{"id":10434,"date":"2014-09-21T18:00:32","date_gmt":"2014-09-21T22:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/chinese\/?p=10434"},"modified":"2014-09-20T01:33:14","modified_gmt":"2014-09-20T05:33:14","slug":"an-introduction-to-cantonese","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/chinese\/an-introduction-to-cantonese\/","title":{"rendered":"An Introduction to Cantonese"},"content":{"rendered":"

Earlier this month, we had a post introducing Hong Kong<\/a>, a Special Administrative Region (SAR) of China. There was also the “Hong Kong to Kunming Overland<\/a>” post to help you plan an epic trip across southern China. As some of you may know, they speak a different kind of Chinese down there. In Hong Kong, the official language is Cantonese<\/strong> (\u5e7f\u4e1c\u8bdd – gu\u01ceng d\u014dng hu\u00e0), while the mainland and Taiwan both use Mandarin<\/strong> (\u666e\u901a\u8bdd – p\u01d4 t\u014dng hu\u00e0). Cantonese is also an official language in Macau, and it is the lingua franca<\/em> of Guangdong Province (hence the Chinese name).<\/p>\n

\"Cantonese

Cantonese is the official language here – Hong Kong.<\/p><\/div>\n

As you’ve probably noticed by now, this blog and the associated social media pages all focus specifically on Mandarin. In the past, I’ve had comments from readers asking why we don’t cover Cantonese. Well, I’m just the blogger, so I’ll leave that to the people in our top secret corporate headquarters (just kidding, it’s in New Hampshire) to answer that question. What I can do, however, is introduce some basic aspects of Cantonese and explain the differences with Mandarin. Seeing as how we’re going to be covering Hong Kong, Shenzhen, and Guangzhou with posts and videos in the upcoming months, now is as good a time as any. Actually, the word “Cantonese” comes from the former English name of Guangzhou – Canton. Let’s start with some major differences.<\/p>\n

Mandarin vs. Cantonese<\/h2>\n
\"Mao

Mao vs. Bruce Lee<\/p><\/div>\n

    \n
  • Mandarin is the official language of mainland China and Taiwan. Cantonese is the official language of HK and also one in Macau.<\/li>\n
  • Both are considered “Chinese language” – they use the same written language, but they are mutually unintelligible when spoken. Some people used the “the chicken talking to the duck<\/em><\/strong>” (\u9e21\u540c\u9e2d\u8bb2 – j\u012b t\u00f3ng y\u0101 ji\u01ceng) to describe a Mandarin and Cantonese speaker talking to each other.<\/li>\n
  • Mandarin uses simplified Chinese characters, while Cantonese uses traditional. If you know traditional characters, it’s easy to understand the simplified ones, but not the other way around.<\/li>\n
  • Mandarin has a mere four tones compared with the six of Cantonese.<\/li>\n
  • There are tons of words and phrases unique to both Mandarin and Cantonese. For example, a large number of English words made their way into Cantonese when HK was a British colony.<\/li>\n
  • Many Chinese who have emigrated to other countries are Cantonese speakers.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    Just look at the different ways to write and pronounce the word for “Cantonese” in both:<\/p>\n

    \"Screen<\/p>\n