Cantonese, Hakka(客家话）， and MinNanHua(闽南话） are the three dialects I'm really interested in.

I've heard before that Beijing Dialect is just about the same as Mandarin and Jenny&John just confirmed this, so why start a new lesson series on it?

I also wouldn't mind learning a bit of Sichuan dialect, but this one is last on my wishlist

Helen是最好的老师！:)

Beijing hua is very similar to standard mandarin, hardly worth a mention really apart from so many foreigners live there.

草老师真棒啊！耐心，认真，准时的，幽默的，富于语言见识。她教我的几个月是无价的！

欧飞迈

曹老师真棒啊！耐心，认真，准时的，幽默的，富于语言见识。她教我的几个月是无价的！

欧飞迈

Appropos of this week's news, I am really excited about learning some Shanghaihua. Over the two years I've lived here, I've really grown found of the sound of the dialect - I initially found it quite ugly - but I still have no clue what locals are talking about. It would be fantastic to be able to speak some common phrases, especially when dealing with older people (I can just see the smiles on the faces of the people in the vegetable market now!)

actually, if two ways of speaking are mutually unintelligeble, it doesn't mean they are two separate languages. They may actually be dialects of the same language.

Cantonese/Mandarin

食多啲 /多吃一些

唔该嗮你 /非常感谢你

畀埋佢哋 /全部给他们

唔好睇乜滞 /不太好看

佢又系衰得滞 /他也太次了

高过头冇用嘅 /太高了没用的

畀三蚊添 /再给三块钱吧

Definition from yourdictionary.com:

"...dialects are regarded as being, to some degree, mutually intelligible while languages are not mutually intelligible".

The problem is that theory sometimes differs from expert to expert. For example, there is a dialect called "Ryukyu-go" in Japan, and some linguists say it's a separate language, and others say it's a dialect. I think there is a lot of similar cases in this world. The line between "intelligible" and "unintelligible" is not so clear either.

I'm sorry, but your lame dictionary is wrong

Fyi: Dutch and Afrikaans (and Dutch & German) are mutually intelligible and those are two different languages.

On the other hand there are dialects within Dutch (and German) that cannot be understood by standard speakers of the language :-).

I hear Dutch and German are mutually intelligible. Is this true? If so, to what extent? Incidentally, I recently learned that Niederdeutsch and Hochdeutsch are rather different from each other, and some linguists begin to claim they are two separate languages. Just interesting!

When I hear Mandarin, I can understand a little. When I hear Cantonese, it not only _sounds_ completely different, I can't understand anything. Giving me 3 examples of words that are the same is ludicrous. they may have at one time been dialects, but these days they're pretty dichotonous.

As other said, can a mandarin-only speaker understand a cantonese-only speaker? No. So there you go.

A German teacher in highschool (long time ago) told me there was even a relation between some dialects from the region where I'm from and the cases in German, Dutch does not have this type of cases btw.

Yes, you are right there are many difference, same for Dutch and German, but people would understand eachother quite well if both would speak there own language.

When I was in Hong Kong I could not understand a word of what people were saying around me and normal day to day mandarin (and even Nanjinghua :-) ) I understand reasonably well. I figured that I should understand at least something of Cantonese....Same as Xiao Liang mentioned...

Off topic: I'm studying full time Chinese now (at uni here) and there is a Japanese guy in my class (who is really good) everytime he answers a question I think about you haha!

Thanks a lot！Looks like the linguistic environment in Europe is very "economical", hehe. On the other hand, languages used in East Asia are all non-intelligible to each other, unfortunately. In short, it's not "economical".

Please say hello to the Japanese guy for me!

One key difference in German is the vowel forming. Whereas southern people tend to form the vowels in the front (supported by the rolling "r" on the tip of the tongue), northern people form the vowels more towards the back. This results in different tones for each vowel making them more difficult to match with the own vowels, thus harder to understand.

One key difference in Dutch is the preference of a soft "g" in the south versus a hard "g" in the north. There the "g" sounds more like a swiss "ch".

I guess, due to those displacements, words and phrases are shortened differently which results in the long run as a different dialect.

Thanks a lot for the info. "The rolling "r" on the tip of the tongue" seems to be easier for most Japanese, me included, than its northern "back" version is.

Or am I misinformed?

I know very little about Cantonese or how much overlap there is with Chinese except an impression that they use the same characters in the writing,and that there are some common origins and similarities,an impression that there is a strong relationship there [but so is English and German or French for example which also has cognates for example....which tends to mean it's easier to learn a language related to your own...the closer the relationship presumably the easier],but that for the most part they are not mutually intelligible.I would agree with Changye though that the lines between such things are usually blurry,and I tend to think most things have shades of gray.It comes down to semantics,but in the end though it's an interesting discussion,I feel it is what it is and I'd be interested in knowing difference it makes if we decide to call Cantonese a dialect or a separate language.

哈哈....oh no please continue mate,it's all very entertaining.

Very interesting about the Serbian Croatian situation.Thanks for that...good points.

I can't answer your questions because I don't know enough about them.From the little I've seen of Cantonese though,aren't a lot of the words somewhat similar sounding [like for example the Cantonese equivalent of 恭喜发财...even though not similar enough to be mutually intelligible with Mandarin? There seems to be a relationship there ,though I have heard it is as wide apart as English and French if not wider.

Please tell me who "Shiina Ringo" is! As you said, I know almost nothing about Japanese singers/actors/actresses who came out in the past ten years, but please don't hesitate to ask me about Japanese animes, hehe.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cf2geHLljKA

Mandarin and Cantonese are completely non-intelligible to each other.

Hi bababardwan

FYI, Vietnamese had been written using only Chinese characters until recently. The languages began to use Latin alphabet only after the war. In ancient times, Japanese was also written ONLY in Chinese characters.

Just because I'm curious, I thought I'd annoy my girlfriend (who speaks both) by ringing her in the middle of her training day. I asked her, could someone who only speaks cantonese, understand a speaker of mandarin? She said, "A little bit. Depends how old they are".

So there, non-conclusively, you are.

Isn't that because all young Cantonese speakers have LEARNED some Mandarin, not because Mandarin is innately intelligible to Cantonese speakers?

I wonder how many native Mandarin speakers understand Cantonese. When judging whether two languages are mutually-intelligible, you can't taint the judgement by asking people who have already learned the other language.

Could a Mandarin speaker who has never learned Cantonese have a conversation with a Cantonese speaker who has never learned Mandarin?

Even it is still controversial whether they're two dialects or two languages, I would think they are two different languages--they are more similar than French and Italian, but more different than Danish and Swedish.

古代中国人の生活は困難でした。(Japanese)

古代中国人의 生活은 困難했습니다.(Korean)

The life of ancient Chinese people was difficult. (English)

Please be noted that modern Korean doesn't use Chinese characters anymore. They abandoned using Chinese characters a few decades ago.

Also, many place names (eg. metro stops, landmarks) are written in Chinese characters still. And the name of the capital only changed in the last decade, I don't remember the year exactly. So when any Government decides to 'abandon' something, the people decide when to implement the policy fully？

BTW, do you think that Japanese is to Korean (see above) as Chinese is to Korean?

That's interesting about Korean. Why did they quit using Chinese characters? I guess because of the difficulty of them.

俺们东北人！

Many thanks. That's a very interesting web page. Chinese is grammatically very different from Korean and Japanese, but the three East Asian languages have one thing in common, namely, "Chinese words". Japanese has tons of Chinese words borrowed from Chinese, and Korean also has tons of Chinese words borrowed from Chinese and Japanese. Interestingly, there is a lot of so-called "Japan-made Chinese words", most of which are academic words, and they were exported to China and Korea in the past (mainly before the war), and they are still broadly used in these countries. Ironically, 共产主义 (communism) is a typical Japan-made Chinese word.

The main reason why Korean people abandoned Chinese characters was "politic", exactly speaking, it was a matter of nationalism, and it's still a highly political issue in Korea. Korean alphabet (Han-guel) is a kind of "national pride" for most Korean people, just like Chinese characters is for Chinese people.

Korean students learn about 1,800 Chinese characters at school, but most Korean guys learn them half- heartedly because college entrance exam has no "Chinese character" subject. In any case, Korean alphabet is very easy to write and input, so most young guys don't want Chinese characters back.

That said, now a lot of Korean people think learning Chinese characters (and Chinese language) is important for the development of their country, and the Korean alphabet association is strongly (and politically) fighting against such movement.

Personally I think Korean people shouldn't have abandoned using Chinese characters since the Korean language has tons of Chinese characters, just like Japanese.

I noticed you said 'guys' and seemed to avoid women in your analysis. Was that on purpose? Just curious.

Is the English word "guys" only for men? I thought it would be for both men and women......

Many thanks. I should have known about that sooner!

One note: I think that the female equivalent to 'guy' would be 'gal'. Picky, I know.

The correct female equivalent where I come from is 'sheila'. :-)

We would not say 'hey sheilas' in the same way as you say 'hey guys'; I think that in Australia 'guy' is unisex these days.

We actually can't use 'gal' (for nationalistic reasons), except in the sentence 'wudja pick up that 33 gal drum frus?'

Yeah 'mate' is difficult for Americans to pronounce - the pinyin is MITE.

I don't think the pronunciation is so much the problem. The Brits I know seem to pronounce a hard A in 'mate'. I just think America is totally man/dude territory. 'Mate' and an America accent just don't fit together as a package.

Okay, I am digressing too much...

From my discussions with Chinese friends, Cantonese and Mandarin are seen as different languages. Recently I was studying Mandarin with a Cantonese friend. Her reading was great, but pronounciation and recognition of the Mandarin version of words was similar to my level (intermediate).

Another thing, "sheila" is rarely used in Australia, except in the rural areas, and is often seen as sexist. But I agree with you, "guys" is seen as unisex in Australia.