Cantonese-Speakers Learning Mandarin

[mrJChan]

Hi, so I have a question for people who already know Cantonese and are in the process of learning Mandarin. I'm an American-born Chinese, have 1-year of learning Mandarin and would like to know what others have difficulties with.

My question to other Cantonese-speaking students is,

What do you find the most hard about learning Mandarin, having already known Cantonese? When I learn Mandarin, I find myself often translating along the way, and sometimes it doesn't make sense translating from Mandarin to Cantonese.

Do you often find it hard getting the right tone while speaking Mandarin? Because I grew up speaking Cantonese, sometimes I feel awkward speaking Mandarin, even after a year of learning it.

Anything would greatly help, I'm really interested in seeing what others have :rolleyes:

[sebhk]

I have no personal experience, but a good friend of mine was in a similar situation. He said his mistake was that he used his Cantonese knowledge as a basis for learning Mandarin. For example, simply alter tones and pronunciation here and there to make words sound more like Mandarin. So he, like many other people I know in Hong Kong, ended up speaking a hybrid composed of Cantonese grammar and Mandarin-like pronunciation. Later he decided to treat Mandarin as an entirely different "foreign" language, ignore his Cantonese language background, and start from scratch. Now his Mandarin sounds almost native.

[Hofmann]

I was pretty much illiterate before I started learning Mandarin. Therefore, the most difficult aspect was learning characters. Aside from that, it was getting a grasp of grammar and how common vocabulary is used. At that time, all my teachers sucked, and my instruction consisted of repeating passages, listening to someone speaking Mandarin to me (who couldn't speak Mandarin), and writing a list of characters 12-ish times only to forget them the next day. Speaking Cantonese should have helped me, but at that time I didn't actively try to use Cantonese to help me learn Mandarin.

Now I've made a lot of progress, most of which has been because of more effective self study. If you're looking for ways you can use Cantonese to learn Mandarin, one is learning how Cantonese and Mandarin tones are related. Cantonese tones can be mapped to Mandarin. If you look at this table, you can see how Cantonese tones correspond with (Beijingese) Mandarin tones. In most cases it's many-to-few. The two most common romanization systems for Standard Cantonese are Jyutping and Yale. Their tone numbers are:

1. 陰平
   
2. 陰上
   
3. 陰去
   
4. 陽平
   
5. 陽上
   
6. 陽去
   
7. (or 1 with ending consonant)上陰入
   
8. (or 3 with ending consonant)下陰入
   
9. (or 6 with ending consonant)陽入
   

Beijingese tones in Pinyin are:

1. 陰平
   
2. 陽平
   
3. 上
   
4. 去
   

From this and the table linked above, you can see that Cantonese tone 1 maps to Mandarin tone 1, Cantonese tone 2 and 5 map to Mandarin tone 3, Cantonese tones 3 and 6 map to Mandarin tone 4, Cantonese tones 7 and 8 are randomly mapped to any Mandarin tone, and Cantonese tone 9 maps to Mandarin tone 4 when it begins with a sonorant, and tone 2 when it begins with an obstruent. Sometimes rising tones (上聲) in Middle Chinese that begin with voiced obstruents become departing tones (去聲, tone 4) in Mandarin. Using this information, you can determine the tone of most characters except those with tones 7 or 8, those with tone 5 that begin with obstruents, and exceptions.

Examples:

陰 Cantonese tone ( C) 1, Mandarin tone (M) 1.

陽 C4, M2

舉 C2, M3

我 C5, M3

去 C3, M4

又 C6, M4

力 C9 with sonorant initial, M4

食 C9 with obstruent initial, M2

Also, most expressions can be simply converted because basic grammar is the same and vocabulary differences occur mostly in the most common expressions. Most words in closed word classes can be replaced with a Mandarin equivalent. After you take care of these differences, you can reliably convert a Cantonese sentence into a Mandarin sentence.

[missbrokensmile]

I'm one myself, and went through what you're going through (and still in that stage, though I'm almost out, I think), so I definitely know what it's like.

For me, the hardest thing was separating the two languages, because they are quite similar (to an extent). You have to separate the two languages, otherwise it's really hard, and you'll end up speaking/writing a hybrid of the two languages, which is kind of ugly. How did I do that? Well, I guess, constant exposure to Mandarin. I watched a crap load of Chinese dramas (with English subtitles XD) and that definitely helped, since you can pick up quite a bit (as Mandarin is pretty similar to Cantonese in some respects). Also, whenever you read any sort of story/passage, read it out loud in Mandarin - don't translate into Cantonese. Heck, don't even think in Cantonese when you're dealing with Mandarin. I think the hardest thing is developing that mindset. Some people can learn while associating and comparing the two languages (which is what I did initially, and do now, after I had a firm grip on Mandarin), but I think it hinders your learning. A lot of people are like, Cantonese and Mandarin are basically the same, which it is, in some areas, but this mindset traps your learning ability, because you're constantly thinking in terms of Cantonese rather than Mandarin. They're not subsets of each other, so you need to learn in isolation, and then relate them after you're sure you have a firm grip. Obviously, there are benefits in using your Cantonese to help your Mandarin, but don't rely on it.

So yeah, after watching a lot of dramas and reading out load, I can understand Mandarin well. My writing skills are still pretty poor in comparison, but my listening is native level (despite the gaps in specialist vocab, but that's relatively easy to remedy). When I grew up, I only head Cantonese, I never heard Mandarin (because we lived in an area dominated by Cantonese speaking people) and it wasn't until I was 16, that I seriously started learning Mandarin (and therefore, my first real encounter with Mandarin). I sucked badly at first, but after my drama watching and reading, I improved quite a bit. I think it took me about 2 years before I really started understanding Mandarin well. And I think Cantonese definitely helped because it informed my Mandarin. So, native understanding of Mandarin is definitely possible, even if you've passed that age where you learn language easily XD

Also, lessons are a must. Keep taking them. The structure and myriad of topics you learn help expand your Chinese

Speaking is a little more difficult, I guess, because it requires a little more work. But it's all practice, practice, practice ;) Grab a few relatively slow recordings and repeat after them, just get used to talking in Mandarin. I think the hardest sound for me to pronounce was third tone. Cantonese doesn't have that lowered dipping sound in the throat. Again, that was practice. The only way to improve speaking is to speak, so move that mouth XD

I don't find writing the actual characters difficult. You get into a sort of... rhythm or pattern, and after you get over the initial hurdle and shock of the amount of characters to learn, it's smooth sailing. But what is harder for me, is the actual construction of an essay, etc. Again, this is probably due to my Cantonese. Because I can just start shooting out Cantonese, and not really need to think about it, it affects my Mandarin writing (another important reason to try and keep them separate). Spoken Cantonese is quite informal and colloquial (much more so than spoken Mandarin), which is what you DON'T want in a piece of writing, so whenever I write, it ends up being quite colloquial... and resulted in a million red marks all over the page XD This was again, improved by constant reading, rewriting of good passages, picking out good structures, vocabulary and so on.

Anyway, the good thing about learning Mandarin, is that it improves your Cantonese as well XD

Good luck!

[xiaotao]

Tones and understanding book language are the most challenging. I like traditional characters so I learned zhuyin fuhao. Reading is very helpful in building vocabulary. I enjoy DVDs with Cantonese and Mandarin audio. I don't feel that I speak Mandarin very well but I am satifisfied that I can carry on a conversation with Mandarin only speakers.

[mrJChan]

missSmile, thanks for all that; much of what you said I completely experienced! When writing I would frequently try to 'sound' it out in Cantonese only to also have red marks all over my essays and sentences. You're right, spoken Cantonese is very colloquial...I guess I never realized how badly it affected my written and speaking in Mandarin.

I attempted to also start watching Chinese dramas in an effort to just hear others speak Mandarin, but the acting and corniness of the shows I've seen never kept me interested...lol

Hofmann, I'll be taking a look into the tables some more. I realized that Cantonese had more tones but never understood how they correlated with Mandarin ones. Thanks for this.

Overall, I guess the only reliable way for me and other Cantonese-speakers to keep learning Mandarin well is practice, practice, practice ;)

Oh and also, could someone recommend any Chinese dramas they really enjoyed? I want to give them a second chance

[xianu]

My family is cantonese, and my grandparents pretty much only spoke cantonese, but I spent most of my early life purposely ignoring and trying to not speak unless absolutely necessary, so that when I started Mandarin in college, the mandarin actually got in the way of communicating in cantonese (and still does, but I have learned some ways around it). So because I consciously tried to not know cantonese, the little I had mostly helped me in learning mandarin, by making some associations with vocabulary, the ability to understand that tones really do matter. However, as my mandarin got better, my cantonese also started to come back a little and as a byproduct, the little things that get in the way with many of the native cantonese speakers learning mandarin started to become more obvious. I think the biggest thing was making the 4th tone, bc it doesn't exist in Cantonese, and making the distinctions more clear between 2nd and 3rd tones. My 4th tones were sort of a cross between the 1st and the ru 入声, and the 2nd tones were closer to 3rds, and the 3rd tones were really deep. Also, when the vocabulary actually coincides, like in 用 and 来, I have to consciously make sure my tones are correct, or they come out cantonese, and other words like using 的 or 个 sometimes used to get confused in my head. Since my cantonese isn't very good, but just sort of subconscious, most of these little mistakes still don't interfere with others understanding me, but I know I have made a mistake. However the plus side is that it does help in that it makes me sound more native when I speak because I have more of a cantonese accent than an american one, usually, and when I get in arguments, cantonese words and phrases leak out and everyone seems to still understand the intention behind the "heated" speech, if not the actual words.

[missbrokensmile]

I think a lot of the more Modern Chinese dramas are really corny (as you said) and poorly produced. The historical/wuxia ones are much better (in terms of quality, but they're a bit harder to understand XD But you should still watch them, because it does help and they're pretty good)... But lately, there have been quite a few good quality modern dramas. I guess it depends upon what sort of genres you like... Though admittedly, these are all kind of focused upon drama...

Here are a few:

My Youthfulness (我的青春谁做主)

Let’s Go Watch Meteor Shower (一起来看流星雨)

The Last Princess (最后的格格)

Dreams Link (又见一帘幽梦)

Shanghai Bund (新上海滩)

You could try watching Taiwanese dramas, which are quite different, and see if you prefer those...

[B-dub]

Hi guys, I know this thread is four years old, but I need some advice...

 

My situation is very much like "Xianu" in that I have Cantonese knowledge but never used it and tried avoiding it to be as "American" as possible. I cannot read but can understand many phrases of Mandarin and Cantonese as I had worked in a family friends factory for a few years, which had over 95% of all walks of Chinese, even middle eastern people, who could speak all sorts of Chinese dialects fluently. 

 

I am planning on going to Beijing or Taipei to learn mandarin this coming Winter but am not sure if I should just go immerse myself in the culture with occasional private lessons, or take an actual Chinese program with a small group class sort of thing daily. 

 

Thanks