<p>Chinese has two different words meaning language 语 for the spoken and 文 for the written language. That does not mean there are two languages. The spoken and written are the same language. Words listed in a dictionary are normally good for both spoken and written, so it does not matter whether it's called 英语词典 or 英文词典 (both mean English language dictionary). One does not need to specify whether the dictionary is for spoken or written.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2023-05-31T05:13:03.053Z
2023-05-31T05:13:03.053Z
monalisa
<p>It's always beginning learners who make the flawed assumption that just because 語言 means (spoken) 'language' and 文字 means 'writing' it follows that 英語 must refer to 'spoken English' (only) and 英文 must refer to 'written English' (only). This, of course, does not do justice to the fact that there's also 語文 'language' which puts the two together so both 英語 and 英文 could be seen not as abbreviations of 英國語言 and 英國文字 but as short forms of 英國語文.</p>
<p>Of course, one want to write an essay about the pronunciation and the orthography of English where one starts with an introductory remark to the effect that for the purposes of what follows, 英語 will exclusively refer to English as it is spoken, and 英文 to English as it is written. That's fine so far.</p>
<p>But it's a technical use and doesn't match what people in general and even specialists such as editors and compilers of dictionaries use. What happens in reality is that it's commonplace to hear questions from native speakers like &quot;你會講英文嗎？&quot;. It would not be very polite to then descend into a lecture how that person is using illogical, wrong language. It is much the same when the native speaker uses 單字 (which looks and sounds like 'single character') instead of 單詞 to mean a 'word' (as in, 中國 as opposed to 中 and 國). Just get used to it. In my experience you can always have an interesting conversation with native speakers when you inquire about their concepts of terms like 英文, 英語, 單字 and so on.</p>
<p>Source: own experience; also see <a href="https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%AF%AD%E6%96%87" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Wikipedia on 語文</a>: &quot;日常生活中，語文兩字並無嚴格指口頭語及書面語而混用之，如英語和英文、日语和日文。&quot;</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2023-05-31T06:55:57.873Z
2023-05-31T06:55:57.873Z
John Frazer
<p>It suposed that when you refer to the language on a printed item it should be expresed ending with 文。　For example 中文地图, 西班牙文书, 英文书。</p>
<p>BUT I found this in several dictionaries covers:
汉语词典，西班牙语词典，英语词典，and then the most confusing me:　英文词典,中文词典</p>
<p>Can some kindly explain this phenomenon to me please? thanks in advance.</p>

<difference><dictionary><ambiguity>
Difference between 英文词典 and 英语词典
# Difference between 英文词典 and 英语词典

(Asked by: username_0 on 2023-05-30)

It suposed that when you refer to the language on a printed item it should be expresed ending with 文。　For example 中文地图, 西班牙文书, 英文书。

BUT I found this in several dictionaries covers:
汉语词典，西班牙语词典，英语词典，and then the most confusing me:　英文词典,中文词典

Can some kindly explain this phenomenon to me please? thanks in advance.

**Tags:** difference, dictionary, ambiguity


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## 2 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2023-05-31. Score: 1

Chinese has two different words meaning language 语 for the spoken and 文 for the written language. That does not mean there are two languages. The spoken and written are the same language. Words listed in a dictionary are normally good for both spoken and written, so it does not matter whether it's called 英语词典 or 英文词典 (both mean English language dictionary). One does not need to specify whether the dictionary is for spoken or written.


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### Answer by username_2 on 2023-05-31. Score: 0

It's always beginning learners who make the flawed assumption that just because 語言 means (spoken) 'language' and 文字 means 'writing' it follows that 英語 must refer to 'spoken English' (only) and 英文 must refer to 'written English' (only). This, of course, does not do justice to the fact that there's also 語文 'language' which puts the two together so both 英語 and 英文 could be seen not as abbreviations of 英國語言 and 英國文字 but as short forms of 英國語文.

Of course, one want to write an essay about the pronunciation and the orthography of English where one starts with an introductory remark to the effect that for the purposes of what follows, 英語 will exclusively refer to English as it is spoken, and 英文 to English as it is written. That's fine so far.

But it's a technical use and doesn't match what people in general and even specialists such as editors and compilers of dictionaries use. What happens in reality is that it's commonplace to hear questions from native speakers like "你會講英文嗎？". It would not be very polite to then descend into a lecture how that person is using illogical, wrong language. It is much the same when the native speaker uses 單字 (which looks and sounds like 'single character') instead of 單詞 to mean a 'word' (as in, 中國 as opposed to 中 and 國). Just get used to it. In my experience you can always have an interesting conversation with native speakers when you inquire about their concepts of terms like 英文, 英語, 單字 and so on.

Source: own experience; also see [Wikipedia on 語文](https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%AF%AD%E6%96%87): "日常生活中，語文兩字並無嚴格指口頭語及書面語而混用之，如英語和英文、日语和日文。"


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