abergas

For christmas I received a dummies guide to chinese! When I spoke to a few people about my pressies, some said I ought to find out whether they speak mainly cantonese or madarin, any help appreciated
thanks Yve

str

HK is quite close to Guangzhou, aka Canton, that's why they speak cantonese. Even if your mandarin gets close to perfect it will be very difficult to understand cantonese

choccydog

impossible ;-)

happynz

If you get a grasp of the writing you will be able to read the same stuff (for the most part), regardless of the dialect.

China is a funny ol' place. There are hundreds of dialects within the country. However, Mandarin (putonghua) is the accepted national medium of communication and most, but not all, Chinese speak it.

justice

Cantonese

koalakim

Hi

Cantonese has 6 tones and Mandarin has 4, plus quite often the same word is pronounced differently which is why neither can understand each other!

Cantonese is a much harder sounding language whereas Mandarin is quite sing songy and light.

For instance I think 8 sounds like Fat in Cantonese (which is why it is lucky) but in Mandarin it's "ba" which is nothing like it!

Good luck!

jaykayhk

Certainly Cantonese in HK. A very difficult language to master as it has 9 tones. If you are learning Mandarin instead don't expect much help in HK, a few people speak it but most don't like to and contrary to what was posted above only approximately 50% of the population in China has any spoken knowledge of Mandarin anyway!

immigrants

China contain about 300 different languages, and about 20~30 languages
are popular to be use in specific region.

Because China's official language occur in 1920s, however, British possess
Hong Kong since 1841, so that there is no Mandarin learning in Hong Kong
especially before 1980s. Another group of Cantonese speakers is
Chinese in Portugal, UK, USA and Canada, they migrate to foreign countries
long times ago, they never learn Mandarin.

Cantonese is a kind of Chinese language but Hong Kong's written Chinese
is using Mandarin grammer, there is big difference when writing Chinese
and speaking Cantonese.

Another point I want to raise out, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan (Republic of China)
and most foreign courties's Chinese using Traditional Chinese,
but mainland China (Community China) and Singapore using Simplified Chinese.

So that it's several combinations:
Hong Kong, Macau, UK, Portugal, USA, Canada: Cantonese + Traditional Chinese
Taiwan (Republic of China): Mandarin + Traditional Chinese
Mainland China except Canton, Singapore: Mandarin + Simplified Chinese
Canton, mainland China: Cantonese + Simplified Chinese

Finally, if you know none about Chinese, I suggest you to learn Madnarin + Traditional Chinese,
if you have time then learn Cantonese.

Traditional Chinese occur about BC1300 and unified since BC221, but Simplified Chinese
occur about AD1958, even Kong Zi know nothing about Simplified Chinese,
if you can read and write Simplified Chinese only, you cannot read most of the documents
related to China, or poem written by Chinese poet on or before AD1949.

Cantonese reserved large amount of historical Chinese's usage and grammer
and pronunciation, and most of the Chinese poem speaking by Cantonese, rather than Mandarin
is more rhyming

Sof.T

Yes definately Cantonese, I found it difficult to get beyond simple hello's, but they appreciate you trying and English fortunately is a good fallback. I found it easier to learn the meaning of the characters in the writing and to translate the meaning into English, since each character has a meaning.

carolec

Well, strictly speaking, Cantonese is not a kind of language, it is a dialect. A dialect that is widely spoken in Hong Kong and Guangdong Province. Yes, I agree with everyone that it is difficult to learn but once you mix with the locals and it turns out to be your daily 'code', you'll be fine

Check the asiaxpat.com.hk give you more tools to master the dialect, or practise it with me

penguinsix

Depends on why you have planned. If you are visiting HK for < 1 year, then English is really all you need, with a few smatterings of Cantonese. If you are looking to relocate, then I'd recommend learning Cantonese, though as others have said, it can be an adventure. People will understand your are trying, but it is also helpful to watch the evening news and have an idea what is going on rather than relying on SCMP and the Standard.

If you are looking to make yourself more marketable worldwide, I'd recommend Mandarin. I know this often starts flame wars with native Cantonese speakers, but the number of Mandarin speakers is simply several magnitudes higher than Cantonese, and with more and more business going direct to the mainland bypassing HK, Mandarin is growing more and more useful to use and know.

Cantonese speakers often look down on Mandarin speakers, but I can assure the same is the case with Mandarin speakers--"we had to give our dialect--so should they" is something I hear often in Beijing and Shanghai. Of course it will never happen.

abergas

Thank you for your reply guys, After listening to the CD I have, I have decided to just learn please and thank you, hello bye etc very basic stuff. Just wanted to show willing while we were there. Thanks again
Yve

Kooky.

The number of tones and the ability to make a complete arse of yourself if you get them wrong has put me off learning Mandarin. I do however swear pretty well in Hokkien.

carolec

Well done, Yves. That is the proper attitude!

Contemporary Hong Kong people are generally open-minded and easy-going, they really appreciate foreigners' effort even you just mumble a few simple phrases or greetings in their dialect.

Good luck and happy learning!