Mandarin/cantonese Terminology

[Disciple]

Which one should I learn for kung fu?

[joedoe]

Depends on a lot of things. Mandarin is useful since it is the official language of China. However if your art is a Cantonese art it might be useful to learn Cantonese. Then there is also your sifu to consider - which dialect does your sifu speak?

[lkfmdc]

Hate to be a kill joy, but for most Americans, Cantonese is a dialect they will never be able to learn. It is dificult in tone, difficult in vocabulary, difficult in grammar, and it is hard to find good instruction in it....

Mandarin on the other hand has MANY good text books and college level courses you can take. It has only 4 tones. It can be conversational in two semesters for most. It will get you around 95% of China, even major cities in Canton (Guangzhou, etc) thought the Cantonese will laugh at you...

The fact I speak Cantonese is a huge exception to the rule, and remember I was young when I learned it (having HUGE trouble picking up Korean in my late 30's) and was imersed totally in it

[Disciple]

Yeah... I think I'll go with mandarin.

BTW, My current sifu is american and he speaks english but later on I'm moving to SF.

[Zaveesha]

hi,

I am really interested in learning cantonese - but as Coach Ross said it is hard to fing a text book or courses to learn it - especially in my country where there is very small Chinese population and there are only few courses avaliable - mainly mandarin.

I can communicate a little in a few laguages but I would like to learn also some exotic language and cantonese fit here perfectly.

Coach Ross - could you write a sentence or two - some tips how to avoid the problem while learning cantonese ? what is so special about chinese/cantonese grammar and vocabulary ? I know they use in cantonese 9 tone but 6 six are in general use - I can imagine saying one word in 9 different ways and it can mean totally opposite things.

Any tips for those who want to learn cantonese?
So far I know only some - expressions like - Hei !, Do je, Mei ho ma? ,some gongfu terms. I also know some curse word but don't know what it mean exactly - Dil ni !

Anyone willing to help me?
thanks in advance
DO JE!

P.S This someone wrote about me -Zaveesha, ni ho ging ah!

[CFT]

Any tips for those who want to learn cantonese?
So far I know only some - expressions like - Hei !, Do je, Mei ho ma? ,some gongfu terms. I also know some curse word but don't know what it mean exactly - Dil ni !

Should be "nei ho ma" = "how are you?"

Dil ni / Diu Nei = F*ck You!!! Not nice at all ...

A good site for Cantonese learners: http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk
Should have links to lots of other online resources too. Or hang around in the forums.

[omarthefish]

Hate to be a kill joy, but for most Americans, Cantonese is a dialect they will never be able to learn. It is dificult in tone, difficult in vocabulary, difficult in grammar, and it is hard to find good instruction in it....

Mandarin on the other hand has MANY good text books and college level courses you can take. It has only 4 tones. It can be conversational in two semesters for most. It will get you around 95% of China, even major cities in Canton (Guangzhou, etc) thought the Cantonese will laugh at you...

The fact I speak Cantonese is a huge exception to the rule, and remember I was young when I learned it (having HUGE trouble picking up Korean in my late 30's) and was imersed totally in it

I was going to say roughly the same thing but I don't think it's being a killjoy. I have also wondered several times....how the **** did lkfmdc learn Cantonese. Other than being born and raised in Hong Kong, I've never heard of anyone else doing it successfully. There was a girl at a Cafe I used to go to and she fell into that category. Her parents were missionaries and she lived there untill she was about 5 or 6. There are programs in Universities that teach Cantonese but since it is a failr minor dialect when looked at as a percentage of the population, programs that can take you all the way are extrememly rare.

I am at an advantage now learning a dialect because different Chinese dialects are like different Romance languages. Once you got Spainish, Italian's not so hard. But if I go to Hong Kong, everyone will speak English with me and if I go to Guangzhou then I just speak Mandarin and they speak to me in their own really poor mandarin with a heavy Cantonese accent so I don't know how I could get total immersion at this point.

There is no clear standardized for of transcribing the sounds and tones for Cantonese. Mandarin doesn't have this problem. Pinyin is fairly simple and can transcribe exactly the way any Mandarin Chinese word is pronounced.

It is only a realistic question because of the way the politics of the past century have spilled out and resulted in the lions share of emmigration from China coming from Hong Kong or neighboring Guangzhou so it seems like half of all Chinese speakers speak Cantonese when the real figure is less than 5%.

Another thing to consider is that most Cantonese speakers can at least understand Mandarin and that the written language doesn't really change except for regional swear words and the Chienese equivalent of ebonics ie. Chinese "ghetto slang" which often doesn't have a written form even in the area it comes from.

[Mo Lung]

Learning Cantonese is not as difficult as some of you are making it sound. Of course, Coach Ross is convinced that nobody else can do anything as well as he does it, but still...

To learn Cantonese you ideally need to have face to face, one on one lessons with a native speaker. You start by learning some basics, then having conversations, etc. It's an oral dialect, so you have to learn it as one. Also ideally, you need to immerse yourself in the language as much as possible. Try using it in shops and restaurants (and put up with the laughter and derision at first!). Go to China or Hong Kong and listen and interact.

Obviously, if you are somewhere that doesn't have a very big Cantonese speaking population, then you're starting from a bad point.

And, of course, apart from everything else, if you just want to converse with the Chinese, then learn Mandarin. It's much easier, it has lots of textbook support and courses and just about everyone these days will speak Mandarin, as has been mentioned before. Last time I was in China I came across people in Guangzhou and around that only spoke Mandarin as they had moved down from the north for work, etc.

The only reason that you would want to learn Cantonese is for cultural reasons. My Sifu speaks Cantonese primarily, all our system terminology is in Cantonese, etc., so I learned (hah! am learning, slowly!) the language.

But, Ross and others are partly right in that it is very hard and you're never likely to speak Cantonese like a native. But if it's important to your system, then you will certainly learn enough if you dedicate yourself to the study. But the easy option will always be Mandarin.

[Fu-Pow]

I probably don't know as much Cantonese as Sifu Ross but I have picked up quite a bit of Cantonese through my teachers and classmates. Most of my knowledge is technical martial arts language. However, because I'm learning a martial art with origins in Guangzhou province it is necessary to learn the language to understand the terminology.

As other have pointed out Mandarin is more widely spoken. In fact, it is the most widely spoken language in the world by a landslide.

Check out this article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...total_speakers

(Business people pay attention....you might want to invest in some Mandarin lessons. )

Cantonese is #18. Unless you have some specific reason to learn Cantonese then you might want to look into Mandarin as others have pointed out.

As for Mandarin being easier to learn than Cantonese I'd have to slightly disagree. The tonality of Cantonese is harder to learn, however I've found that overall their consonants are much easier to pronounce. Mandarin seems to have kind of "slur" to the consonants that makes it harder to pronounce.

As far as romanization goes (and I think Ross is in agreement on this one) the Pinyin seems to work for Mandarin (and its not going away even if we wanted it to) and the Yale system seems to work the best for Cantonese.

Good luck!

[jimbob]

.......but if you want to learn how to curse really well, perservere with your Cantonese!

[CFT]

There is no clear standardized for of transcribing the sounds and tones for Cantonese. Mandarin doesn't have this problem. Pinyin is fairly simple and can transcribe exactly the way any Mandarin Chinese word is pronounced.

As far as romanization goes (and I think Ross is in agreement on this one) the Pinyin seems to work for Mandarin (and its not going away even if we wanted it to) and the Yale system seems to work the best for Cantonese.

There are standardized schemes for Cantonese pinyin: the Yale system that Fu-Pow refers to, and Jyutping which is promoted by the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong, amongst others.

But omarthefish is correct in that such schemes are not widely adopted - certainly not by the general populace like Mandarin pinyin seems to be.

[omarthefish]

The key is "standardized". Those systems for Cantonese aren't. Maybe I'm using the word wrong. What I mean is that Pinyin is the standard. Wade-Giles isn't even close. It's a common shorthand for non-Chinese speakers and it has slipped into some common usage among non-linguists but it is faaaaaaaaar behind pinyin in accuracy and completeness. For Mandarin, there's pinyin and that's it. You can transcribe mandarin exactly and everyone agrees on how to do it. The dictionaries are all printed that way and that's how computer software for typing in Chinese is designed.

I am not familiar with the Cantonese transcription methods so I can't comment on their level of completeness or accuracy but AFAIK there is no single accepted method. Plus, there is more colloquial (ie. not found in dictionaries) speech in Cantonese.

I'm totally into it and wish I had more chances to learn a bit. What I know is basically just the bits I picked up in Hung Gar and the fact that now with my Mandarin fluency I can often pick up bits and pieces when listening to Cantonese speakers. But Cantonese-Mandarin is not so much like Italian-Spainish as maybe Italian-French.

I guess if you had the resources I would totally encourage someone to learn Cantonese just on coolness alone. But if you intend to go "all the way" and achieve literacy then the language of the educated is still Mandarin. Yes, I now...poems, music and stuff sound better in Cantonese. That doesn't change the fact that even in Hong Kong, a University education requires Mandarin.

[CFT]

omarthefish,

I see where you're coming from. Each of the Cantonese romanization schemes are a formalized system, but is not the "Universal Standard" that Mandarin pinyin is, in terms of organisational backing nor popular penetration.

[dingyuan]

If your style is a northern style like Baji Quan, Fanzi Quan, Mizong Quan or Xingyi Quan etc, I would suggest to learn mandarin however if your style is southern like Hung Gar, Wing Chun or Choy Lay Fut, you'll find Cantonese much more useful than Mandarin.

Ok you might want to learn some Shanghainese if you wish to learn "Bao Ding Kuai Jiao" (Shuai Jiao).

[omarthefish]

SHANHAINESE !?!? And you thought Cantonese was hard....

Shanghanese is famous throughout China as the most strange and indecipherable dialect of all. Besides, they speak Mandarin just fine in Shanghai.