Learning Mandarin as a prequel to Cantonese

[Churada]

My girlfriend is Cantonese and would dearly love me to be able to chat with me in her native language as would I of course.

Problem is, locally there are no Cantonese courses, only Mandarin, which she also speaks and reckons it's a good starting point.

Given that Cantonese is mainly written using the traditional form , would I be better off focusing my attention on learning that too?

Seems like the obvious answer should be to learn traditional I guess, but then again she tells me that street signs and the main newspapers etc over there are all written in simplified form so I'm a bit hesitant about committing to traditional when the payback is going to be pretty much in the long term.

Sorry for starting another simplified vs traditional topic!

[imron]

If you don't need structured classes, you could always check out the FSI Cantonese course. It's a bit dated, but still probably very useful and would give you a good base to start from.

[anonymoose]

If your aim is to also be able to speak Mandarin, then starting from Mandarin is a good idea. But if your only purpose is to use Mandarin as a stepping stone towards Cantonese, then it's not worth the effort. They are two separate languages, and therefore, you would be better off going for Cantonese right from the beginning.

Also, note that, save for a small amount of informal material, Cantonese is not a written language. The argument between traditional and simplified characters is not about language, but rather about geography. Hong Kong and Taiwan use traditional characters (for Mandarin), whereas the mainland uses simplified. The reason that Cantonese is often written in traditional characters is simply that this material tends to originate from Hong Kong. However, Cantonese could just as well be written using simplified characters (plus the characters that are specific to Cantonese). Nevertheless, the only place you are likely to find such Cantonese is on a few websites. So if you wish to learn written Chinese, you will have to really learn Mandarin, and in this case, your choice of whether to learn traditional or simplified characters should be based on where you are likely to spend your time (Hong Kong or mainland). Since from your post it sounds like your girlfriend originates from the mainland, then I'd suggest you learn simplified characters. In any case, once you have mastered one set of characters, it isn't a big task to become acquainted with the other.

[anon6969]

If there aren't any Cantonese classes, then go for a Mandarin one.

She speaks Mandarin too, so you'll be able to practice/speak with her.

It will give you a good introduction into Chinese generally.

You can always move on to/change to Cantonese later.

The course will give you a good grounding and better understanding of Chinese generally, which are applicable to both Mandarin and Cantonese.

[mikehiranuma]

1. My girlfriend is Cantonese and would dearly love me to be able to chat with me in her native language

2 street signs and the main newspapers etc over there are all written in simplified form

First off, being able to talk with your girlfriend in her native language comes WAY before being able to read street signs. In Hong Kong (where Cantonese is spoken), from what I hear, most the street signs are in English anyways (because of the former British occupation). Since your GF didn't say anything about that, I am assuming her (or her parents) is from Canton province, but not necessarily Hong Kong.

If you want to learn Cantonese, don't avoid learning it just because no courses are available. I would suggest, if there isn't a course available in your area for Cantonese, you use the "All Japanese All the Time" method for learning it, which is basically immersing yourself in the language.

Anyways, I am assuming you want to learn Mandarin. Unless you want to go to Taiwan, do yourself a favor and learn the simplified.As far as I know, traditional characters are only used primarily in hong kong when it comes to mainland China. Do you really want to learn thousands of characters that you can only use in ONE city (in mainland China, that is). Some people learn traditional for cultural reasons, however, reading street signs seems way more about communication than cultural. Heck, if it really bothers you that much, just learn both forms.

In any case, to conclude, it looks like you want to learn Chinese for communication in Main Land China, not for living in hong kong, or studying ancient Chinese culture. So, in the name of communication, learn simplified characters, and standard Mandarin.

[sebhk]

If your girlfriend is from or lives in mainland China then go for Mandarin. (I assume she is, because you mentioned that the signs and newspapers "over there" are in simplified Chinese). Especially if you consider staying/living in mainland China some time in the future.

However, if your girlfriend is from Hong Kong, then definitely go for Cantonese, because Mandarin is and will likely remain quite useless there.

Mandarin and Cantonese appear to be very different at first sight, but actually they also have a lot in common. For example, the grammar is quite similar and many sentence patterns used in Mandarin are also used in Cantonese (with different pronunciation of course). Also, there is some regularity in the pronunciation differences. For example, words that are pronounced with the second tone in Mandarin, are usually pronounced with the fourth tone in Cantonese. So knowing Mandarin helps a bit when learning Cantonese (and vice versa), because you'll come across some familiar stuff. And you can learn Cantonese much faster compared to starting from scratch. The main issue is that you can not learn Cantonese as it is really spoken from slang-free classes, text books, and dictionaries.

Edited November 19, 2008 at 04:48 AM by sebhk

[renzhe]

The simplified vs. traditional is not really an issue, see the last couple of pages of this thread. If you have mastered simplified, you can become proficient enough in traditional with relatively small effort, and the other way around.

The main issue with learning Chinese is that it will take a commitment over several years, it's not something you just pick up. So first decide how serious you are about this. Learning a few sentences for fun is easy, but really talking to your girlfriend will take months for simple conversations and years if you want to really talk. You say that "your girlfriend wants you to talk to her in her mother tongue", but you can only learn Chinese (any dialect) if YOU really want it.

If you decide that you're serious, you should decide what your goal is. If your goal is to chat to your girlfriend and her family, and some Cantonese friends, I would recommend trying to pick up spoken Cantonese from her and other people, get HK movies, stuff like that, and forget reading/writing. This will probably be the easiest way to get there.

The problem with reading/writing is that Cantonese is not really a written language (there are some exceptions). The written material, in Hong Kong, the Cantonese-speaking mainland, and abroad is overwhelmingly written in vernacular Chinese, which is essentially Mandarin (this can be written in either simplified or traditional). You can read the characters using Cantonese pronunciation, but the grammar, the vocabulary (which characters and how they're used together), etc. are all from Mandarin. Therefore you'll be learning Cantonese grammar for speaking/listening and Mandarin grammar for reading/writing, which is a lot more work.

So, if your goal is to actually learn Chinese, and be able to read the books, newspapers, street signs, etc. Mandarin is probably a better starting point. It will be more useful for you (you can use it everywhere in China and Taiwan except Hong Kong and Macau) and it will also be a more gentle introduction because it is easier in terms of tones. If your girlfriend is from the Cantonese-speaking Mainland (as opposed to Hong Kong), this would make even more sense. The Cantonese-speaking Mainlenders I've met were basically bilingual and could speak Cantonese and Mandarin equally well. Once you become proficient at this, you could try to pick up spoken Cantonese from her, from movies, common friends, family, etc, and it would probably be easier.

[Churada]

Thanks for all the comments, its fascinating reading the reasoning and advice.

She's from Guangzhou in Guangdong and while she speaks Cantonese to her friends and family says she's perfectly happy speaking Mandarin too if the need arises.

I haven't visited her family over there yet and i think I'd like not too appear as the buffoon westerner that cant even find his way to the train station on his own.

I'm dying to explore all over the country myself and she's happy if i bring her with me so I guess Mandarin it will be.

I'm encouraged that many here are of the opinion that learning traditional is not as hard as starting out learning simplified, I had previously thought the two systems were like chalk and cheese to be honest.

In time I do intend to learn Cantonese of course as I see her as possibly the "one"..again I'm glad that some here seemed to have already mastered both and that's encouraging!

In the coming months no doubt i'll be testing out my written here!

Thanks again.

[ipsi()]

Yeah, simplified and traditional have a few hundred characters that are different, but the majority are the same, and many differ only by the radical or some other easily identifiable component, so it's not hard to get a basic grasp.

On the subject of learning Cantonese, I know this is getting a bit off-topic, but I can't really fathom how you could learn a language without being able to read it or otherwise study it visually. My mind just rebels at the thought of having to learn something solely by listening. I guess some people can do it, but the though just seems so strange to me .

[anonymoose]

I can't really fathom how you could learn a language without being able to read it or otherwise study it visually

You can study it visually. Cantonese can be written, both in characters and romanisation. As a study aid, there is no problem here. The issue is that, in real-life usage, Cantonese is not frequently written, so being able to read/write in Cantonese is not a particularly useful skill. I cannot imagine anyone trying to learn to write a dialect without at least learning Mandarin first. On the other hand, learning oral Cantonese would be perfectly possible, using a (romanised) written form only as a study aid. When it comes to learning dialects, however, one big problem is the lack of resources. In this regard, Cantonese is probably at an advantage over other dialects, for which resources are either severely limited, or completely non-existant.

[self-taught-mba]

On the subject of learning Cantonese, I know this is getting a bit off-topic, but I can't really fathom how you could learn a language without being able to read it or otherwise study it visually. My mind just rebels at the thought of having to learn something solely by listening. I guess some people can do it, but the though just seems so strange to me

Yay! Let's revisit the characters aren't phonetic topics.

[Lu]

It will give you a good introduction into Chinese generally.

You can always move on to/change to Cantonese later.

This sounds a bit like 'You can start with learning Swedish and then move on to Dutch later on'. If you want to learn Cantonese, don't start out with Mandarin, just start out with Cantonese.

Good luck with your studies!

[renzhe]

I think a better analogy is (Castillian) Spanish - Catalan.

If you had a partner from Barcelona, which one would you learn first?

[trien27]

Guangzhou/Kwangchow is a city, not a province. Kwangchow/Guangzhou is a part of Guangdong / Kwangtung province.

"Canton" was the French mistranslation of Guangdong/Kwangtung, but they got confused and used it for Guangzhou/Kwangchow. Later on, the British followed suit and called Guangzhou/Kwangchow by the name of "Canton", and so the name got stuck in English.

[Chinese Learner]

I don't think this is a good idea.

I never 'formally' learnt Cantonese but I lived in Hong Kong for many years and my Mum is HK Chinese so I can speak Cantonese and I can really hear it when someone is not from HK.

When I hear a beifang ren (Northern Chinese) speak Cantonese, I can hear immediately that they are not from Canton just from their accent and intonation. I can also even tell when someone is or isn't from HK or Guangdong, just by their accent and intonation.

Learning one will make it difficult to learn the other I feel (in my opinion!)

Also being able to speak Cantonese is really playing havoc with my ability to learn and remember Putonghua tones (especially the fourth tone) so I would feel the reverse is true and I would not recommend using one dialect to learn the other, as they are very different in the use of tones and speech rhythms!

[anonymoose]

Also being able to speak Cantonese is really playing havoc with my ability to learn and remember Putonghua tones (especially the fourth tone) so I would feel the reverse is true and I would not recommend using one dialect to learn the other, as they are very different in the use of tones and speech rhythms!

I can identify with that, since I find the same thing happening to a certain extent when I speak Shanghainese. Nevertheless, I think the advantages of knowing Mandarin first outweigh the disadvantages. I can't really imagine how it would be possible practically to learn Shanghainese without having a grounding in Mandarin, unless, for example, you had a very patient girlfriend/boyfriend/husband/wife to teach you. Perhaps the original poster is lucky in this respect.

[HashiriKata]

Whether it's good or bad effect tolearn two similar languages together depends on how good you're already with one before starting the other. If you've already got a firm grounding in one, that will make it easier to learn the other. But if you don't and start both roughly at the same time, that'll be more likely to confuse you. I'm just stating a general rule, there may be exceptions.

[wushijiao]

I basically agree with everything that's been said.

The only other point I'd make is, if you are going to really get invloved with your girlfriend and her family, maybe moving there, or spending good time with your (perhaps future) in-laws, that exposure is very valuable from a "picking up the language" point of view. You might want to ask, what language do they speak when they are amongst themselves? My guess is that it is Cantonese. If that is the case, they might be able to speak to you in Mandarin, but 99% of their conversations amongst themselves would be in Cantonese. From that point of view, learning Cantonese might be your best bet. Getting to a high degree of proficiency in any language is often about finding the right socio-linguistic environment that you can fit yourself into, and so it might not be wise to study Mandarin if you end up finding yourself in a wonderful environment for learning Cantonese. (I say this as a person who has spent many days and weeks over the years chatting and listening to in-laws, not to mention my wife, all of which helped reinforce the language I was/am learning, Mandarin).

Good luck!

[Lu]

Chinese Learner: I agree on the tone thing, a lot of Cantonese speakers seem to have a lot of trouble with the fourth tone. But in other respects speaking one Chinese fangyan is a great help in learning another one. Grammar, word structure, ways of saying things, it's often very similar, and very different from European languages. In those areas, students who already know one kind of Chinese, have a big advantage over other students.

I'd agree that learning both at the same time could be confusing, but I know of examples of people who learned languages that way just fine. (When I was in middle school I learned English, French and German at the same time, and that was never a problem.)

Renzhe: you're probably right, I picked an example closer to home :-)

[dbanderson01]

Dear Churada,

My advice to you is to forget trying to learn Mandarin or Cantonese but instead spend your time focusing on your career and making money. At the end of the day if you really want to be with this girl, then having a good job and being able to support her and her family is more important than having you be able to talk about the weather in either Mandarin and Cantonese. Even before you ask yourself whether to learn Mandarin or Cantonese, there are more basic questions you need to ask yourself. I'm am sure living in Ireland, and now having a Chinese girlfriend is exciting and new, but what are you willing to give up in order to learn this difficult language? When I was younger I used to watch t.v shows about doctors and thought, wow, wouldn't it be great and fun to be a doctor? But I was navive because to be a doctor takes discipline, sacrifice, and most importantly people are doctors because they love to live and breathe medicine, not because their girlfriend is a doctor. You have to ask yourself, if you weren't with this girl, would you still want to learn Chinese? If your answer is yes, then your next question is what are you willing to sacrifice to learn this language? Can you give up your friends, family, career, girlfriend and move to China and seriously study this language for a few years? Because let's be honest, your not going to be able to become fluent in Chinese by just picking up a few chinese books and studying a few hours a week and listening to your girlfriend speak. Yes, you might pick up a few phrases and be able to say simple things and you might even get excited when chinese compliment you on your wonderful Chinese, but in reality they are just being nice. If you truly have a passion for this language as many of us do, then have your girlfriend go buy you some dvds, cds, etc. Take a trip to China and see what its really like to live in this country. Once you've done this then you can decide for yourself if its mandarin and cantonese. And maybe, just maybe you might just discover as I did, that learning Chinese might just be the most incredible experience of your life.