Cantonese then Mandarin

[bchang]

I just started learning Cantonese and am sometime going to start learning Mandarin im just wondering if I could learn both of them together and would Mandarin be easier after Cantonese?

[nephridium]

Definitely. Actually Cantonese is harder to learn than Mandarin for an English speaker. It has more tones and a wider range of phonemes (sounds). Once you have the Cantonese tonal system down it shouldn't be too hard to learn the Mandarin one.

Furthermore Cantonese usually goes with the more complex traditional characters, so knowing those will ease learning the simplified ones later on as well.

The element easiest to transfer should be the Grammar, there are only minor differences between the dialects.

[somedude]

When I learned mandarin, I felt I was constricted in the sense that there were many slang type terms in cantonese that just doesnt exist in mandarin. However, there does seem to be a lot more order and structure in the mandarin language which makes remember it a lot easier. I'd suggest learning mandarin first simply because there's more learning resources out there.

[Quest]

However, there does seem to be a lot more order and structure in the mandarin language which makes remember it a lot easier.

Is that true? How?

[HashiriKata]

Is that true? How?

It may look that way because there has been more work done on Mandarin than on Cantonese. This view (= "Mandarin has more order & structure") is re-inforced if you approach Mandarin formally (via formal education), and Cantonese informally (through relatives, friends, etc.), as is often the case.

[somedude]

Well, when learning mandarin you can go by the book. But when speaking cantonese you rarely talk as you write. Hence creating cantonese style writing which isnt widely used among chinese people. Having to learn one style of chinese writing is hard enough let alone both.

[wannabeafreak]

When I learned mandarin, I felt I was constricted in the sense that there were many slang type terms in cantonese that just doesnt exist in mandarin. However, there does seem to be a lot more order and structure in the mandarin language which makes remember it a lot easier. I'd suggest learning mandarin first simply because there's more learning resources out there.

I think this is ridiculous what you are saying.

Your choice of either Mandarin or Cantonese should NOT be based on the fact there is more resources out there. What rubbish are you on about?

It doesn't matter if there is 10,000 learning books for Mandarin and 500 learning books for Cantonese, you only need 1 or 2 good books to learn it effectively. There are several excellent books for Cantonese learners and an excellent forum too.

What are you talking about more order and structure? In Cantonese i can't simply do free-style gibberish mixing and matching random words together to make a sentence. There are rules and grammar that need to be followed exactly in order to speak properly.

The choice of which language to learn should be a factor of environment, opportunity and resources.

Referring back to BChang. I tried learning both and failed - Cantonese is more useful. Also the rubbish people say that there are 1+ billion mainlanders so Mandarin is more useful is trash IMO. For me I'm never going to speak to 1+ billion people, and I only ever go to GZ or HK. Especially when only ~50% of them can't even speak it. I have no desire to spend years learning Mandarin for the rare opportunties to use it. You have to consider your goals. Cantonese to me is much more important. I rather speak 1 langauge fluently/correctly instead of 2 languages poorly. The time involved to acquire the language is enormous. There is only 24 hours per day and you have to balance your life with inside this restriction.

Learning the language requires vocabulary and plenty of it. My wife who did ALL her education in Cantonese in Hong Kong. In addition studied it as a subject in Hong Kong for 10+ years. She can read and write Chinese. She said there was only a small carry over from Cantonese into Mandarin. She also now finds no opportunity to maintain her Mandarin as everyone she knows speaks Cantonese.

Though it took her 3 years of 8 hours per day in Australia to learn to speak Mandarin fluently on all topics. This actually caused problems with English learning, so imagine for her learning 2 languages at the same time within the environment. In Australia, Chinese like to make communities and only intergrate with their own people. So there was a perfect Mandarin environment and a perfect English Environment outside this group.

If it normally takes people 3-4 years full-time study to learn Mandarin or Cantonese fluently within the right environment, then learning both together means that it will take you twice as long (8-10 years?) because you need to split your hours per day into 2 segments and you have a life to live. I'm sure you can't study 7 years full-time. Then if you learn part-time, it will take even longer again.

[bchang]

Wow thanks alot Wbaf and the rest for your great responces. I was only looking at learning Mandarin because im in Toronto and there is great war beginning between the Cantonese and the Mandarin, but I know forsure that Cantonese is priority because im really never going to go to the Mainland and my fathers family is from the HK so I feel that thats first. Maybe someday ill try and do some Mandarin but for now im sticking with Cantonese. Plus my teacher is really good so im set.

[somedude]

Coming from a cantonese background, I found learning cantonese through textbooks to be complicated. For example, this sentence 对我而言，说话是很容易的， made absolutely no sense to me because people just dont talk like this. Now imagine a whole newspaper filled with sentences like these that need translation. I'll have to admit though that deciding to learn mandarin or cantonese is highly dependent on where you live. However, if you lived on a dessert island and had the choice to learn chinese knowing you would use it when you left the island, I would suggest learning mandarin first. I noticed this post has went off on some wild tangent so I'll keep my comments brief

Yes there is structure to chinese believe it or not. Try writing real cantonese to some chinese person and see if they know what in the world you're talking about. Chances are if they're not cantonese, they wont be able to decipher it.

Anyways, since you've already started learning cantonese you should stick with it. Once you start learning mandarin, you'll notice that you can write sentences down that you can actually say out loud and people will understand you. ...and yes I know cantonese can be read aloud too....

[atitarev]

Things to consider for learning Mandarin vs Cantonese at present:

Mandarin exists in both written formal and informal, both spoken formal and informal.

Cantonese spoken exists in both formal and informal form

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Cantonese

but with the written Cantonese:

Formal written Cantonese doesn't exists, as far as I know - formal Chinese is standard Mandarin if it (the formal document) is read aloud it could be read 1) in Cantonese syllables using the same sentence structure 2) In Cantonese modifying the word order and words used (you may get different number and order of syllables) and some syllables pronounced using the Cantonese counterpart (cognates). 3) In Mandarin, since that is the fromal written language for all Chinese.

Informal Cantonese text contains some Cantonese specific characters, so it's actually written what is pronounced, but its usage is limited and there are not so many resources.

Cantonese is more a spoken language/dialect, since its written form was never formalised.

The natural conclusion is to start with Mandarin, if you want to learn to read Chinese texts. Some Cantonese textbooks should also mention the formal usage, not just colloquials in my opinion.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Written_Cantonese

[flameproof]

bchang

First question would be what you want to learn? For sure speaking I guess. How about reading and writing (which I consider seperate issues)?

You can learn the spoken languages together. However, to learn simplified and traditional written script together sounds very tough to me. But in your case, you may not need written script at all.

[cBrammer]

I lived in HK or several years with only chinese people, and so my first chinese dialect was Cantonese. I do love the slang of cantonese.... there is a flow to it that I cant quite seem to feel in mandarin...perhaps it is the superfluous ending particals! but hey, i love it.

Anyway, Canontese was a beast to master. And to be honest, I havent met many white people that speak it better than me, and I still don't consider myself to be a "master" of the language. It takes continual learning for decades.

Learning mandarin from cant.... that is what I am doing now, I am a mand. major, and I am picking it up way faster than everyone else, but my sounds still have some residual cantonese in them, and my tones get mixed up with cantonese tones, but it is much easier to learn Mand with my Cant background. Hope that helps!