Mandarin on formal occasions and Cantonese on informal occasions?

Step One:Words in the news

Learn some new vocabularies before you start the actual lesson. Understanding these words would prepare you for the article in Step Two.

大Great(HSK1)	多More(HSK1)
但是But(HSK2)	普通话Mandarin
粤语Cantonese	提案Proposal
热议Intense discuss	亚运会Asian Games

 Step Two:Read and Prepare

Listen to the audio and try to read the text at the same time. To help your understanding, translation can be activated after you highlight the words.

 

全民大讨论之“普通话和粤语之争”

推广普通话是中国国策，推行已有50多年了，把普通话作为基本语言，早已是习以为常的事情，但是最近广州政协的一个提案引起了热议。

这个提案是建议广州电视台把普通话作为主要频道的基本播音用语，目的是在2010年广州亚运会期间更好地宣传广州、推广广州。但是调查显示有80%的人反对，更多人希望广州电视台多使用粤语，并呼吁大家保护粤语语言文化.

Step Three:listen and Read

If the article in Step Two seems difficult to understand, read the introduction in English for your reference. 

Su's remarks follow a proposal put forward earlier this month by members of the Guangzhou Committee of Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) asking local broadcaster Guangzhou Television to air programs in Mandarin on its news channel and channel one.

The proposal immediately drew strong opposition from local residents, who worry the dialect will be abandoned.

According to a poll on the official website of the CPPCC's Guangzhou Committee, 80 percent of the 30,000 respondents were opposed to withdrawing Cantonese from local TV channels.

A senior official from the Guangdong provincial capital has denied rumors that the city will scrap Cantonese to promote Mandarin in the near future.　"Promoting Mandarin does not mean Guangzhou has to eliminate its dialect," Su Zhijia, deputy Party secretary of Guangzhou, said on Monday.　"The city government has never had such a plan to abandon or weaken Cantonese," he said.

Step Four:Study and Practise

Read the text again to see how these vocabularies (also mentioned in Step 1) are properly used. Then repeat the pronunciation of the words below. 

大dà	多duō
但是dàn shì	普通话pǔ tōng huà
粤语yuè yǔ	提案tí àn
热议rè yì	亚运会yà yùn huì

 Step Five:Grammar Point

Read the grammar explanation first, if you need further assistance, click on “Grammar Video”.
The phrase 十多公里indicates an approximate number, meaning that the whole distance is more than ten but less than twenty kilometers. The structure showing an approximate number is numeral＋多＋measure word(＋N). The numeral often contains two or more figures such as ten, hundred or thousand, etc.试着这样说：

例句1：

wǒ men bān yǒu sì shí duō gè xué shēng

我们班有四十多个学生。

There are more than 40 students in our class.

例句2：

tā mǎi le yī bǎi duō běn shū 。

他买了一百多本书。

      He brought more than one hundred books.

例句3：

cóng zhè ér dào shàng hǎi yǒu yī qiān duō gōng lǐ 。

从这儿到上海有一千多公里。

       It has more than a thousand kilometers distance to shanghai.