Hello!

I'm traveling to yunnan next week. I've been studying mandarin for a while in beijing and my language skills are pretty solid here. I'm worried about how difficult the language barrier will be in Yunnan though, especially because I'm not traveling with other Chinese speakers. Is it possible to get by with putonghua?

Thanks!

Yes.

It's your listening skills that will be tested.

Of course it is easy to get by, same language.
Where this Kunminghua is some foreign language theory comes from and all the armchair linguistics fascination with it, I have no idea.

There are plenty of apps to help you should you run into trouble communicating. If you can write Chinese as well as you speak that would also be a plus.

Older people may be a challenge. They often either don't speak Putonghua or mix some Yunnan Hua in even when they think they're speaking Putonghua. But most understand Putonghua even if they can't speak it well.

All urban and most countryside young people speak pretty intelligible Putonghua.

90% of the conversation with locals here is extremely basic. if you have a strong mandarin base you'll be fine in Kunming city. Many other dialects out in the villages and mountains though with fewer locals speaking decent putonghua.

@ vicar: I'm afraid you're right about 90% of conversation between locals and foreigners here.

@alien doesn't it usually amount to can I get another large rum and coke before happy hour ends?

@cloudtrapezer, yeah, that's pretty common, but then their are many who can't translate all that into Chinese.

i ge ji ge