Difference Between Chinese and Mandarin
Most of the people think that Chinese and Mandarin are same languages and the reason or this confusion is that both these languages are spoken in China and Taiwan. People who do not understand these languages call them Chinese collectively.
Chinese is a language of Sino-Tibetan family and mandarin is dialect of Chinese just like Cantonese, Wu and Min. These dialects are spoken and used in specific regions of China. Imperial court of Beijing used a language similar to Mandarin. Although it is a dialect, it is used as official language of Taiwan and mainland China. Mandarin is also known as Modern Standard Chinese or Standard Chinese. It is a popular language spoken in northern, south western and Central China and is adopted in education, entertainment industry and as a language of government.
When someone says that they speak Chinese then they refer to the language in broader sense while when someone says that they speak Mandarin then they are specific in telling about the language.