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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| victor Tetraglot Moderator United States Joined 7119 days ago 1098 posts - 1056 votes  6 sounds Speaks: Cantonese*, English, FrenchC1, Mandarin Studies: Spanish Personal Language Map | Message 17 of 22 22 June 2005 at 4:53pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Shusaku, there was a very well written review about Cantonese. You must have put a lot of time and effort into it. How have you come to know so much about Cantonese?
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| Shusaku Senior Member United States Joined 6901 days ago 145 posts - 157 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin, Cantonese, Japanese | Message 18 of 22 22 June 2005 at 6:31pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Thanks, victor. I started studying on and off about a year and a half ago after marrying a native Cantonese speaker. About 8 months ago I decided to get serious about Cantonese in preparation for a trip to southern China to meet my wife's family. After many amazing experiences during our trip, I've continued my study and typically put in 2-3 hours every day. Unfortunately, my level of Cantonese is still much lower than where I'd like it to be, but I do feel that I have a good overall knowledge of the language and hopefully my skills will continue to improve with time and practice.
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| vincenthychow Tetraglot Senior Member Hong Kong Joined 6905 days ago 136 posts - 145 votes Speaks: Cantonese, English, GermanB1, Japanese Studies: French | Message 19 of 22 23 June 2005 at 11:07am | IP Logged | |||||
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Shusaku, you've got a very good condition on learning. You have a native speaking wife~!
Spoken cantonese, as well as madarin, is some how difficult just because it is tonal. If you can get accustomed to the tone, and be able to discriminate the tones, you will soon master it. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| epingchris Triglot Senior Member Taiwan shih-chuan.blog.ntu. Joined 6829 days ago 273 posts - 284 votes 5 sounds Studies: Taiwanese, Mandarin*, English, FrenchB2 Studies: Japanese, German, Turkish | Message 20 of 22 29 August 2005 at 6:25am | IP Logged | |||||
No it¡¦s not. ^^ I¡¦ve been using Chinese for 15 years, as my native language, and I haven¡¦t seen one text, simplified or traditional, written with the words separated. And actually, sometimes it¡¦s hard to tell whether certain groups of characters are words or not.
It¡¦s impossible to understand a dialect of Chinese without learning it, even if you¡¦re a native speaker of Mandarin; dialects of Chinese are NOT intelligible. Learning Taiwanese or Cantonese is not as simple as just ¡§changing the sound according to the pattern, and learn the fundamental words¡¨. It¡¦s another language de facto, and you have to put in as much effort as a native Spanish speaker would for learning French. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| victor Tetraglot Moderator United States Joined 7119 days ago 1098 posts - 1056 votes 6 sounds Speaks: Cantonese*, English, FrenchC1, Mandarin Studies: Spanish Personal Language Map | Message 21 of 22 29 August 2005 at 2:52pm | IP Logged | |||||
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You're overestimating the effort you need. Most people in Hong Kong can speak a mutilated form of Mandarin, which is comprehensible (mostly) to native speakers, and these people have never learned it. Many Mandarin-speaking people can learn accented forms of Cantonese in a matter of months, are even weeks!
All I'm saying is that there are patterns between the sound system, and there are dialects that are intelligible in some ways. A much much better comparison would be Portuguese to Spanish. There are also varying degrees of differences between dialect and Mandarin. Cantonese and Southern Hokkien (Minnan) are the furthest away, but others are much closer than the Spanish vs. Portuguese gap. And when you learn the "fundamental words" and the sound correlations, you are learning. Edited by victor on 29 August 2005 at 7:28pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| epingchris Triglot Senior Member Taiwan shih-chuan.blog.ntu. Joined 6829 days ago 273 posts - 284 votes 5 sounds Studies: Taiwanese, Mandarin*, English, FrenchB2 Studies: Japanese, German, Turkish | Message 22 of 22 30 August 2005 at 1:29am | IP Logged | |||||
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I think if there's a place where French and Spanish are both used in common life, the French speakers can learn Spanish that fast as well, and vice versa. That's the situation in Hong Kong, but less so in Taiwan, so I think my judgement also has something to do with the scciety in which I live.
There are dialects that are intelligible, yes, I agree, I should have stated it more clearly: at least the main dialect that most people talk about (Mandarin, Taiwanese, Cantonese) are not intelligible, but a person from Guangzhou may be able to communicate with another from Hong Kong even if they don't necessarily speak the same dialect. Of course, after you know a dialect of Chinese, to learn the others will be relatively easy, and I believe that it can be learned in weeks with efforts put in. But there's much difference between dialect than just fundamental words. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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