Is it 說 /说 / shuō or 講 / 讲 / jiǎng for "to speak a language"?

Question

I've realized that I still don't know the way to talk about "speaking a language", for instance the Chinese equivalents to sentences like these:

• Do you speak English?
• I can speak a little Chinese.

Of course there are other senses of "to speak" as in "he speaks very loudly" and "who were you speaking to?" and there is the similar word "to talk" which cannot be used with the name of a language, except in colloquial or nonstandard speech.

So I have found at least two single-syllable Chinese words that both seem to work for the sense of "to speak" that I am interested in:

• 說 / 说 (shuō)
• 講 / 讲 (jiǎng)

Are these two interchangeable synonyms or are there subtle differences? Are these the only two options for expressing "to speak XX language"?

Answer 1

The two are interchangeable in this particular context.

The two has different usage in other contexts.

E.g.:

• 讲 can mean to say in 讲话, to explain in 讲解, to bargain in 讲价.
• 说 can mean to persuade in 劝说, and it can be a noun in 学说(theory).

The choice of syllables for your situation I would say is based on statistical usage of each. In certain areas 说 is more naturally used because it's used more by the community. And the same is true for 讲.

Answer 2

讲 is formal while 说 is casual in this particular context.

Usually you won't hear Northern Chinese say "讲英语" or "讲话" in oral Chinese, however these two expressions are used in TV news.

Southern Chinese usually use "讲" orally though.

Answer 3

其实两个是一个意思，to speak xx language一般用"说"，"讲"用的相对较少，而且"讲"还有讲课的意思，比如说"他是讲英语的老师。"