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Mandarin, Cantonese, or Taiwanese | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| tackada Newbie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5850 days ago 2 posts - 2 votes Speaks: English* | Message 1 of 9 29 November 2008 at 10:16pm | IP Logged | ||
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Ok so, I've decided to make my first language Mandarin Chinese. I was just wondering in Taiwan do they speak Mandarin or Minnuan Hua? Also, how closely related are Cantonese and Mandarin? Help is appreaciated, thanks. :]
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| Alkeides Senior Member Bhutan Joined 6154 days ago 636 posts - 644 votes  | Message 2 of 9 30 November 2008 at 12:02am | IP Logged | ||
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They speak Mandarin in Taiwan, but most people can also speak Taiwanese (Minnan) which is however spoken usually only in informal occasions; older people might prefer speaking Taiwanese in most situations though, some do speak Japanese as well actually, if they were educated before the Japanese left the island.
Cantonese and Mandarin are about as related as French and Romanian (or Sardinian) or maybe Russian and a more distant Slavic cousin (maybe Czech? Sorbian?). They share many cognates but the basic vocabulary can be very different; their phonologies are very different as well so cognates are not immediately recognisable. Cantonese and Minnan are just about as different from each other as each is from Mandarin. The written baihua standard is officially the same for all dialects, being based on the Beijing guanhua (official speech) of the beginning of the century, however linguistically, the grammars differ substantially. There are some publications of Cantonese as it is written by natives in Hong Kong using Chinese characters (which include some specific to Hong Kong Cantonese), I'm not sure about Minnan in Taiwan but I think there are some publications in the Romanized orthography originally produced by missionaries. The French-Romanian example is quite suitable, IMO. Romanian is quite conservative among the modern Romance languages in terms of phonology (though not as much as Sardinian) and grammar. It's basic vocab however, has absorbed many words from the Slavic languages and the Dacian substratum. In the same way, Cantonese is conservative in having preserved the final consonantal stops and the rimes of Tang dynasty Chinese, but its basic vocab has received influence from the substratum languages now pushed down to Yunnan. Both areas were among the last areas settled by the respective empires which spread their languages, Latin for the Roman Empire, and Middle Chinese for the Sui and Tang dynasties. Edited by Alkeides on 30 November 2008 at 12:17am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| tackada Newbie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5850 days ago 2 posts - 2 votes Speaks: English* | Message 3 of 9 30 November 2008 at 11:19am | IP Logged | ||
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Thank you so much! So I think that if I decided to go to Taiwan with knowledge of Mandarin I could survive. I don't mean to bombard you with questions, but I'm new. What is with Simplified and Traditional? If I were to learn one would the other come easily? Thank you for your troubles.
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| roy2005 Diglot Groupie Hong Kong Joined 6556 days ago 70 posts - 75 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English Studies: Spanish, Portuguese, German | Message 4 of 9 30 November 2008 at 12:03pm | IP Logged | ||
Simply speaking, they are different sets of characters (i.e. you can say that each one Chinese character has two versions). The simplified characters were introduced in recent decades and each has fewer strokes than their traditional counterparts. Note that the simplified characters are mainly used in mainland China, while Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau generally use the traditional ones. After learning either one, you will still need some time to study the other set, since they can sometimes be quite different. On a separate note, I'd add that Mandarin and Cantonese are mutually unintelligible when spoken. Edited by roy2005 on 30 November 2008 at 12:07pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 Hencke Tetraglot Moderator Spain Joined 6900 days ago 2340 posts - 2444 votes Speaks: Swedish*, Finnish, EnglishC2, Spanish Studies: Mandarin Personal Language Map | Message 5 of 9 30 November 2008 at 6:34pm | IP Logged | ||
Not each one, it's only around 30 per cent of them where the simplified form is different from the traditional. Learning simplified vs. traditional, or both, was discussed recently, in this thread. Edited by Hencke on 30 November 2008 at 6:35pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| sotong Newbie Australia Joined 5834 days ago 9 posts - 12 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Indonesian, Mandarin, Polish | Message 6 of 9 10 December 2008 at 5:39am | IP Logged | ||
Yes, this is true, but perhaps "survive" is the wrong word. I would like to stress that Mandarin is much more essential to your survival in Taiwan than is Taiwanese (or Hoklo or whatever you wish to call it.) Whilst in Taiwan, I only met a handful of people who didn't speak Mandarin, all of whom were in rural or semi-rural locations. In urban areas, such as Taipei, many people still understand the language, but younger people are sometimes less comfortable speaking it. Most importantly, there is a significant number of Mainlander immigrants to Taiwan who usually can't speak Taiwanese. Most public service announcements and the like are in Mandarin. Also, as you've no doubt noticed, there is a dearth of resources for learning Hoklo... you would find it much easier to learn Mandarin. I gather that your mind is already headed in that direction anyway! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| honkanen Newbie Canada Joined 5828 days ago 6 posts - 6 votes | Message 8 of 9 16 December 2008 at 5:46pm | IP Logged | ||
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I was living in Taiwan for a little over a year and was studying Mandarin part-time at a University there while teaching English. I heard Mandarin everywhere. The only difference that I actually encountered between mainland China and Taiwan language was their "romanization" technique. In China, it's pin-yin and in Taiwan it's a series of ~25 chracters called BoPoMoFo.
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