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Chinese - Mandarin or Cantonese? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| erinserb Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 7196 days ago 135 posts - 144 votes  Speaks: English* | Message 1 of 23 07 September 2011 at 1:17am | IP Logged |
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I am now studying French, and it has been a very slow process. However, I have great resources, FIA and Assimil.
But anyway, I am interested in eventually learning some Chinese. I have a great affection for Hong Kong, since I have visited there several times while in the service. I know that Cantonese is the principle language there, but Mandarin is the lingua franca of the most of the country. Hong Kong is perhaps THE business capital of the country and is a special territory. I would learn Cantonese for business (and pleasure). I realize the crucial importance of Mandarin - a strategic language now. Does anyone have advice relative to my above post? Regardless, what are the best on-line resources which are conducive to self-study? Should I steer clear of college on-line courses in either language? 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Levi Pentaglot Senior Member United States Joined 5567 days ago 2268 posts - 3328 votes Speaks: English*, French, Esperanto, German, Spanish Studies: Russian, Dutch, Portuguese, Mandarin, Japanese, Italian | Message 2 of 23 07 September 2011 at 2:08am | IP Logged |
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Generally, it is advised to learn Mandarin before learning a dialect, since most speakers of dialects know Mandarin and since knowing Mandarin will give you access to a lot more materials about the dialects. However, I think Cantonese is an exception and there are enough English materials that it is feasible to learn Cantonese without first learning Mandarin, if that's really what you want to do. In the end, which one you choose will boil down to your priorities and your attraction to the languages, and nobody can tell you that. Are you more interested in learning the lingua franca of China, and the language spoken by a billion people, or are you more interested in the Guangdong/Hong Kong region and communicating with overseas Chinese communities?
If you do choose Mandarin, I can suggest two excellent online resources which I use, but they are not free. ChinesePod has a treasure trove of bite-sized podcast lessons where they go in depth about why things are said the way they are, as well as the cultural aspects behind the language, focusing on the Mandarin that people use in everyday life. Skritter is a website that teaches you how to read and write Chinese and/or Japanese characters, using an SRS (spaced repetition system) format. It feels more like a game than anything else, and I've found it to be super-effective. Both websites offer free trials so you can see what you're getting into before you shell out any money. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |
| erinserb Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 7196 days ago 135 posts - 144 votes Speaks: English* | Message 3 of 23 07 September 2011 at 3:24am | IP Logged |
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Levi:
Many thanks for your input and suggestion. I think I cannot go wrong with learning either Mandarin or Cantonese, however I know that I should get some exposure to Mandarin. I appreciate the links and will look at them asap. I have a sub. to Frenchpod101 through next year, and it is really cool. French rocks and it is a great language - also Spanish too! People give input here about the most important languages to learn. I think these three languages 1. French, 2. Spanish, 3. Chinese would cover all the bases as for future growth, business, culture and people to speak with. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
 newyorkeric Diglot Moderator Singapore Joined 6379 days ago 1598 posts - 2174 votes Speaks: English*, Italian Studies: Mandarin, Malay Personal Language Map | Message 4 of 23 07 September 2011 at 4:26am | IP Logged |
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There are some decent learning materials for Cantonese though I don't know any that are online:
Cantonese for Everyone A Cantonese Book (and other books by the same publisher) FSI Cantonese Sidney Lau textbooks There have also been some Cantonese learning logs. You should check those out. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5959 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 5 of 23 07 September 2011 at 3:37pm | IP Logged |
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FSI Cantonese is available free, online;
http://fsi-language-courses.org/Content.php?page=Cantonese If you decide on Mandarin, many of the podcasts have freebie material to try out. In some cases you can use a decent amount of their material free of charge throughout the entire series. Edited by Snowflake on 07 September 2011 at 3:40pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| clumsy Octoglot Senior Member Poland lang-8.com/6715Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5178 days ago 1116 posts - 1367 votes Speaks: Polish*, English, Japanese, Korean, French, Mandarin, Italian, Vietnamese Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swedish Studies: Danish, Dari, Kirundi | Message 6 of 23 07 September 2011 at 5:24pm | IP Logged |
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I think Cantonese is often only a spoken language.
They speak Cantoense, but write in Mandarin standard. There is away of writing Cantonese, but most books are written in Mandarin characters. The two versions are not very different though, once you learn few basic。 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| nway Senior Member United States youtube.com/user/Vic Joined 5415 days ago 574 posts - 1707 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Mandarin, Japanese, Korean | Message 7 of 23 08 September 2011 at 3:51am | IP Logged |
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Like you, I'm highly enticed by both Mandarin and Cantonese. In the long-term, I plan to learn both languages, even though I anticipate my Cantonese will be quite weak.
Since I planned on learning both anyway, I researched which one would rationally be better to learn first, and the consensus was that it's easier for native Mandarin speakers to learn Cantonese than it is for native Cantonese speakers to learn Mandarin, implying that if you'd tempted between the two, the doors for Cantonese will still be open should you choose Mandarin, but learning Cantonese first may slightly impair your Mandarin pronunciation. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Elsinore13 Groupie United States Joined 4976 days ago 41 posts - 53 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Mandarin | Message 8 of 23 10 September 2011 at 2:16pm | IP Logged |
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Two cents here- if you plan to focus all your dealings in Hong Kong and the south, then you might concentrate on Cantonese. However, if your business takes you elsewhere you might consider Mandarin.
Even though some of my company's factories are in the South, I decided to learn Mandarin. One, it was easier for me to get materials in Mandarin than Cantonese. Two, due to labor costs, our business will eventually go further mainland and north so Mandarin benefits me there. Being that I am only studying Mandarin, I was surprised that I understood as much as I did when I was in the south a couple weeks ago. Hope that helps. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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