However, I was a bit concerned when I discovered that they don’t exactly speak Putong hua(“the common tongue”), in Wuhan. According to my travel book, they speak Hanqiang, or “Wuhan speak,” which is their own, slightly different dialect of mandarin. It's probably just a "pop" vs. "coke" and "shopping cart" vs. "buggy" type of thing but I hope that most of my frail attempts at learning the language(Putong hua) still apply. We shall see. Whatever the case, I’ve been assured that I’ll be able to get by on mostly English, and, if not, well, wŏ bù míng bai nĭ shuō shén ma (I don’t understand what you’re saying)!
