what's the best dialect to learn after mandarin?

[ever00t]

First of all,if any offence was made from me,i apologize.I didn't realize i was being arrogant ? Interesting.I just came out what i think,i was a bit direct now i see,forget it okay.

I just wanted to explain -->Most of Chinese in mainland of China do not understand Cantonese,meanwhile most of Chinese understand Mandarin just very fine,including people from Hongkong,Macao,Taiwan ...etc.

According to that,it's very understandable to kindly suggest foreign friends to learn Mandarin at first,learn,and give it a shot to perfect it, Isn't this hard to understand ?

Madarine is not only the appointed language in China officially,but also it's being used widely,this's the point and i took it.

It should be strange if a non-Chinese speaker is willing to dedicate most of time to learn Cantonese at first and hasn't a clue about Mandarin at all,it's incredible to me.

By the way,the common sense tells us that Taiwan people speak bad Mandarin compare to people from mainland of China,this will never going to be a topic.If you refuse to admit this i will be questioned why i had to spend time answering.

[ever00t]

agree with Ian. Arrogant it is.

You didn't have to be the echo of anybody.

[Ian_Lee]

ever00t:

There are many reasons to learn a foreign language. It doesn't depend on its popularity. If it merely depends on its popularity, then nobody will learn to speak less widely spoken languages like Vietnamese (but our fellow poster Pazu is currently learning).

I know someone who learn Japanese merely because he wants to understand the dialog in the manga (cartoon).

So maybe a fellow foreign poster knows a girlfriend who can speak Cantonese only.

Or maybe he dwells mostly in Chinatown which until today Cantonese is more widely used.

Or maybe he loves Stephen Chow's movies (like most of our posters from Mainland) and wants to watch his original Cantonese version (which is more funny).

So why discourage him/her?

[Quest]

what's the best dialect to learn after mandarin?

[pazu]

Another echo here, my friend, ever00t, arrogance betrays naive.

And I must say sometimes it's quite unbelievable for me to see how Chinese choose to learn a language based on the "popularity" only, regardless of the usefulness in a practical situation.

When I was in Pakistan, I've met a few Chinese (crystal hunters~) who went to Pakistan almost every year since 1995, every year they spend 4 months there, but they couldn't speak more Urdu than me, because they thought it wasn't of much use to speak this language (and they couldn't speak English too... no Chinese translators there, everything they needed, they signed~~~)

In Vietnam, I've met another Chinese medical doctor in Qui Nhon City, and he came to Viet Nam in 2000, and he spent only 2 months every year in China in the past 4 years. And still, amazingly, he couldn't speak better Vietnamese than me! (3 months of studying so far.) Again, he told me because he didn't plan to stay in Vietnam for long enough... he's a doctor, and he told me Chinese doctors could see and feel the problems by sight...

Some points in ever00t's post (like the 95% theory) is quite laughable.

[skylee]

By the way,the common sense tells us that Taiwan people speak bad Mandarin compare to people from mainland of China,this will never going to be a topic.If you refuse to admit this i will be questioned why i had to spend time answering.

!!

No, don't spend your time answering.

[ala]

In Shanghai, there are hundreds of thousands of people (nearly all non-Wu speakers) who have lived there for more than a decade, and can barely say a greeting in Shanghainese. You'd bet if I went to Guangzhou or Hong Kong and plan to live there for longer than 2 months, I'm going to TRY to learn Cantonese (being able to master it is a different thing though haha).

Here is a Chinese 外地人's journal (Wang Jianshuo):

I believe the first question jumping out when a foreigner decide to relocate to Shanghai is, should I learn some Chinese to survive there? The variation of the question for people who can speak Chinese is, should I learn some Shanghainese?

I Don't Speak Shanghainese

After living here for 9 years, I still cannot say simple words of Shanghainese. This is the case for most of friends who are not native. I am able to understand some Shanghainese. This happened after 3 or 4 years after I am here, since I didn't intentionally try to learn the language.

People Here Speak Shanghainese All the Time, But Not to Me

People here prefer to speak Shanghainese, as long as there is a chance. You can hear Shanghainese everywhere on the street. However, the good thing is, if they know you cannot understand Shanghainese, they will switch to Mandarin rapidly. I appreciate it.

No Shanghainese Radio Station

There is no Shanghainese Radio Station (so far as I know). The city is encouraging using mandarin as first language. Students are required to use mandarin at school so there is not many chances to learn the language. Everyone in the city (with higher education background) can speak mandarin.

Posted by Jian Shuo Wang at April 11, 2004 10:28 AM

What you notice is a sample of infinite-loop reasoning at the societal level:

Cannot communicate --> mere narrow dialect --> appreciate Mandarin usage, city accommodate --> lack of Shanghainese media outlets, no incentive, no opportunity to learn --> mere narrow dialect.

It never occurred to them of this straightforward option: Cannot communicate --> Learn Shanghainese.

[ever00t]

Quote:

what's the best dialect to learn after mandarin?

Back to the topic,thanks for reminding us,nevertheless this topic is never going to be an end.

The person who made this source will have to figure out the approximate answer from those aggressive posts,due to the fact that Chinese have a reputation for being territorial fighting.

If it was me,i'd just express what i think the most right to the Question,but not define anybody from their different point of views.

[ever00t]

!!

No, don't spend your time answering.

Sorry,but i think it's my rights to freely speak here,the bottom of line is we have to behave ourselves,not trying to insult anybody.

I didn't really want to answer you ,i was just an adrenergic exciting so i had to ,those to convince you that you will not going to say i'm not from a friendly nation.

Those who cannot tolerate different opinions from others,they themselves deep down are --> arrogant.

[Quest]

ever00t you are from beijing aren't you?

Ala, there has been a pattern for beijingers to demean and undermine everything non-beijingish. They did it so 理所当然ly too. and you can readily find them among the handful of beijingers on this forum.

[sunyata]

this is funny...

Chinese people just can't get along or what?

i think ever00t just misunderstood the topic...

while, as ever00t says, everyone should only learn Mandarin, he could greatly benefit from learning some more English...

[Ian_Lee]

The person who made this source will have to figure out the approximate answer from those aggressive posts,due to the fact that Chinese have a reputation for being territorial fighting.

Now it is back to politics.

Chinese have a reputation for being territorial fighting --except those taken by the Russians.

The unequal treaties like the Treaty of Aigun (1858) and the Convention of Peking (1860) which signed later than the Treaty of Nanking (1842) that ceded Hong Kong to Britain had given land as 4 times as big as France to Czarist Russia is still in the hands of Russia.

Moreover, there were 64 Chinese villages on the northern side of the Amur River (Heilongjiang) at Blagovenschensky which were under Chinese jurisdiction as stipulated in the 1860 Treaty were run over by the Cossacks in the Boxer Uprising and now still in Russia's hand.

Even after the 1991 border agreement Jiang signed in Moscow, there are still many islands in the Heilongjiang that were supposed to be given back to China are still unreturned yet.

So will any Chinese be willing to fight for those territories?

[sunyata]

I don't think ever00t and Ian-Lee are talking about the same thing...

it seems to me ever00t meant the territorial conflict between china / hk / taiwan, while Ian_Lee is talking about western imperialism

but the desire to argue is always strong...who will win this time and reassure himself of the ultimate superiority of his ego? will be very interesting to find out....

[ala]

What ever00t is talking about is regionalism, not territorial infighting. I've never heard of a Southern Chinese caring much about the land in Dongbei.

[pazu]

Seems like Southerners care about Diaoyu Island these days.

[skylee]

Seems like Southerners care about Diaoyu Island these days.

Hear hear. This is what I wanted to say.

[wushijiao]

Ala-

Your post is well taken. However....for us waidiren and waiguoren that know putonghua and live in Shanghai, my question is: is it at all realistic to learn Wu?

First, let's assume that to learn a language to at least a conversational level, it will take at least 100-500 hours of studying. In other words, a huge time commitment.

Second, let's say that everybody you want to speak with already knows a language that you know, in this case putonghua.

So, you have a situation that is like trying to learn Dutch or some other Scandanavian language. The main obstacle is that almost everyone already knows English. In Shanghai, people may not know English, but they are eager to improve the spoken English they do have. And I've found, that most people generally know putonghua as well. So when I talk to a young Shanghairen, he or she might find my few words of Shanghaihua cute and funny. But if we really want to say something, we'll end up using the language in which we can mutually express ourselves best.

Anyway, back to the original question. I'd bet Cantonese would be the most feasible, mainly because:

1) the importance of the Cantonese media

2) people would be more likely to not no putonghua (although I'm not sure about that)

[pazu]

It depends on how much you like languages, it's always easy to learn only one or two languages and go around, but the level of understanding, and the respect you gained, can be very different. The latter point is indeed rather important in many communities too.

My British teacher who had been in Hong Kong for 25 years, and always said how much he loved Hong Kong, somehow he couldn't speak any Cantonese phrases (or maybe he just didn't want to speak Cantonese to us?). The first response of me when I heard that, was that he didn't really like Hong Kong, or he must be a dumb person.

Cantonese (Hong Kong or Guangzhou, or Overseas) people and Shanghainese people seem to have one thing in common, when they speak to each other, they speak in their own dialect.

I can speak fluent Mandarin, but when I was in Lijiang Old Town me and some other 7 Hong Kongers, plus one girl from Sichuan, went to a restaurant together. At first all of the 8 Hong Kongers spoke in Mandarin Chinese (with different fluencies though) just because there was one Sichuanese girl who didn't know anything about Cantonese... you see the situation is pretty hard for us, refrained ourselves from speaking a common and comfortable language for one person's sake only.

Then the situation changed a little bit, somebody who couldn't think of a single phrase in Mandarin began to speak some Cantonese, with response in Cantonese too, the conversation quickly turned into an almost full-Cantonese one.

While I was sitting next to the girl, I thought it was my responsibility to talk to her in Mandarin, sometimes I had to struggle to refrain myself from chatting with other friends and just talking to her, she was pretty but she was also much older than me... okay this is not the point, the point is, even if I can speak fluent Mandarin, I found it more comfortable to speak in Cantonese. I can speak a few languages, but I always think when I die the last word I breath out should be in Cantonese. If you want people to talk to you in their second tongue, you'll lose something (if I had said that I would give you all my money when I died, you just couldn't understand!).

If I go to SHanghai, definitely I'll try to learn Shanghainese (I've learnt some but without much success because I don't have a Shanghainese girlfriend, and I have been to Shanghai 3 times only...)

[calibre2001]

Pazu,

I perfectly agree with you about not being as comfortable with your 2nd language as your first. Somehow, the thought of HKers communicating to HKers in Mandarin is just weird, generally speaking. It takes away that innate sense of familiarity and comfort. The same goes for different communities around the world.

I can only imagine how that sichuan girl felt: absolutely lost and somewhat shitty. Its good and noble of you to try to dispel that uncomfortable feeling she must have felt.

Anyway, to the original threadstarter, my vote goes to Cantonese. It will complement Mandarin extremely well since you'll then stand a better chance of tapping into the canto-speaking world. Of course, if you're in Taiwan, Shanghai, etc , try to pick up the local dialect too.

[Lu]

Ehm, Dutch is NOT a Scandinavian language.

But that was not the point.

If you're living, or plan to live, in a certain place, it would be most useful to learn the dialect of that place. If you don't know yet, I think Cantonese would be the most useful second Chinese language to learn, as it is widely spoken all over the world, and many of the speakers don't know Mandarin.

But I don't think learning the local dialect is vital. Of course it's nice if, for example, you can speak some Shanghainese when you're living in Shanghai, but still, it's a dialect, not the official language. Everyone there speaks Mandarin, so there's not really a need to learn the dialect. There's no radio station in Shanghainese, no books, no schooling, etc. Knowing some Mandarin is necessary, knowing the local dialect is extra.