Distinguishing Mandarin and Cantonese by Ear

[Aiden5]

So I live in a city that has a decent amount of Chinese people in it. At the moment I am learning Mandarin. How can I tell if a Chinese speaker is speaking Mandarin or Cantonese?

[陳德聰]

There are lots of ways I'm sure, but for someone who is at the beginner level and maybe can't tell whether you're not understanding because of the speed of the speech or if it's an entirely different language, I would start by comparing the phonetic inventories of each language. There are sounds that exist in Mandarin that don't in Cantonese and vice versa. For example, if you ever hear a word ending with a -p, -t, -k, or -m, you're certainly not dealing with Mandarin.

[耳耳语语]

In this video, the woman speaks mandarin, and the man translates in cantonese : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPZTEPk2Idg

Cantonese has more tones, so it sounds a bit more funny and singing-like for westerners.

[anonymoose]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjANRoSl-rE

[vellocet]

I once heard two Mandarin speakers make fun of Cantonese, and they made those ching-chong wing-wong sounds that people used to make fun of Chinese with.  To me, it's easy to distinguish when Cantonese is being spoken, even though I don't understand it.  It'll come naturally as you get better at Mandarin.

[Angelina]

http://youtu.be/e73btaVo868

From Off the Great Wall

[Pokarface]

Just keep studying Mandarin without worrying about it.

Your ear will tell you that you can't understand anything that is being said in other Chinese dialects (Cantonese in your case). I know I'm able to tell because at the meetups that I go to they speak: Mandarin, Vietnamese, and Cantonese.

 

By this date, I've been learning Mandarin for a year and 5 months. Eventually you do hear consonants, tones, words, etc. that do not sound like anything you've been learning, and that's how you'll know they are not speaking Mandarin