Should I Learn Mandarin or Cantonese

[Guest swatsley]

I am considering learning chinese for anticipated business. Which dialect would should I learn Mandarin or Cantonese.

Please advise, Thanks!!

[Quest]

http://www.chinese-forums.com/viewtopic.php?t=739

[Guest wennie555]

Contonese is only used in Hongkong.

mardarin is offical languange in china. it is used on TV, public, everywhere.

and the best is the beijing accent.

[smithsgj]

> Cantonese is only used in Hongkong.

Come again? Cantonese is used in HK, parts of China and all over the world if you please.

[Jive Turkey]

> Cantonese is only used in Hongkong.

Come again? Cantonese is used in HK' date=' parts of China and all over the world if you please.[/quote']

"...and the best is the Beijing accent." Uh, maybe that's true if you want to listen to a bunch of pretentious wankers who think injecting unnecessary 儿 into their speech somehow makes them sound more educated than non-Beijingers.

[roddy]

think injecting unnecessary 儿 into their speech somehow makes them sound more educated than non-Beijingers.

Is that true? I'd have said if anything the more educated people are, the less -er's they produce. Seems to me it's a feature of Beijinghua more than Putonghua.

I'll ask the next taxi-driver who fails to understand me because I don't put enough 儿's into my address. I think I'll refrain from calling him a pretentious wanker though. . .

Roddy

[Guest wennie555]

i think we should talk about which accent sounds better, american or british. i'd say american accent is better Bcoz it is more popular in the world and it is quite similar to the Beijing Dialect. In beijing, We call contonese speakers as a big tong. with beijing accent, u could travel around everywhere in china(except the HK), with contonese accent u' d get a laugh in everywhere(except the HK).

[Ian_Lee]

Actually it is a good idea to learn speaking Mandarin with heavy Taiwanese or Hong Kong accent.

Why? Just look at which singer is popular in Mainland China nowadays.

Those from either Taiwan or HK.

Mandarin songs sung by Taiwanese singers can be easily understood even though they have a distinct accent.

But why are Mandarin songs sung by HK singers popular in Mainland?

Singers from HK like Andy Lau, Jackie Cheung and even Nicholas Tse are unreasonably popular in Mainland. (Even Wang Shuo said that he adored Jackie Cheung.)

Frankly speaking, my spoken Mandarin is more accurate than their singing Mandarin.

Then why would Mainland audience love these inaccurate Mandarin Songs?

The only reason I can think of is that Mandarin spoken with either Taiwanese or HK accent is chic in Mainland China nowadays.

[Quest]

smile @ wennie and Ian_Lee

Still thinking how to reply though, I will probably move on to another topic.

[Guest Yinyue Mike]

Hi,

I would say 90% of the time, Mandarin is best to learn. Unless you plan to do business specifically in Hong Kong, Mandarin will make you understood the most in most places. It is the lingua franca among different dialect areas in China and used for business purposes.

Mike

[smithsgj]

> with beijing accent, u could travel around everywhere in china(except the HK), with contonese accent u' d get a laugh in everywhere(except the HK).

Hate to disappoint you Wennie but people in Taiwan shriek with laughter when they hear it. Always reminds me of the British west country accent, "oi keep moi red tract儿 in the ba儿n on the fa儿m"

[Jive Turkey]

Then why would Mainland audience love these inaccurate Mandarin Songs?

The only reason I can think of is that Mandarin spoken with either Taiwanese or HK accent is chic in Mainland China nowadays.

Maybe your choice of words doesn't accurately reflect what you are thinking, but I must ask, what is inaccurate about the Putonghua in these songs? I haven't heard music from all of these singers, but I wouldn't say that the Putonghua music of Andy Lau or especially Taiwanese singers is inaccurate. These people are not speaking Chen Shuibian style Guoyu. Their tones, initials and finals are almost always correct. In my opinion, that makes for "accurate" Putonghua. Do you say their Putonghua is inaccurate because they don't speak with a lot of 儿 or because they don't use neutral tones the same way a northerner would? Please explain what you mean by "inaccurate."

[Ian_Lee]

Jive Turkey:

Actually my above post was just a rebuttal to wennie's post whom teased at the Cantonese accent Mandarin.

I think all those HK singers sing in perfect Mandarin albeit with strong Cantonese accent. So I shouldn't use the word "inaccurate" to describe it. Of course, there is nothing wrong with Cantonese accent Mandarin. Mao spoke with strong Hunanese accent and Deng with strong Sichuanese accent. Did anybody dare tease at them?

But why would Mainland audience love HK singers' Mandarin songs? (In fact, during the recent Chinese New Year Evening Show, a Beijing girl fan (likely Wennie's neighbor) bear-hugged Nicholas Tse for two minutes while those CCTV security guards turned a blind eye. )

That proved Cantonese-accented Mandarin is not a laughing stock as wennie wrote but in fact a fashionable tone in Mainland.

If wennie tries to emulate Tse and speaks in Cantonese accent, maybe some day a young girl may suddenly bear-hug him on the street!

[smithsgj]

Is it the way they speak or sing that is supposedly inaccurate? I should have thought it would be a bit difficult to tease out tone handling from a song. Oh, all right, maybe neutral, but not the others where you're relying on pitch distinctions surely?

[Quest]

i think we should talk about which accent sounds better, american or british. i'd say american accent is better Bcoz it is more popular in the world and it is quite similar to the Beijing Dialect. In beijing, We call contonese speakers as a big tong. with beijing accent, u could travel around everywhere in china(except the HK), with contonese accent u' d get a laugh in everywhere(except the HK).

i think we should talk about which accent sounds better, blablabla. In Guangzhou, We call mondarin speakers as a big laoxiong. with Guangzhou accent, u could travel around everywhere outside of china(including Guangdong), with mondarin accent u'd get a laugh in everywhere(except the Beijing).

[Jive Turkey]

think injecting unnecessary 儿 into their speech somehow makes them sound more educated than non-Beijingers.

Is that true? I'd have said if anything the more educated people are, the less -er's they produce. Seems to me it's a feature of Beijinghua more than Putonghua.

I'll ask the next taxi-driver who fails to understand me because I don't put enough 儿's into my address. I think I'll refrain from calling him a pretentious wanker though. . .

Roddy

I should make my prejudice more clear. The 儿 in a taxi driver's or street sweeper's Putonghua is almost always something they grew up with and is truly part of their dialect. However, the 儿 in the Putonghua of educated Bejingers (and specifically when they use or don't use it) is something they are taught in school, as if it is formal grammar. A few scholarly articles have been written about this; I'll try to find them on the internet.

I learned Putonghua in Taiwan from three mainlanders. I speak fluently, with accurate tones, initials and finals. However, many Beijingers and Beijing teachers I've known have given me a hard time because I speak with little or no 儿. We had no difficulty understanding each other; but they insisted that I would just sound so much more educated if I spoke with more 儿, and of course, according to the way an educated Beijinger would. I've seen a few books for foreign students of Chinese on how to "correct" their Putonghua and speak "proper Bejing Putonghua." I've looked through a few of them for laughs. The focus is basically on which words you should and shouldn't add 儿. I can think of quite a few other things I could do to improve my Chinese.

[trooper]

From your post, it seems that Beijing people have a big superiority complex about their accent, which appears to have no justification, other than the fact that Beijing is the capital of China. To me the Beijing accent sounds very "rural". I agree with smithsgj about the English West country similarity. I live in the English West country! I don't have the accent though, me luverrr.

The Beijing dialect is not inherently superior to others in any way. In fact, at the beginning of the 20th century it would have been looked down on by the higher classes, not that that justifies any prejudice by the way.

[roddy]

Actually, every city I've been to in the North East has claimed to have the 'most standard' accent.

I don't think you can equate Beijinghua with Putonghua - there's a world of difference between the way an elementary school teachers speaks to students (all elementary school teachers have their Mandarin tested, I believe) and the way a Beijing cabbie or stallholder speaks.

Roddy

[roddy]

> A few scholarly articles have been written about this; I'll try to find them on the internet.

I'd like to see them, if you can find them. I'd also be interested to know which words those textbooks said should / shouldn't carry the 'r'.

Roddy

[Guest timc18]

I have heard from Hong Kong people trying to learn Mandarin that the Beijing, or any Northern Mainland accent is hard to understand because there are too many "er" sounds mixed in. Surprisingly, they say Mandarin from Taiwan is easier to understand because it is "softer" and does not contain as many "er"'s. I suspect that they mean "proper" mandarin from Taiwan, not the Taiwanese (Min Nan) accented mandarin (like what president Chen speaks..although i find this accent pretty cute because all the old grandmas have it when they try to speak mandarin..hee).

Oh, another interesting note is that Taiwan elementary schools do teach with a few "er"s, but nowhere near as many as in China. For example, textbooks have 花兒. But nobody, once they leave the classroom, says the "er". Everyone simply says hua1.