Can speakers of Mandarin and Cantonese understand each other

[roddy]

I've heard various opinions about whether speakers of Mandarin and Cantonese can understand each other - such as . . .

1) No

2) Yes, but they have to speak slowly

3) Yes, if they're drunk

4) Yes, to the extent that Italians and Spanish can understand each other (whatever that means)

As we've got native speakers of both Mandarin and Cantonese with us, I think we could decide this - so, could you understand each other if you met? Why not phone each other and find out, then let us know.

Roddy

[Guest Anonymous]

I don't believe there's a definite answer. However, as there are many words, phrases, or sayings that are identical in both Mandarin and Cantoense, there are also many that are different.

Some basic examples...

Mandarin/Cantonese

Similar

* ni hao / lei/nei ho

* dianhua haoma / dingwa homa

* Zhongguo / Junggo

Different

* duoshao / gei do (how much)

* chi fan / sic fan (Cantonese uses "shi" instead of "chi" for eat)

* kuai dian / fam di (faster / quickly)

I started making more Cantonese friends during the end of my high school years. At first I had *NO CLUE* what they are talking about at all. But after a week or two, I started picking up words here and there and also a pattern without them teaching me, something I don't believe a Mandarin or Cantonese speaker can do with other languages, or vice versa. For example, there's a general guideline to translate the sounds between the two dialects/languages. The sound "hua" in Mandarin generally translates to "wa". However, I say general because sometimes it varies, like "hua" as in flower is "fa" in Cantonese. But I would say 4 out of 5 times the general translation guideline applies. Again, this is just my personal experience.

[Tsunku]

There are a bunch of students in my Mandarin Chinese class at my university who are taking Mandarin but speak Cantonese or Cantonese based dialects at home. One of my good friends speaks Teo Chiew (Chaozhou) fluently. She came with me to Kunming to study Mandarin and found that she picked up the grammar more easily, but the vocabulary was still troublesome. Despite her background with a Cantonese dialect, her Mandarin still lags behind mine to this day. I wonder if it is easier for speakers of Mandarin to understand Cantonese than it is Cantonese speakers to understand Mandarin? Or would both encounter the same problems?

[Guest Anonymous]

I wonder if it is easier for speakers of Mandarin to understand Cantonese than it is Cantonese speakers to understand Mandarin? Or would both encounter the same problems?

Speaking from a native Mandarin-speaker's point of view, learning Cantonese was much easier than say when I learned Spanish or Korean. The grammar was almost identical to Mandarin and writing is no problem at all. However, after learning for three years, my Cantonese friends still tell me that I butcher the pronounciation in Cantonese. I find it difficult to learn the pronounciation in Cantonese because there isn't a standard phonetic spelling system such as Hanyu Pinyin or Zhuyin Fuhao for Mandarin.

[skylee]

I don't think that a Cantonese speaker can understand Putonghua without learning it. They don't have to study it formally. Often people learn Putonghua by listening/singing Mandarin songs, and reading subtitles on TV/movies. And then most of us assume that if we roll our tongues and speak with a funny accent then we are more or less speaking Putonghua (ha ha ha - This is my conclusion having listened to Dragonair flight attendants' in-flight announcements the other day).

[Quest]

I speak both Cantonese(mother tongue) and Mandarin(started speaking at age 4), so I will try to answer the question.

Q:Can speakers of Mandarin and Cantonese understand each other?

A: The short answer is NO. Newer generation Cantonese would understand and are able to speak Mandarin. But older cantonese people, like 65+ would have trouble understanding standard mandarin, however, some of them can understand beijing opera yet not understand mandarin(my grandmother was like that). Mandarin speaking people who had no prior exposure to Cantonese CANNOT understand cantonese. My middle school teacher came to Guangzhou to teach us when she was 23. She could not understand us at all if we spoke in cantonese. However, it only took her about one year to pick up the listening. However, as to getting rid of the accent, I have yet to see a non native cantonese speaker to learn to speak cantonese without accent.

Q: Can they understand each other if spoken slowly?

A: Probably in simple sentences and with gestures.

Also here are some corrections for kulong:

* ni hao / lei/nei ho

* dianhua haoma / dingwa homa (should be deenwa)

* Zhongguo / Junggo (should be JongGwok)

Different

* duoshao / gei do (how much) (should be gei dor but 'r' pronounced with new york accent)

* chi fan / sic fan (Cantonese uses "shi" instead of "chi" for eat)

* kuai dian / fam di (faster / quickly) (should be fi dee)

[skylee]

About this Cantonese/Mandarin thing ... I once read a story on the newspaper and I always wonder if it was true. The story goes - once a meeting was held to discuss about fixing an official language for the country. There were about the same votes for the Cantonese and Beijing dialects respectively. But since there were more northerners at the meeting, it was decided that the official language should be based on the Beijing dialect. How true is this story?

Sometimes I think Dr Sun Yat-sen was a Cantonese and he should have promoted Cantonese as the national language.

[wix]

One of my good friends speaks Teo Chiew (Chaozhou) fluently. She came with me to Kunming to study Mandarin and found that she picked up the grammar more easily, but the vocabulary was still troublesome. Despite her background with a Cantonese dialect,

Just a small correction. Chaozhou is a dialect of Hokkien/Minnan not Cantonese. But even though it is a dialect of Minnan, it is barely intelligible to a speaker of Hokkien from Xiamen or Taiwan.

[Tsunku]

That's interesting. I assumed it was related to Cantonese because when we were in HK, it seemed that people could understand her spoken Chaozhou, although she couldn't understand their spoken Cantonese. Are people in HK more familiar with Chaozhou, or are the languages more similar to each other than either is to Mandarin? My friend tells me she actually speaks a local variation of the dialect, but no one's ever heard of it so she always just calls it Chaozhou. We found one guy in Dali who could speak it and she got really excited and bought a bunch of stuff from his store.

[Guest Anonymous]

About this Cantonese/Mandarin thing ... I once read a story on the newspaper and I always wonder if it was true. The story goes - once a meeting was held to discuss about fixing an official language for the country. There were about the same votes for the Cantonese and Beijing dialects respectively. But since there were more northerners at the meeting' date=' it was decided that the official language should be based on the Beijing dialect. How true is this story?

Sometimes I think Dr Sun Yat-sen was a Cantonese and he should have promoted Cantonese as the national language. [/quote']

I've personally never heard of such a tale. Where did you find this story? I'd like to read it. However, it seems kind of strange that there would be more Northerners at the meeting because Guomin Dang was founded by Dr. Sun Yat-sen (A Cantonese/Southerner) and most of his followers were Southerners as well. Not that it's impossible for there to be more Northerner than Southerners at the meeting, just strange.

Dr. Sun Yat-sen promoted Mandarin as the national language because it has the least number of tones and supposingly much more easy to learn. But then again, this is purely relative. Mandarin would definitely difficult for native Cantonese-speakers to learn just as Cantonese would be difficult for native Mandarin-speakers to learn. Are there any non-native Chinese speakers here who has learned both Mandarin and Cantonese?

[skylee]

Kulong, I read that story years ago and am not able to find it. But I have just done a search and found this (which is more or less the same story) -

(this is in traditional Chinese)

民國初成，眾議員共商治國大計，民國國語幾被定為粵語，蓋因國會議員過半粵人也。然孫文先生顧全大局 ，力勸同鄉，國語終被定為京話 。

不說不知道，知道嚇一跳──原來當年廣州話只差那麼一點點，就成了中國的法定官方語言。帝制崩塌， 天下共和，首屆國會曾提議奉粵語為中國“國語”，當時的國會議員廣東人剛好過半，通過這一法案不成問題 。然孫文先生顧全大局，(在當時背景下，南方已初定，而北方，尤其是東北地區仍然不在民國有效勢力範圍內 )力勸同鄉，便去逐個說服，勸那些粵籍同鄉改變初衷，放棄具有九個音階、抑揚頓挫的廣州話，奉北京話為國語。國語終被定為京話，粵語以一票之差敗給京話而未能晉身成為國語。憑著孫中山的威望，總算力挽狂瀾，粵語遂與“一統天下”的至尊地位失之交臂。否則，全體中國人都須講粵語，到如今講了快一百年了，自然也 就成了南北同胞的“母語”。

[Guest Anonymous]

Kulong' date=' I read that story years ago and am not able to find it. But I have just done a search and found this (which is more or less the same story) -

(this is in traditional Chinese)

民國初成，眾議員共商治國大計，民國國語幾被定為粵語，蓋因國會議員過半粵人也。然孫文先生顧全大局 ，力勸同鄉，國語終被定為京話 。

不說不知道，知道嚇一跳──原來當年廣州話只差那麼一點點，就成了中國的法定官方語言。帝制崩塌， 天下共和，首屆國會曾提議奉粵語為中國

[pazu]

Skylee, I've read a book written by Chow Wah Shan (Zhou Huashan), who was a lecturer from the University of Hong Kong, he talked about something like this too, I mean soemthing about the "one vote for Cantonese". And that, was the only source I've heard so far about this story. I doubt it too. Just as what other's already mentioned, Mandarin is somewhat a "guanhua", but it's more similar to most other dialects in China, like Kunminghua, Sichuanhua, Shandonghua and many other, they resemble more or less to Mandarin rather than Cantonese, so it made more sense to choose Beijinghua as the official language.

But as a native Cantonese speaker, I feel quite lucky that Cantonese wasn't chosen as the official language, you know, you always have advantage if you can speak a "secret language".

[Guest AliBaba]

I find it difficult to learn the pronounciation in Cantonese because there isn't a standard phonetic spelling system such as Hanyu Pinyin or Zhuyin Fuhao for Mandarin.

hmm, I think even that wouldn't help too much, people would just come to rely too much on the pinyin. I've met foreigners who studied Cantonese solely based on romanization. I guess they get started speaking faster, which can be deceptively addictive in a language with as sharp a learning curve as Chinese. But then, they come to rely too much on romanization to learn tones, which definitely isn't good.

Besides, it's just that Cantonese vowels are infamously difficult. There's the open vs. closed distinction ("die" vs. "write," "many" aka mandarin duo1 vs. "all" aka mandarin dou1, and the one which seems to stump the most non-native speakers, the "A" e.g. "heart" vs. "three"). Plus there's those godawful rounded frontal vowels like the ones in "to wear (clothes)" or the diphthong in "he" which took me a while to get the hang of.

[Guest Chan]

4) Yes, to the extent that Italians and Spanish can understand each other (whatever that means)

I speak Spanish and can understand Italian quite ok . Can guess most meanings, lets say this.

I also wondered about this question. I showed a Cantonese guy I met my Mandarin learning book (totally pinyin) and he understood nothing he said! He just knew some basic Mandarin.

[Quest]

maybe he just doesn't know the pinyin since he never had to learn it. if it was written in characters i m sure he would understand it.

[Guest Anonymous]

Pinyin should be taught in Chinese school as well. In Japan, they learn the romaji along with the kanji, katakana, and hirakana.

[bathrobe]

That's interesting. I assumed it (Chaozhou) was related to Cantonese because when we were in HK, it seemed that people could understand her spoken Chaozhou, although she couldn't understand their spoken Cantonese. Are people in HK more familiar with Chaozhou, or are the languages more similar to each other than either is to Mandarin? My friend tells me she actually speaks a local variation of the dialect, but no one's ever heard of it so she always just calls it Chaozhou. We found one guy in Dali who could speak it and she got really excited and bought a bunch of stuff from his store.

I've read somewhere that Chaozhou is a transitional dialect between Min and Cantonese.

[Guest re_joyce]

That's interesting. I assumed it (Chaozhou) was related to Cantonese because when we were in HK' date=' it seemed that people could understand her spoken Chaozhou, although she couldn't understand their spoken Cantonese. Are people in HK more familiar with Chaozhou, or are the languages more similar to each other than either is to Mandarin? My friend tells me she actually speaks a local variation of the dialect, but no one's ever heard of it so she always just calls it Chaozhou. We found one guy in Dali who could speak it and she got really excited and bought a bunch of stuff from his store. [/quote']

I've read somewhere that Chaozhou is a transitional dialect between Min and Cantonese.

Wix and Tsunku, following is what I understand from my Chaozhou grandparents.

Chaozhou or Teochew(Chaozhou when pronounced in the dialect) is neither a dialect of Hokkien/Minnan nor Cantonese. Chaozhou is a dialect itself and it is spoken by people in Swatow, Chaozhou, Choayang and the towns/villages around it. (Tsunku I think your friend speaks this Choazhou variation dialect... it is the same as Chaozhou apart from the intonation. Chaozhou people is able to understand Chaoyang and vice-versa.) All these cities/towns/villages are in Guangdong province. Guangzhou is the capital of Guangdong province where Cantonese is the main dialect there. Cantonese is also known as Guangdonghua.

The early immigrants of Hongkong are from Guangdong where the main dialects are Guangdong and Chaozhou. After decades of staying together in Hongkong, Hongkongers can understand some Choazhou just like English understand French. However not all Cantonese can understand Chaozhou (just like not all English understands Scottish or Welsh although all live on the same island) as these dialects are quite different eg :

English/Cantonese/Teochew:

-eat/sek/chiak

-drink/yam/luk (or most of the time 'chiak' is used)

-fish/yu/her

-cat/mao/ngiao

-friends/pang yau/peng you

-child/sigh low kor/soy kiah OR no kiah

Minnanyu/Fujianhua/Hokkien - Fujian when pronounced in dialect is the dialect spoken by people in Fujian Province, China. The main dialect in Taiwan is Minnanyu, which is a variation of Fujianhua (just like Choayang and Choazhou, Minnan is also another town in Fujian province). In Singapore and Penang Malaysia, Hokkien is widely spoken but each has a little variation and they have no problem understanding each other (Just like UK English and American English, difference in intonation and some words).

Interesting huh?

[Quest]

It reminds me of this famous chaozhouhua line 酒干倘卖无 from the song with the same name.

You can download it here (right click and save as*):

苏芮 - <<酒干倘卖无>>

http://music.westimpi.com.cn/lmusic8/5859/wl/cn_song/200302/surui/jiugan.mp3