mean cantonese...but "hanyu" is pretty general. I hope that explains it okay....:)

都一样

Putonghua = Hanyu While they are both the standard and official version of Hanyu~