Barely half of Chinese speak Mandarin

More than half of all Chinese people can speak standard mandarin Chinese, while nearly 70 percent of urbanites are fluent in the country's official language known at "common talk", according to a massive survey conducted by the Ministry of Education.

The survey of half a million people shows that 53.06 percent of the population can effectively communicate orally in mandarin. The fluency rate in cities was 66 percent while in rural areas it was 45 percent.

After some incorrect nonsense claiming "the Chinese share the same written language", the article continues,

Mandarin, which in Chinese is called Putonghua and literally means "common talk", is taught in every school in the country and is China's standard lingua franca.

Most Chinese are verbally bilingual speaking not only mandarin, which has many regional accents, but a completely different sounding dialect of Chinese.

The survey also found that 56.76 percent of Chinese men can speak Putonghua, while 49.22 percent of women speak it. About 70 percent of people between the age of 15 and 29 speak mandarin, while only 30.97 percent between the age of 60 and 69 can speak standard mandarin.