Meanings
putonghua1
- Alternative letter-case form of Putonghua.
Putonghua2
alternative p'u-t'ung-hua
- Standard Mandarin, the official language of the People's Republic of China; the state-designated national speech of the Han nationality using Beijing pronunciation as the standard pronunciation, Beijing speech as the basic dialect, and the model writing of the modern vernacular prose as the norm for grammar.
As a mainland China national, the counter for our trial was fluent in English, Putonghua, and the Sichuan dialect, and was familiar with a number of other major Chinese languages such as Cantonese and Hakka.
2019, Li Huang, James Lambert, “Another Arrow for the Quiver: A New Methodology for Multilingual Researchers”, in Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, →DOI, page 10Synonyms: Standard Mandarin
Synonyms & antonyms
proper nounStandard Mandarin, the official language of the People's Republic of China; the state-designated national speech of the Han nationality using Beijing pronunciation as the standard pronunciation, Beijing speech as the basic dialect, and the model writing of the modern vernacular prose as the norm for grammar.
Origin
From the Hanyu Pinyin romanization of the Mandarin Chinese pronunciation for 普通話／普通话 (Pǔtōnghuà, literally “common speech”).
Full word history & related roots →Translations
Chinese Cantonese 普通話 /普通话
- 普通話 /普通话the official language of the People's Republic of China — see also Mandarin
Chinese Mandarin 普通話 /普通话
- 普通話 /普通话 (pǔtōnghuà)the official language of the People's Republic of China — see also Mandarin
French putonghua
- putonghuathe official language of the People's Republic of China — see also Mandarin
German Hochchinesisch
- Hochchinesischthe official language of the People's Republic of China — see also Mandarin
Japanese 普通話, 北京語
- 普通話 (futsūwa)the official language of the People's Republic of China — see also Mandarin
- 北京語 (pekingo)the official language of the People's Republic of China — see also Mandarin
Korean 보통화
- 보통화 (botonghwa)the official language of the People's Republic of China — see also Mandarin
Russian путунхуа́
- путунхуа́ (putunxuá)the official language of the People's Republic of China — see also Mandarin
Vietnamese phổ thông thoại
- phổ thông thoạithe official language of the People's Republic of China — see also Mandarin
Cite this entry
putonghua. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/putonghua
“putonghua.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/putonghua. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “putonghua,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/putonghua.
Source: putonghua on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.