Do cantonese speakers understand mandarin duck

Have you encountered situations where you are attempting to speak Cantonese, regardless of how fluent you are, then suddenly the other person starts responding in English or a language that you are familiar with and that they know. Cousins were born and raised there, although because they speak Cantonese at home with family, so their Cantonese is not bad, not native level but definitely good enough to have small talk. I can speak Chinese, she said. Of course, immediately I was like in my head, is something the matter? Is my English not good enough?

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Content:

• The Hong Kong Cantonese language: Current features and future prospects
• Translation of "mandarin" in Chinese
• Difference Between Mandarin and Cantonese
• Is Cantonese the same as Chinese?
• Is The Cantonese Language Disappearing?
• Subscribe to RSS
• What is the Difference between Mandarin and Cantonese?
• Cantonese vs Mandarin: The [7] Main Differences Between Them

WATCH RELATED VIDEO: Can a Mandarin Speaker Understand Cantonese? (he eats ice if he doesn't) - Cantonese vs Mandarin

The Hong Kong Cantonese language: Current features and future prospects

WHERE are they spoken? Which one of them should I learn or translate to? Let's dive a little bit deeper below:. It's the most spoken "dialect" and the lingua franca between people from different dialect areas in China.

On February 6, , the State Department of PRC had published the Directives on Promotion of Standard Mandarin in which it was officially established that: The Chinese Mandarin takes the pronunciations of Beijing voice as its standard reference and northern Chinese speech as its dialectal basis, and use the classical modern vernacular Chinese books for grammar norms.

The establishment of Mandarin as the "national standard language" and the nationwide promotion of it was NOT in order to eliminate the use of local dialects, but only to remove the barriers caused by differences of the dialects and facilitate smoother communication between different dialectal communities.

After decades of efforts, it turns out that this job had been done quite well. As long as you speak Mandarin, you can virtually talk to anyone in this country. An interest story about the English word "Mandarin" is that it's said to stem from the phrase "Man-Da-Ren", the Chinese addressing for the Manchus Officials back in Qing Dynasty a century ago.

Is this true? No one really knows - at least the Chinese people don't know. In China, we call this standard spoken dialect as "Pu-Tong-Hua", which literally means "common language". As one of the 7 major dialects spoken in China, Cantonese is considered as the one with the 2nd largest speaking population only after the Pu-Tong-Hua Mandarin.

Speaking ancient Central Chinese language "Xia" dialect, not today's Mandarin , these Han immigrants mingled with the local Bai-Yue inhabitants, so did their words, accents and speeches over the long time of integration. Cantonese, or Yue-Yu, came out into being from this process. It's also the official and dominant spoken voice in Hong Kong and Macau.

Moreover, if you've visited an overseas Chinatown, the chances are that what you heard from the local residents are more likely to be Cantonese than Mandarin - the reason is that the Chinese descendents living in Chinatown are mostly from families with their origins in Guangdong Province, who immigrated from their homeland to where they are now about hundred years ago, but still maintained a lot of old traditions, including the language they speak.

So how does the word "Cantonese" come from? I heard the Chinese people call it "Yue" anyway Well, this was because it's the dominant spoken voice of Guangdong Province, which was referred to as "Canton" back in the history.

If it's 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 forms of Mandarin and Cantonese, however, are quite different. Although Cantonese shares some vocabulary with Mandarin, the two varieties are mutually unintelligible, when spoken, because of differences in pronunciation, grammar and lexicon. They sound totally different. Since they are so different, has been heated debate whether or not they should be considered separate languages rather than simply two dialects of an umbrella Chinese language.

While they are both tonal languages where different tones give different meanings to the same sound , the number of tones is different. Mandarin has only four tones per sound, while Cantonese has at least six and can have up to nine.

Mandarin and Cantonese even have different vowels and consonants. Can they be considered two different languages? No we don't think so.

The "Chinese" is surely a language, while either "Mandarin" or "Cantonese" should be dialects. Yet we've heard too many debates over the status of Cantonese, and the "dialect" might be a term of some sort of "degradation" to the ears of certain Cantonese speaking communities.

Putting the political points aside, we believe "language varieties or variants " would just be perfect for both the Mandarin and Cantonese. Keep this basic information in mind: Mandarin and Cantonese are just two major different varieties or dialects of spoken Chinese, NOT forms of written scripts; while the Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese are the forms of the written scripts, not spoken dialects.

There is not certain answer to this question. People from the Province of Guangdong use Cantonese but write Simplified. Those from Taiwan speak Mandarin but write in Traditional Chinese. The only thing you can be sure of is that people from Mainland China use Simplified Chinese characters.

Tradtional Chinese]. With the continuous increasing of number of Chinese people living in the U. And one of the most important questions that new potential Chinese learners would usually ask themselves is: Should I learn Cantonese or Mandarin? The answer should ultimately depend on what you hope to accomplish by learning the language. Give some careful thought to your reasons for learning either Mandarin or Cantonese before you make your decision. A short answer, if you want to be able to communicate with the maximum number of Chinese speakers around the world, would be that you should learn Mandarin!

Of course we should discuss further if a short answer is not what you are looking for. If you're interested in working in most other parts of China, Mandarin will serve you better. This may explain why most students of Chinese language opt for Mandarin, as it opens up more opportunities.

Yes, 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 where the majority of people still speak Cantonese , and more and more Cantonese speakers are learning Mandarin nowadays. The same is true if you like movies from Hong Kong, as much of the meaning is lost in translation to English or even Mandarin. If you really want to be able to connect with people from Hong Kong, Macau, and Canton, you can still consider learning Cantonese.

The answer is very similar to the above one: which language variety should I learn - it depends on where your target audience is. If you want to reach to the maximum number of Chinese readers around the world, I suggest you to translate your materials into Mandarin. Mandarin is widely understood even in Hong Kong, Macau and Canton the main regions where the majority of people still speak Cantonese , and more and more Cantonese speakers are learning Mandarin nowadays.

If you really want your materials look local to better connect with people from Hong Kong, Macau, and Canton, you can still consider translating your documents into Cantonese. The above information may sound a little complicated to non-Chinese speaking people. Need to translate your language into Mandarin or Cantonese? Tell us where are your target readers, then leave the other things to us! We are your dependable native speaking Mandarin Translators and Cantonese Translators.

Mandarin vs. Close Menu. Where is the Cantonese mainly spoken?

Translation of "mandarin" in Chinese

There has been increasing concern — especially in Hong Kong - that the Chinese dialect Cantonese is at risk of becoming extinct in a few decades. Many Cantonese speakers are concerned that this may make the dialect extinct. For example, Hong Kong-based graphic designer and cartoonist, Ah To , has written several illustrated books to help readers understand Cantonese proverbs and idioms. These images are screenshots of Ah To's illustrations and representative of some Cantonese idioms, which help to showcase the distinctive and unique culture of Cantonese speaking peoples. Is The Cantonese Language Disappearing?

Difference Between Mandarin and Cantonese

It is used by most of the Chinese primary schools, colleges, and universities, as well in most of their mainstream media, including films, radio stations, television programs, and music. Most Chinese communities in Australia, Europe, North America, and other parts of the world also use Cantonese as their primary language. But in recent years, the number of Mandarin-speaking Chinese people living abroad has rapidly increased as more Northern Chinese are Taiwanese immigrants playing a larger and more active role in the global culture and economics. So, both of these languages are spoken in China and they share the same base alphabet. But what is the difference between Cantonese and Mandarin? Individuals who are fluent in either language are able to communicate with one another through the written word, as both languages share a common vocabulary, give or take a few words. But it is the tone of colloquial Cantonese that makes it difficult for Mandarin speakers to understand. The pronunciation of shared words in Cantonese and Mandarin is totally different. Mandarin utilizes four tones, whereas Cantonese has at least six and sometimes as many as nine.

Is Cantonese the same as Chinese?

WHERE are they spoken? Which one of them should I learn or translate to? Let's dive a little bit deeper below:. It's the most spoken "dialect" and the lingua franca between people from different dialect areas in China.

Is The Cantonese Language Disappearing?

You may have heard of Cantonese vs. Many people assume there is only one Chinese language, but in fact, this is not the case. The difference between Cantonese and Mandarin can be difficult for foreigners to pick up on. The distinction is huge for natives — they describe it as "the chicken talking to the duck. Here, we will explain what the main difference between Mandarin and Cantonese is, as well as explaining when and where you might use either of them.

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The lexical system of Hong Kong Cantonese has been heavily shaped by the local trilingual environment. The development of cultural- and language-specific norms for Hong Kong Cantonese is fundamental for understanding how the speaker population organize semantic memory, how they utilize their semantic resources, and what information processing strategies they use for the retrieval of semantic knowledge. This study presents a normative database of 72 lexical categories in Hong Kong Cantonese produced by native speakers in a category exemplar production task. Exemplars are enlisted under a category label, along with the instance probabilities and word familiarity scores. Possible English equivalents are given to the exemplars for the convenience of non-HKC speaker researchers.

What is the Difference between Mandarin and Cantonese?

It is also spoken widely in Taiwan where it is usually known as Taiwanese ; by the Chinese diaspora in Malaysia , Singapore , Indonesia , the Philippines and other parts of Southeast Asia ; and by other overseas Chinese all over the world. The Hokkien 'dialects' are not all mutually intelligible, but they are held together by ethnolinguistic identity. Taiwanese Hokkien is, however, mutually intelligible with the 2 to 3 million speakers of the Amoy and Philippine dialects. In Southeast Asia, Hokkien historically served as the lingua franca amongst overseas Chinese communities of all dialects and subgroups , and it remains today as the most spoken variety of Chinese in the region, including in Singapore , Malaysia , Indonesia , Philippines and some parts of Indochina particularly Thailand, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.

Cantonese vs Mandarin: The [7] Main Differences Between Them

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Word of the Moment Chicken and Duck talk - real experiences?? Posted by MatFayLong. It's been about half a year since I started watching Cantonese movies with no sub-titles and I've noticed a trend in recent HK movies where fluent Cantonese speakers will talk with fluent Mandarin speakers and act like it's a normal every day occurrence and they both understand everything with no confusion. Me as a westerner:?????????????

What is the difference between Mandarin and Cantonese? This is a common question people ask when deciding to learn Chinese. Many people assume that Mandarin and Cantonese are the same language. Although the two are both dialects of the Chinese language, there are many differences between the two. Below we will go through the differences between Mandarin and Cantonese and Mandarin and also mention the similarities so that you can decide on which language to learn. M andarin is the official language of China, however it is also the most spoken language worldwide. Mandarin is also the main dialect in Singapore and Taiwan.

Since the mandarin duck appeared in Central Park last fall, his unexpected presence has stirred up many questions: Where did he come from? Why is he so hot? Can such beauty survive in our garbage world?