clearing things up about non-Mandarin chinese languages

[jasons89]

Ok, so I'm still a bit confused over the relationship of Mandarin, non-Mandarin Chinese languages, Classical Chinese, and the characters.

Say I'm a student who learned Cantonese at home, and has learned how to understand Standard Written Chinese in school:

-When asked to read a passage aloud, do I give the Cantonese pronunciation of each character, which comes out as something that is not really Cantonese and not really Mandarin, similar to someone using the Mandarin pronunciation of characters when reading something by Confucius?

-Do I give the Cantonese pronunciation for the morphemes that the characters represent? For example, do I use the Cantonese word for "he" when I see 他, even though the Cantonese pronunciation of the character itself is completely different?

-Will the phonetic component of characters in Standard Written Chinese ever guide me in their pronunciation, the way that they do in Mandarin (when I see something with 青 in it, I think "qing")?

What about Written Cantonese?

-Do the phonetic components guide me in pronunciation?

-Assuming the grammar of Cantonese and Mandarin are very similar, why is there a different system at all? Why not just change around the word order around a bit where necessary (給錢我 instead of 給我錢) and leave it at that? Why use something like 畀 instead of 給 (assuming wikipedia is correct) at all?

Please tell me if there are any incorrect assumptions I'm making here as well.

[skylee]

When asked to read a passage aloud, do I give the Cantonese pronunciation of each character

It depends on the occasion. If everyone around you speaks Cantonese, yes. If you are in Mainland China or Taiwan where everyone speaks Mandarin, most probably you will pronounce every word in Mandarin (or at least try to if you don't know any Mandarin at all).

Do I give the Cantonese pronunciation for the morphemes that the characters represent? For example, do I use the Cantonese word for "he" when I see 他, even though the Cantonese pronunciation of the character itself is completely different?

Again it will depend on where you are and who you are with. In a class of Chinese language and/or literature when the teacher has asked you to read a passage aloud in Cantonese, you are expected to pronounce 他 as 他. If you are with your friends etc and are talking about a passage casually you might want to replace 他 with its Cantonese equivalent when you say it.

Will the phonetic component of characters in Standard Written Chinese ever guide me in their pronunciation, the way that they do in Mandarin (when I see something with 青 in it, I think "qing")?

Yes, but not 100%, just like in Mandarin. For example, you could not imagine the Mandarin/Cantonese pronunciations of 咄 based on the components of the character.

As to the other two questions, personally I do not support written Cantonese. When you write, you are supposed to write in standard Chinese. Apart from different pronunciations, in Cantonese different words, word orders, and syntax are used. You've just quoted an example. Other examples - when we want to say 站立, we say 企. When we want to say 下車/下雨 we say 落車/落雨 instead. You can say 站立, 下車, 下雨 in Cantonese, but then people will know you are not local. I think the differences are just the result of the evolution of the language. Some words remain in use in the North, some others remain in use in the South, etc.

I hope my replies are not very wrong.

[wushijiao]

Please tell me if there are any incorrect assumptions I'm making here as well.

I think you might have an incorrect assumption. Basically, Cantonese speakers are familiar with standard Chinese (although it is is based on Mandarin), and thus they can understand a passage written in Standard Chinese that is spoken aloud in Cantonese. In fact, most written Chinese in Hong Kong is still written in Standard Chinese, not written Cantonese.

Thus, when reading a passage written in Standard Chinese, a Cantonese speaker can pronounce it in Cantonese, not Mandarin or some hybrid (although some people might know Mandarin as well). In other words, if you were to take any random news item off of Xinhua written today, a Cantonese speaker shouldn't have any problems reading it aloud in Cantonese.

I hope that helps.

[Guest realmayo]

Have to say this has always really confused me. What happens in this scenario: two Cantonese speakers in a HK office, neither speaks very good Mandarin, one is browsing the Xinhua website, calls over to his friend that there's a news article about exploding trampolines, his friend, who is a keen trampolinist, asks him what the story says. The first guy starts reading it back to him.

So: would he read out the text character by character, with Cantonese pronunciation for each one? Or would be more natural to do it a bit differently? Maybe rearrange words a bit?

Perhaps skylee answered this above, but I got the impression "reading a passage out loud" implied a task you're set in school, rather than in regular life.

[skylee]

In that scenario, either way is possible.

PS - Cantonese speakers in a HK office would not want to speak in Mandarin unless they must.

[tjlai]

I think usually when someone reads an article to another person, they would normally read it character by character (in Cantonese pronunciation of course in this case). It's USUALLY when telling someone the article you just read that you would use the 'spoken' Cantonese. I emphasized 'usually' because I have heard some people read articles in the 'spoken' Cantonese. But all of the Cantonese speaking people I know read articles from the newspaper to me as it is printed. I asked them why and they say it's because it's easier and less hassle than having to 'change' what they are actually reading in their minds.

Btw, I can't actually read Chinese myself. I can only speak it, Cantonese that is. Which is why when people read articles to me character by character, I sometimes don't understand it fully. That might sound strange but it's because 'spoken' Cantonese is actually quite different.

[陳德偉]

I agree with skylee in everything he says above.

I guess after a while it becomes automatic when dealing with reading/writing to adapt to Standard Written Chinese Standards rather than using spoken conventions (vocab, grammar). Even personal blogs would be mostly written in Standard Written Chinese, perhaps with a sprinkling of "real" Cantonese, like quoting something somebody said for example.

[jbradfor]

I agree with skylee in everything he says above.

"She", actually.....