[edited]
I would like to give all what I know about it for your reference only.

As a Chinese brought up in central China, we usually directly call our language as Chinese. However in southern China, for the local dialects are so diversified and different from the language used by officials, maybe the Chinese used by officials then is called madarin, so to differentiate it from the local languages.

For many people in southern China go abroad and many foreigners get to China first in the southern part,--maybe it's because the economics there is more flourishing than the north and the politics control is a little loose and far--, the terms such as mandarin and cantonese(one prevailing southern dialect) are gaining popularity, especially among the first group of foreigners.

Nowadays the term "Chinese" is gaining popularity over, especially, when referring to "putonghua". And you can use madarin if you are trying to differentiate from other local dialects such as cantonese for if you use Chinese here, it might be confusing because both cantonese and madarin are Chinese and in fact you are denoting "mandarin" Chinese,not "Cantonese" Chinsese.

Along with the spread of "Mandarin",--southerner may disagree--, the term madarin (used in Tsing Dynasty to refer to the language used by the court) is being considered as left from history and "Chinese" is more often used.

I hope this may not confuse you more. I admit that both my limited knowledge about Chinese language research and my broken English would contribute to the puzzlement.

Please feel free to raise further questions if you still believe I will not make things worse.

:)

I’m learning English. If u find anywhere I can improve my composition, Pls do let me know. Bow.

Do inform me if you see any corrections needed in my written English.