Mandarin and which one you should learn mastering chinese on your own used to be ranked as one of the most challenging language feats on the planet. My husband is also a native mandarin speaker while i speak mandarin with some accent and sometimes just speak by guessing how to speak some of the words. Mandarin, cantonese, its all chinese, but which one should i learn. Although cantonese shares some vocabulary with mandarin, there are a lot of words which are completely different. Differences between mandarin and cantonese ltl school. There exists a few romanized scripts for cantonese, such as yale or jyutping, but none compare in usability to mandarin pinyin. Jan 20, 2018 cantonese is known as a more difficult language to learn compared to mandarin. Its not as many as you think and a lot of the characters are used multiple times. We live in the us but we communicate in cantonese with my 2yearold as well. I believe that mandarin is an easier option to learn. Jul 06, 2018 simplified written characters are more associated with mandarin chinese, while traditional character writing remains for classical purposes in cantonese speaking regions and abroad. But cantonese and mandarin arent the only chinese languages with a. Check out the following video to see how mandarin and cantonese are different from each other.
On whether you should learn cantonese or mandarin first, its really up to you. If you look like a chinese person, and you speak mandarin with me in gz, foshan etc, guess what, youre going to get ignored. This question isnt to offend im chinese myself too just curious about what most people prefer as ive heard my mum saying that mandarin will be more dominant one day we speak cantonese. Mandarin is obviously easier to learn than cantonese, because you have the pinyin system in mandarin and only 4 tons, but cantonese has 9 tons or so plus the writing system is harder since they use traditional characters.
This is actually a pretty hard question to answer, but i will do my best, by first saying that the core chinese script is one single script, but it can be used by different speakers in different ways. Both cantonese and mandarin are dialects of the chinese language, and both are spoken widely in mainland china. Nowadays in mainland china, it is most common to see simplified versions of the chinese characters. You know what im talking aboutyou can download apps, make. One of the major things to consider when deciding on mandarin or cantonese is what your purpose for studying the language is. Cracking the tones are said to be the hardest part of learning chinese. A summary jmft october 21, 2015 this short essay is intended to summarise the similarities and di erences between cantonese and mandarin. This article appeared in the south china morning post print edition as. Or download the list as a pdf or anki decks for free below. Technically mandarin and cantonese are just different spoken dialects of the same language but there are actually characters for spoken cantonese used in comic books and other unofficial writing basically just homophones of official characters with a koumouth character tacked on to the front. Although you may be confused now, the answer is quite simple. The simplified characters that are today more associated with mandarin chinese are based on the traditional characters still used in cantonese speaking regions. Also cantodict can run in both cantonese and mandarin modes.
As most of you already knew, spoken cantonese is quite different than written cantonese, which is very similar to chinese mandarin. And this subset of characters are only used in spoken language for the most part. However, the traditional language of the shanghai region is shanghainese, which is a dialect of wu chinese. Cantonese is known as a more difficult language to learn compared to mandarin. Nov 20, 2017 mandarin may be the common language, but heres why cantonese reigns supreme. Differentiating between shanghainese and mandarin thoughtco. Mandarin speakers probably know more cantonese they think they do because many words are actually the same as mandarin like friend pengyou etc. Even though both cantonese and mandarin uses the same standard chinese script the two languages are still mutually unintelligible and very have many different aspects to.
Jun 03, 2018 cantonese is spoken in hong kong, macau, guangdong province in china and also widely spoken in southeast asia by overseas chinese. If you have a product or service suitable, translating and localizing into chinese is a nobrainer. Another major difference between mandarin and c antonese is the pronunciation. Both the mandarin and cantonese dialects are tonal languages where one word has many meanings depending on the pronunciation and intonation. As the names imply, traditional characters are more complex, being built on many more. If you are a student planning to learn mandarin, go to beijing or shanghai. This excludes the many characters used in nonstandard written chinese, which, unfortunately, includes many words used only in cantonese. This study investigates the role of morphological awareness in the incidental learning of mandarin chinese characters among. The differences between mandarin and cantonese by a. Chinese mandarin and chinese cantonese are different in various ways. How can you tell the difference between cantonese and. Differences between mandarin and cantonese ltl mandarin.
Personally, i reckon mandarin only sound good in songs but a tad annoying when spoken. There are five distinguishing factors between cantonese vs. So ive prepared a special free pdf version of the article that you can download to read. In teaching terms, mandarin chinese uses the pinyin system. Jul 15, 2016 cantonese is a completely different spoken language than mandarin, and uses 9 tones instead of just 4 as in mandarin. Whats the difference between chinese, mandarin and cantonese. Chinese language tools chinese family history group of. The written chinese used is the same everywhere mainland, hong kong, taiwan. Apr 19, 2018 cantonese and mandarin are written in the same way, though cantonese favors traditional chinese characters rather than simplified. Cantonese is also the preferred language for the overseas european, australian, and north american chinese populace. If, as is the case in chinese script, characters bear no direct. Written chinese was originally developed for classical chinese, citation needed and was the main literary language of china until the 19th century. Schools in hong kong are mainly taught in cantonese. Mar 06, 2009 in guangdong they speak cantonese also macao.
Written vernacular chinese first appeared in the 17th century and. Learn to read and write chinese characters with animated stroke order demos. Cantonese and mandarin are written in the same way, though cantonese favors traditional chinese characters rather than simplified. There are chinese characters and their pronunciations. Written cantonese is the written form of cantonese, the most complete written form of chinese after that for mandarin chinese and classical chinese. How to navigate around chinese names excerpt from a guide for researching your chinese family history, published by the chinese family history group of southern california.
Cantonese has 9 tones while mandarin has just 4 making it easier to learn than cantonese. There are still no cantonese input systems that come standard with any computer or mobile operating systems. Children in china are taught mandarin in school and mandarin is the language for national tv and radio so fluency is fast increasing. Head over here to download the 5 wordlists one for each set. A notable difference between cantonese and mandarin is how the spoken word is written. You cannot necessarily figure out the pronunciation of a chinese character just by looking at it if you. For instance, cantonese and mandarin in their written forms are, for the most part, mutually intelligible, but they differ significantly in their rules of grammar, pronunciation and vocabulary when spoken wardhaugh 2008. For example, gwai lo in cantonese refers to a foreigner. Cantonese people are very happy to hear when foreigners choose to learn cantonese instead of mandarin and speaking cantonese will be sure to enhance your experience should you ever visit hong kong or macau. Cantonese has six tones, whereas mandarin has just four. This means the pronunciation is made easier by romanization.
Are cantonese characters different from mandarin ones. But should it be simplified or traditional chinese. Includes information on how names of chinese immigrants names were recorded before the chinese exclusion act, notes about chinese surnames, notes about variations in chinese dialects, tips on english spelling. Having learned a lot of characters in hong kong albeit traditional vs.
So what is the benefit of learning cantonese instead of mandarin. Its these differences that will ultimately help you decide which one is best suited to your personal language goals and needs. Cantonese and mandarin are two of the most commonly used dialects in china as a result, theyre the two most studied chinese languages. Youll see it in gossip magazines and newspaper articles, comic books, advertisements. Includes information on how names of chinese immigrants names were recorded before the chinese exclusion act, notes about chinese surnames, notes about variations in chinese dialects, tips on english spelling and. Mandarin has some of its own slang anyway that isnt used in cantonese, or would just sound outright weird. Both languages have different tones, but the use of tones in cantonese is even more challenging due to it having between 6 and 9 different tones. Its like if you know french you can understand vaguely understand spanish. Jul 16, 2011 cantonese is older of the two languages being in existence 2000 years ago while mandarin is just 700800 years ago. Difference between mandarin and cantonese compare the.
Cantonese wordlists with jyutping free printable if you are using sagebooks to teach reading in cantonese, these wordlists of the 500 characters with jyutping might be useful for you. This handy dictionary has the most common 5000 chinese characters, with entries explaining the meaning in english and the pronunciation of the character in. Written chinese was originally developed for classical chinese, and was the main literary language of china until the 19th century. Jan 27, 2020 so it seems as though mandarin is more practical than cantonese. The biggest one is because the characters have more accurately retained their meaning, and it is easier to see where the meaning came from through the radicals. Spoken mandarin and cantonese are not mutually intelligible. How can you tell the difference between cantonese and mandarin. Qiu gui su is a native mandarin speaker who has taught mandarin chinese for over 20 years.
Mandarin obviously looks better on job applications, but honestly it doesnt look that much better. I dont think they speak cantonese in taiwan mainly mandarin, hokkien and hakka. So it seems as though mandarin is more practical than cantonese. The characters and grammar are very similar between mandarin and cantonese. Written vernacular chinese first appeared in the 17th century and a written form of mandarin.
Dec 18, 2016 both my husband and myself are native in speaking cantonese. Cantonese is a variety of chinese originating from the city of guangzhou also known as canton and its surrounding area in southeastern china. Cantonese is simply a predominantly spoken language. The test contains 6 levels but even the highest level only requires 2,600 characters to pass it. Another major difference between mandarin and cantonese is the pronunciation. How to pass on both cantonese and mandarin chinese as. Cantonese, english then mandarin the first one gets most favours, second one im indifferent to and the third one. As a quick example, spoken mandarin and cantonese use different words for to eat. Each page links to a full pdf lesson that users get immediately after signing up. If your goal is to be widely understood, you should learn mandarin because mandarin can be understood even in hong kong, macau and canton the main regions who still speak cantonese if you really want to be able to connect with people from hong kong, macau, and canton, you can still consider learning cantonese. Formal written cantonese is pretty much the same as written mandarin, if the written piece is to be respected or serious. When they hear a person from china speaking, they immediately say that the person is speaking in chinese. Differences between mandarin and cantonese ltl mandarin school.
Although not as defined as mandarin, cantonese has nine tones compared to mandarin s four. If you are not a native but have to spend considerable time in china, you would be better off learning mandarin instead of cantonese. Whats the difference between mandarin and cantonese. The written form of both mandarin and cantonese are very similar, except in hong kong traditional chinese characters are used instead of simplified chinese which is used in mainland china. In some cantonese language areas such as hong kong, macau and most of the overseas chinese communities they generally use traditional chinese characters while mandarin areas such as. While many mandarin speakers might be able to write chinese words in pinyin i never met a single native hong kong cantonese speaker. Want to learn more about writing chinese characters or speaking mandarin. Many people think that chinese is just one language. Learn the 4 tones in mandarin here more questions you might have. Here is a banner from hong kong that shows some written cantonese.
If dont want to wait that long just go and download pop on for ios. Cantonese is widely spoken in the south of china in guangdong and also in hong kong and macau. Its not as many as you think and a lot of the characters. In cantonese, people use the traditional characters. As such, the pronunciation given is not mandarin pinyin or putonghua, it is cantonese lshk or jyutping.
Excerpt from a guide for researching your chinese family history, published by the chinese family history group of southern california. If its in written form, cantonese and mandarin could be very similar or even totally mutual intelligible, except for that simplified chinese characters are used in the cantonese speaking regions in mainland china while the traditional chinese characters are used in hong kong. The spoken form of mandarin and cantonese are quite different. In some cantonese language areas such as hong kong, macau and most of the overseas chinese communities they generally use traditional chinese characters while mandarin areas such as mainland china use the simplified versions.
Chinese characters are pictorial, which makes them a bit arbitrary in their pronunciation. Thats not to say that learning cantonese is a waste of time, and for some people, it may be the better choice, but for most people wanting to speak chinese, mandarin is the way to go. What is the difference between mandarin and cantonese. Cantonese sounds better spoken but maybe a bit rough in songs but still sound good. There are many more speakers of mandarin than there are of cantonese. It is the traditional prestige variety of the yue chinese dialect group, which has about 68 million native speakers. Simplified or traditional chinese, mandarin or cantonese.
Since shanghai is in the peoples republic of china prc, the official language of the city is standard mandarin chinese, also known as putonghua. Is there a difference between written cantonese and mandarin. Having said that, many of the sheets, flashcards and tests will also help you learn mandarin, as chinese writing is the same in both mandarin and cantonese. Aug 25, 20 even though both cantonese and mandarin uses the same standard chinese script the two languages are still mutually unintelligible and very have many different aspects to it. This straighttothepoint post will quickly clear up any confusion between the two most commonly used languages in china. Jan 26, 2018 mandarin, cantonese, its all chinese, but which one should i learn. Major tone correspondences between cantonese and mandarin. But that is not the case since there are several versions of spoken chinese. Simplified written characters are more associated with mandarin chinese, while traditional character writing remains for classical purposes in cantonese speaking regions and abroad. While the written language is essentially mutually intelligible, cantonese and mandarin have a fair bit of variation in individual words, expressions, word order and local slang. I do feel like it is an incredible advantage having studied cantonese before mandarin.
Mandarin, cantonese, its all chinese to me, but which chinese. What are the differences between cantonese vs mandarin. Specifically, the hong kong supplementary character set was first published by the hong kong government in 1999 and now includes 5,009 characters for written cantonese. There are many similarities between the two sets of characters and you may even be able to work out which simplified character goes with which traditional character in some cases. Mandarin is in, but heres why cantonese reigns supreme. The characters used for mandarin and cantonese share the same roots in ancient china, but mandarin uses simplified characters, which were set as the standard by the chinese government in 1950s, while cantonese still uses the traditional characters. Cantonese and mandarin different dialects or different. Different vocabulary list of chinese mandarin vs cantonese. Download table major tone correspondences between cantonese and mandarin words from publication. The characters in mandarin have been simplified in 1950 while characters in cantonese are still traditional. If you travel to these places, it is more difficult to use mandarin to communicate with the locals. See more ideas about learn chinese, chinese and learn mandarin. Think of chinese as this large umbrella with a bunch of languages under it. Its a question asked by many, if not all who are unfamiliar with chinese culture.