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Studying in Hong Kong - Canto or Mandarin | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Immersion, Schools & Certificates |  | |
| Pyx Diglot Senior Member China Joined 5737 days ago 670 posts - 892 votes  Speaks: German*, English Studies: Mandarin | Message 9 of 15 14 March 2010 at 5:41am | IP Logged | ||||||||
"Chinamen and -women" ;) 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| whisk Diglot Newbie Australia Joined 5770 days ago 6 posts - 10 votes Speaks: Cantonese, English* Studies: Spanish, Mandarin | Message 10 of 15 01 April 2010 at 10:17am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Just go with Mandarin. You can't really go wrong with it in HK. Even outside of uni, shop assistants will know Mandarin and people in the markets will know enough to do a transaction.
Chinese. Edited by whisk on 01 April 2010 at 10:18am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| egill Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5698 days ago 418 posts - 791 votes Speaks: Mandarin, English* Studies: German, Spanish, Dutch | Message 11 of 15 01 April 2010 at 11:18pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
This might be somewhat of a late response, but I would like to do my part in downplaying this oft-espoused factoid about Chinese. 1. All so-called dialects of Chinese are absolutely not written the same. (when they are written down, which is rarely) 2. The writings of Confucius can only be understood by modern Chinamen (or Chinese people if you like) because they've learned them specifically. That most Chinese people can understand written Chinese, is because modern written Chinese is really just written down standardized Mandarin which everyone happens to know/learn in addition to their own native Chinese dialect, should they have one. Sometimes they can read written standardized Mandarin with their own dialect's pronunciation. This is especially the case in Hong Kong, where they read standard Mandarin out loud with Cantonese pronunciation, but of course converse almost completely in the vernacular. This does not mean that they are in any sense written the same. Suppose English were an exclusively oral language and proper Englishmen wrote exclusively in French, and say pronounced it with a strong English accent (which many of you I'm sure can imagine :) ) This does not mean that English and French are written down the same. It would only mean that our hypothetical Englishmen chose to write in French. (In retrospect, Spanish and Portuguese might have been a more analogous language pair, but the point remains valid) As for the second claim: the writings of Confucius were composed in classical Chinese, a codified version of ancient Chinese, two-thousand plus years ago. Classical Chinese (or perhaps more precisely literary Chinese) has held a similar role in China as Latin has held in Europe for most of China's history thence. The Sinitic languages have since undergone enormous change and that contemporary readers can understand the ancient texts is mostly because they've studied them. Although an ideographic writing system can help this comprehension, it really reflects more of the prestige of the ancient language than it does of the virtue of its writing system. In fact, the way Chinese pupils are frequently taught classical Chinese is primarily via translation to modern Chinese. Textbooks usually have the (often lengthier) modern Chinese translation alongside the original in addition to an (even lengthier) explanation. All this would not be necessary if the two languages were really so similar. In summary: Chinese dialects, were they all to be written down, would not be written the same, and the writings of Confucius, i.e. classical Chinese, are not transparent to a modern speaker without foreknowledge. I hope this was helpful. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| WANNABEAFREAK Diglot Senior Member Hong Kong cantonese.hk Joined 6829 days ago 144 posts - 185 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, Cantonese Studies: French | Message 12 of 15 04 April 2010 at 4:07am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I can't believe I read all these replies.
I have lived in Hong Kong for many years now. Learn Cantonese! What Mandarin???? I've NEVER spoken a single word of it after years and years! The locals will always speak back to you in broken English when you struggle to string 2 sentences together when speaking in your broken Mandarin to them. Only like 20% of Locals can speak intermediate English and the rest simply just know individual words that they insert into their Cantonese. Of course with any country, there will be tons of mainland tourists who you can practice Mandarin with. But who in their right mind wants to go to a country, to speak to them in their 3rd language and really only can speak to tourists as the local's Mandarin will suck. Realistically, you're going to need to break some walls to stop getting broken English spoken back to you. Go to http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk will help and http://www.hkllc.com/ is a school which might help. However, we all know the benefits of schools. Honestly, I've never seen a foreigner speak awesome Cantonese in a short-time without a Cantonese speaking wife who only talks to them in Cantonese. For the people that tell people to learn Mandarin... please stop. Come live in Hong Kong for 5 years with the goal to learn Mandarin and you'll 100% fail to speak anything decent. Can't believe you want to talk to people's 3rd language which isn't even pleasant to listen with the heavy Cantonese accent on top of it. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| hkibanker Newbie Hong Kong Joined 5347 days ago 1 posts - 1 votes | Message 13 of 15 07 April 2010 at 5:15pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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If your are thinking to work as a solicitor/barrister in a city firm in Hong Kong, there is very little need to learn any Chinese at all. I have met many people working in city firms here without knowing how to greet others in Chinese. Hong Kong is a very special city that if you work in investment banking / banking you seldom need to speak Chinese or learn Chinese for your WORK.
It should be noted that the law written in Chinese back in Mainland China uses Chinese in a very different way from the British common-law tradition Chinese lawyers practising in Hong Kong. The legal traditions are very different between Mainland China and Hong Kong. The same words written in Chinese by Chinese lawyers practising in Hong Kong may mean totally another thing in the eyes of a Chinese lawyer practising PRC laws(maybe even wrong at all in the eyes of a PRC lawyer). So, if you think learning Mandarin may help you with legal practice in Hong Kong it may not be really the case……As Common Law is basically written in English, your native language is already enough to practise laws in a city firm enough. Chinese is not really a must. For some reasons I do not suggest people to go for the local firms(which you need to speak Chinese because the clients for local firms and city firms are very different, the former mainly from local Chinese-speaking people in general). If you want to work in compliance in an investment bank, again I seriously doubt whether you need to learn Chinese at all. Unless you work in a Chinese investment bank, it is highly likely that every document is written only in English…… 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| harveyh19 Tetraglot Newbie Hong Kong Joined 5671 days ago 2 posts - 4 votes Speaks: Mandarin, Cantonese*, English, Shanghainese Studies: French, German, Italian, Russian | Message 14 of 15 22 May 2010 at 8:37pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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It really depends on what you want.
As a HongKonger, I would like to play my part in defending my native language Cantonese :) It has nine tones compared with 4 in mandarin which makes it sound much more exciting and musical. IF YOU WANT TO BE A HONGKONGER, LEARN CANTONESE! not a single hongkonger speaks mandarin when talking to another hongkonger. if u want to know about hong kong's culture, make friends with locals, go for cantonese. and besides, although the government is promoting mandarin, hong kong people generally can only maintain a basic level of mandarin XD dont expect to get many chances to practice mandarin in the streets haha! and NO, WE DO APPRECIATE FOREIGNERS SPEAKING CANTONESE. personally, i have never met a tourist talking to me in cantonese, but if i really do see one, i would be very happy to see that someone has paid an effort to learn about my culture :) and i would be more than happy to help! as for the cantomania movie, i love it! although it isn't that true, many expats in HK tend not to learn cantonese and only spend time with other expats and not really trying to appreciate hk culture :( BUT, if you want to go for OTHER PARTS OF CHINA, go for mandarin, cantonese is not very widely used out of hong kong, macau and some parts of guangdong. i believe University of Hong Kong would have great mandarin and cantonese teachers :) and about chinese dialects, no, we dont use the same script.my native language is cantonese, i learn mandarin in school and i am raised in a shanghainese family so i speak three dialects. they are VERY DIFFERENT. they are almost mutually non intelligible! and we only use the same script if we write in the standard chinese form, in all dialects, there are slightly modified vocabulary and word orders. Good luck in learning Chinese! if you have 5 years here, i believe you can definitely make it! we all like it when someone appreciates our culture, right? you would get a lot of help from your classmates! after all, chinese is not that difficult if u are willing to learn it! 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| onebir Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 7165 days ago 487 posts - 503 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin | Message 15 of 15 23 May 2010 at 1:45am | IP Logged | ||||||||
I've visited Hong Kong about five times, and generally used Mandarin with Chinese HKers. I'd switch to English only if the other person wasn't comfortable in Mandarin, which was actually pretty rare in the under 50 age group. Even though it's their 3rd language, I found HKers extremely nice about speaking it. The OP isn't coming to HK with the primary goal of learning Mandarin - language is clearly a secondary goal. I think some influence from Cantonese would be unavoidable in HK, but this could be reduced by listening to a lot of standard Mandarin... I'm not sure 5 years would be enough to learn both versions well while studying a demanding degree course. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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