Learn Chinese
| Mandarin vs. Cantonese.
The most widely spoken language in mainland China is by far Mandarin.
There are minority languages also spoken by the more than 50 minority
groups living in China, the most widely known of these groups probably
being the Tibetans and Mongolians. This may come as a surprise to
Westerners who believe, a) that Tibet is a country independent of China
or b) that China is a homogenous nation. |
 |
So what is Cantonese?
Cantonese, also known as "Hong-Kongese" and
"Guangdong hua" in the mandarin language could be described as a highly
evolved dialect. Generally, mainland Chinese who are not from the
Southern province of Guangdong (in which the island of Hong Kong is
based) cannot speak or understand Cantonese. So, Cantonese is the
language of Hong Kong and its province Guangdong, which includes cities
such as Shenzhen, Guangzhou and Macao.
Since Hong Kong produced so many films whilst still under British rule, Cantonese is probably a more familiar language to the Western ear, but by far the more profusely spoken is mainland Chinese language - Mandarin Chinese.
If you are to learn Chinese, the first thing you must know is that the Mandarin language has specific tones, an upward rising tone, a downward falling tone, a tone which goes a little bit down and then up, and a straight or level tone. There is also a sort of "flat" tone. The amazing thing (and what is perceived as most difficult about learning mandarin) is that each tone can give a different meaning.
Thus, the mandarin Chinese word written in English as "ma" can have five meanings (not including synonym meanings that are attributed to a word and the flexibility a word may produce in its meaning when combined with other words.
This is not meant to put you off! Actually, learning mandarin is not too hard with a good teacher. There are lots of things that make it an easy language to learn. For example, there are not really any "irregular verbs" or a need to remember which words are "masculine and feminine" like in English, German, French and other European languages.
"Shi" (pronounced "sher" with the teeth together and a downward inflection) covers all the following except the words in square brackets: [I] am; [you] are; [he] is; [I] was; [You] were and so on broadly speaking. There are other ways in Chinese to let someone know you are talking about some event in the past or something of the future.
Like learning any language, it is probably best to start your study of Chinese with some of the basics. For example, in my first lesson in Chinese Mandarin, I learned the following words:
Hot; cold; weather; really; am; good; very; hello; I; you; you (polite); you (plural), them; he/she, the question word "ma" ...
With these basic words you can make Chinese sentences like:
Wo hen hao = literally: I very good = I am well; I'm very well; I'm good; I'm fine etc
Ni hao ma? = literally: You good (?) = How are you?; You feeling OK?; Hows it going? etc
Tianqi hen leng = literally: Weather very cold = The weather is cold; The weather is very cold etc
Although to us such sentence structures sound somewhat simplified (which they are), it is worth to remember that like any language, at some point you are going to have to come to terms with what may seem like very weird and obscure grammatical quirks.
Chinese is no exception. There are certain rules and ways of speaking that you wouldn't have imagined could exist in a language. For example, in order to indicate you are doing something in the moment, such as runNING or bicycLING or jumPING, there are three words in Chinese. You can interchange these words, use only one of them, a combination of two or all three. So in other words, there are 9 ways of saying "-ING" in Chinese.
Since Hong Kong produced so many films whilst still under British rule, Cantonese is probably a more familiar language to the Western ear, but by far the more profusely spoken is mainland Chinese language - Mandarin Chinese.
If you are to learn Chinese, the first thing you must know is that the Mandarin language has specific tones, an upward rising tone, a downward falling tone, a tone which goes a little bit down and then up, and a straight or level tone. There is also a sort of "flat" tone. The amazing thing (and what is perceived as most difficult about learning mandarin) is that each tone can give a different meaning.
Thus, the mandarin Chinese word written in English as "ma" can have five meanings (not including synonym meanings that are attributed to a word and the flexibility a word may produce in its meaning when combined with other words.
This is not meant to put you off! Actually, learning mandarin is not too hard with a good teacher. There are lots of things that make it an easy language to learn. For example, there are not really any "irregular verbs" or a need to remember which words are "masculine and feminine" like in English, German, French and other European languages.
"Shi" (pronounced "sher" with the teeth together and a downward inflection) covers all the following except the words in square brackets: [I] am; [you] are; [he] is; [I] was; [You] were and so on broadly speaking. There are other ways in Chinese to let someone know you are talking about some event in the past or something of the future.
Like learning any language, it is probably best to start your study of Chinese with some of the basics. For example, in my first lesson in Chinese Mandarin, I learned the following words:
Hot; cold; weather; really; am; good; very; hello; I; you; you (polite); you (plural), them; he/she, the question word "ma" ...
With these basic words you can make Chinese sentences like:
Wo hen hao = literally: I very good = I am well; I'm very well; I'm good; I'm fine etc
Ni hao ma? = literally: You good (?) = How are you?; You feeling OK?; Hows it going? etc
Tianqi hen leng = literally: Weather very cold = The weather is cold; The weather is very cold etc
Although to us such sentence structures sound somewhat simplified (which they are), it is worth to remember that like any language, at some point you are going to have to come to terms with what may seem like very weird and obscure grammatical quirks.
Chinese is no exception. There are certain rules and ways of speaking that you wouldn't have imagined could exist in a language. For example, in order to indicate you are doing something in the moment, such as runNING or bicycLING or jumPING, there are three words in Chinese. You can interchange these words, use only one of them, a combination of two or all three. So in other words, there are 9 ways of saying "-ING" in Chinese.
