Use of 中文 and 汉语 When I first began to learn Mandarin my tutor told me that 中文 is what you call written Chinese, so it's more the literature part and 汉语 is what you call spoken Mandarin. However, since there are other ethnic minorities in China I was wondering if you actually used the words 汉语 when speaking to a Chinese person who you knew wasn't of 汉 descent, could it be offensive? She didn't have any idea if it was or not.