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Target language diglossia & registers | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages |  | |
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5576 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes  Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 1 of 6 21 June 2009 at 8:10pm | IP Logged | ||
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What do you do to acquire the different registers of your target languages as an active language skill? And for those of you who this applies to you, how do you deal with diglossia? Is there any material available in the vernacular dialect of your target language, or only for the prestige dialect?
Though I want to learn Cantonese, I decided to learn Mandarin Chinese first. Once I'm reasonably fluent in Mandarin, I plan to pick up spoken Cantonese plus the Cantonese pronunciation of Vernacular Chinese. (I started to like Mandarin and it's definitely useful, so it isn't a stupid idea for me to go this way.) Would you do the same? What approach would or did you choose? Edited by Bao on 21 June 2009 at 8:11pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| RBenham Triglot Groupie IndonesiaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5453 days ago 60 posts - 62 votes Speaks: English*, German, French Studies: Indonesian | Message 2 of 6 22 June 2009 at 11:31pm | IP Logged | ||
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I speak from the unassailable position of not speaking a word of either, but I believe that Cantonese and Mandarin are mutually unintelligible and are in fact separate languages by any criterion. Also, if you want to learn standard Cantonese (it has its own prestige dialect), I believe that adequate materials are available.
If your objective really were to learn Cantonese, starting with Mandarin would make about as much sense as starting with Basque. If learning Mandarin is part of the plan, it is not stupid to learn it, but it is certainly not a stepping-stone, except in the written language (even there there are differences). In general, in situations of diglossia between a local and a prestige dialect of the same language there is not much you can do other than to learn the standard language and then spend time in the area where the dialect is spoken. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5576 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 3 of 6 22 June 2009 at 11:53pm | IP Logged | ||
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Oh, no, sorry for that misunderstanding. I am referring to the still relatively widespread usage of Vernacular Chinese/Written Standard Mandarin in Cantonese.
wiki:Written Cantonese ... but I also am the kind of person who deliberately chose to learn Latin in school to later be able to get a deeper understanding of the whole Romance language family And there is more to my reasoning, plus I want to learn Mandarin for itself. Maybe it would be better to use Standard Arabic and the Arab dialects as an example, as I'm not really concerned about myself, but wanted to know how other people deal with diglossia situations or just with deliberately acquiring registers of one language that are very different from each other. Edited by Bao on 22 June 2009 at 11:55pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ILuvEire Diglot Newbie United States iluveire.wordpress.cRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5445 days ago 26 posts - 26 votes Speaks: English*, Sign Language Studies: Esperanto, Italian, Arabic (Written), Danish, Japanese | Message 4 of 6 23 June 2009 at 1:42pm | IP Logged | ||
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Blech, I dislike dialects, but at the same time I love them.
With Italian, there are tons of "dialects," but most of them are really actual languages. With Japanese, I'm learning the standard Tokyo dialect, but as most of the natives I talk to are from Osaka, I pick up a lot of Kansai vocabulary. And don't even get me started with Arabic. I plan to learn standard Arabic for a year or so, then jump into Gulf Arabic. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| pfwillard Pro Member United States Joined 5509 days ago 169 posts - 205 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French Personal Language Map | Message 5 of 6 24 June 2009 at 10:45pm | IP Logged | ||
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Vernacular Chinese is a formal register of Mandarin used for official business and newspapers.
I think you have the right idea to learn Mandarin because it will get you around everywhere in China at least among people who have some schooling. When you find a place you want to live, then learn the local dialect. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5576 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 6 of 6 24 June 2009 at 11:10pm | IP Logged | ||
That basically was my reasoning. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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