General questions

[ThinkTalkWrite]

Well I am interested in Chinese language and culture and I would like to know more about the differences between Chinese Mandarin and Chinese Cantonese. I know there are the same characters and symbols but the pronunciation is very different and also the grammar is different. I just would like to ask if there is a possibility people to understand the meaning of words written in pinyin only using online dictionary without write them with the characters, for example to write in the dictionary 'm sai haak hei' and to get the translation 'you are welcome' without write it down with the original characters. I was searching net dictionaries to translate Cantonese and Mandarin pinyin into English and the contrary but I didn't really find.

I just want to start learning some basic words and their pronunciation but I find it really difficult the different tones and the level of the voice according to what you intend to say. I find some useful threads into that forum that could be for further assistance.

Thank you for reading my post.

[skylee]

I just would like to ask if there is a possibility people to understand the meaning of words written in pinyin only using online dictionary without write them with the characters, for example to write in the dictionary 'm sai haak hei' and to get the translation 'you are welcome' without write it down with the original characters.

Only those who have been trained in pinyin or Cantonese romanisation (which is not standardised) would be able to understand it.

[Quest]

Well I am interested in Chinese language and culture and I would like to know more about the differences between Chinese Mandarin and Chinese Cantonese. I know there are the same characters and symbols but the pronunciation is very different and also the grammar is different.

Right, basically only a handful cities and towns in the Guangdong/xi provinces in Southern China speak Cantonese or a variant of it. Mandarin is spoken mainly in North China but since it's the official language of China, it is the language of education and publications. So, pretty much everybody in China knows Mandarin. There are differences in pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar between the two dialects. Also note that, there are hundreds of other dialects/languages spoken in China other than these two. Think of China as the whole of Europe, containing many many different languages, related or unrelated.

[Lu]

For Mandarin, you can use DeFrancis' ABC Dictionary. If you know the pronounciation, you can look up the word and you get the characters and the meaning.

[Altair]

just would like to ask if there is a possibility people to understand the meaning of words written in pinyin only using online dictionary without write them with the characters, for example to write in the dictionary 'm sai haak hei' and to get the translation 'you are welcome' without write it down with the original characters.

Are you, perhaps, looking for this type of link, which has both Mandarin and Cantonese?