Mandarin

Chinese-Indonesian Eri Widoera, 24, decided to study Mandarin as he saw more Chinese companies entering Indonesia.  “If you can speak Mandarin, Indonesian and English, certainly your competitiveness in the market [will be much higher],” he said. He also felt the need to reconnect with his Chinese roots, even though he describes himself as a proud third-generation Indonesian. In recent years, more Chinese-Indonesians have decided to learn Mandarin and send their children to Chinese-medium schools.  It is a change from the era of dictator Suharto, whose policies to encourage assimilation meant Chinese-owned media outlets were banned and expressions of Chinese culture and language were illegal

How do you pronounce the surname of the US presidential candidate Andrew Yang? Does it rhyme with “gang,” as in “Yang Gang”?  While this pronunciation may be intuitive to Americans – it’s how the Democratic hopeful says his name – it might sound a little off to Chinese ears. In the video above, we explain the difference between how Mandarin speakers pronounce the popular Chinese last name and how most Americans say it.