Cantonese and Mandarin
mikex
November 01, 2011, 10:26 PM posted in General DiscussionIn response to your solicitation of suggestions ... I think it would be great if you offered some Cantonese instruction. I enjoy Mandarin. But I enjoy Cantonese as well.
If I'm not mistaken somewhere around 70 million people speak Cantonese. Puny by Mandarin standards .. but a lot larger than many other languages.
Just my two cents.
mikex
November 02, 2011, 04:51 PMSometimes I think Cantonese is a little more fun to speak. Mandarin may be more elegant; it is also more staid.
xiao_liang
I definitely think it's more fun to listen to - my partner speaks both, and although I understand none of it, I think her cantonese is a much more elegant sounding language.
xiao_liang
November 02, 2011, 09:06 PMAfter the shanghainese series, they said Cantonese was the next one they were working on. Whatever happened to that?
jennyzhu
November 03, 2011, 09:55 AMWho wants to audition?
mikex
November 03, 2011, 04:08 PMI wish I was good enough. I am slowly losing whatever weak Cantonese chops I had when I lived in Hong Kong. My Chinesepod teacher is drilling my occasional guangdonghua lapses out of me :)
mikex
November 03, 2011, 04:10 PMI heard that ancient classical Chinese poetry actually rhymes in Cantonese but not in Mandarin. Does anyone know if this is really true, or just another urban legend?
mark
A friend told me that classical poetry makes more sense to him when read in Taiwanese (闽南话）. His theory was that older dialects have been pushed south by successive invasions from the north. So, there might be something to what you've heard.
oddbudman
November 02, 2011, 04:45 AMYeah, it would be good to know a few phrases. I work in Dongguan and it would be very useful to be able to throw a bit of lingo around the local markets and when i'm in Hongkong.