Petition to extend CPod to include Cantonese, Shanghainese, and other dialects

sebastian, given the number of dlalects in China, it seems like an awful slippery slope. I understand your interest in Cantonese and Shanghaiese. But, what about Sichuan, Fujian, Chaojiu... and the list goes on and on. There is a Cantonesepod, isn't there?

xiaohu: I agree, I certainly would not mind to paying more (or even double) for Cantonese.

I tend to agree with tvan. I think it's difficult enough learning Mandarin alone...throwing in other dialects here and there would only create confusion. Sebastian, are you familiar with 88groups? This is a good extension of CPod where you can create a group in a specialized area of Chinese. It could be a great place for you to start a group on specific dialects that you're interested in.

Yes, I know 88groups, but it does not seem a good substitute for podcasts. I am not sure you guys understand what I am suggesting. I am not proposing to put Mandarin and Dialect lessons into the same group, but to add a new group to the Chinesepod lessons page. So you'd have "Newbie", "Elementary", "Intermediate", ..., "Media" and a new "Dialect" group. Only people who are interested in dialects would check out the lesson in this group and as I said, those lessons could be re-recordings of existing CPod lessons and not new content. In the beginning it could be a simple experiment by CPod to find out how well it is received by the community.

After all Chinese dialects have been requested by various members several times. Or are there any "political" concerns about teaching non-standard Chinese that I am not aware of?

*** light digression *** Btw, where could I find some good audio files using Sichuan dialect ? I need to know how much I can get with my actual level of PTH.

sebastian, I have no political concerns; the only reservations I have are the ones stated. bbjt, that's a digression, but a good question. I personally haven't run into any audio files Sichuan dialect. Actually, if I had to learn a dialect, Sichuanese would be it. As soon as I speak perfect Mandarin...

Hi sebastian. I'll support your initiative, of course. I like your "less is more" approach. Don't know a thing about Shanghainese, but for Cantonese I would definitely recommend some brief "language notes" in the pdfs, to highlight the difference in characters and grammar (there is not word-for-word correspondance between Cantonese and Mandarin). Ken, will you please consider it? If you target the "dialect" section at CPOD users who already have a basic degree of Mandarin knowledge (eg. "heritage speakers" from the overseas Chinese communities, other CPOD learners at -- say -- highish Elementary or Intermediate), you can angle the podcasts as a "conversion" course, much like those currently available for Spanish speakers wishing to acquire Portuguese (and vice versa). One possible model is the hugely popular "Japanese dialect" podcasts in JapanesePod101, which does a great job satisfying curiosity about Japanese dialects. The team there do a great job using the "dialect" classes to deepen their users' understanding of standard Japanese, which is a very important benefit. Oh well, I think that all these arguments "for" and "against" have already been well-ventilated on the Praxis blog (sometime in July 2007?), including the practical suggestions offered by various CPOD users. Thanks again, sebastian, and good luck with your petition!

Looking at my "Cantonese 400" coursebook (with audio materials), which was published by the former Beijing Languages Institute but is sadly out of print, even as few as 5 or 6 podcasts might be sufficient to highlight -- say -- 20 to 30 of the most common "Cantonese" characters. And give Mandarin speakers the tools to develop their own "feel" for the sounds of that language. The first podcast could be about tones. Are there 3, or 6, or 9 tones? You could easily cover the “394052786“-mnemonic in the space of a single lesson. I'm sure that your users can contribute their personal mnemonics, which all seem to be very witty (my favourite is the one about bowls of "beef tendon soup". So many fun topics -- a French friend of mine has already published (online) a map of the HK MTR with all the names translated into English, which really highlights the quirky Cantonese approach to names. Tsimshatsui, Yaumatei, Shatin etc... the characters are often very surprising, if not downright quirky! And you can always find material for lessons on Cantonese food terms, so that CPODdies can order food and enjoy "yum cha" with confidence! How about the names of major Chinese cities in Cantonese? Pretty useful if you are breaking the ice with Cantonese-speaking friends or business associates. The names of HK movie stars (not Edison Chen, for now...). Of HK movies -- "Mou Geen Dou"/ "Geen Gwai" etc. Please? Thank you so much.

Map of the HK MTR system, with station names in Chinese characters: http://www.mtr.com.hk/images/MTR_routemap.jpg Please enjoy.

I don't this is a slippery slope. Launching an entire new site for a Chinese dialect would be. But what harm could be in adding a small feature that allows posting an occasional lesson using Cantonese, Shanghainese or any other Chinese dialect requested by the community? This could even be turned into a feature where volunteers could post versions of CPod lessons translated into their own dialect.

Well, I think I'll just stick with one but if enough people are interested in it: Why not? It's not like you're forced to use those lessons as well.

"佢" for he/him; "聽日" for tomorrow; "我哋" for "我们“... AuntySue, I hope that these examples you gave are enough to tempt any language junkies out there! Here's a grammar example from me now; my BLI coursebook uses simplified Cantonese characters, so the grammar differences really stand out: "I would also like to have several post-cards" Cantonese: 我重要买几张明信片添。 Mandarin: 我还要再买几张明信片。 In the Cantonese, the key words to express "also" are the 重, combined with the 添 at the end. But in the Mandarin version, the notion of "also" is expressed with the 还.

Yes, I agree that Cantonese and Mandarin are sometimes like completely different languages. However, there are also a lot of words whose pronunciation is pretty close (or to the untrained learner almost identical). For example, take the Chinese name of the Octopus card: 八達通. Mandarin pronunciation: ba1 da2 tong1 Cantonese pronunciation baat3 daat6 tung1 When read aloud, the Cantonese sounds like "baa3 daa6 tong1". Another example are the words 買（买） and 賣（卖）. For me Cantonese and Mandarin are dialects (or variations) of the same ancient language. But Cantonese is definitely not a dialect of Mandarin or vice versa.

Hello sebastian. Your point about Cantonese and Mandarin being dialects of the same ancient form of Chinese is a very important one. I think that anybody who begins to explore "Classical Chinese" will find that a lot of "peculiar" Cantonese forms are actually quite close to Middle Chinese. As somebody who was brought up hearing (though not reading or writing) Cantonese, I'd say that the main differences (eg. particles, pronouns, etc) between Mandarin and Cantonese may be confined to as few as 20 - 30 key characters which govern syntax, not vocab. And after a certain number of such "grammar" characters, you can already see the pattern. Eg. The use of 系 instead of 是. The Cantonese particles for expressing degree or amount, eg. 几多? 几好? 点样? And instead of 明日 and 明天早上, it's 听日 and 听朝, respectively. The preference for 似 over 象 (eg. 好似 instead of 好象). Using 同 instead where 和 or 替 would normally be used in Mandarin; but then the meaning can be guessed if you know the character 同. To me, Cantonese has a bit of the "ring" of Shakespearan English to it. But I guess that is actually a plus for me because I'm the kind of person who loves to read Shakespeare for fun, finds his language very immediate and lively!

tvan: I don't see adding a section called "dialects" as a slippery slope at all. There are only 5 major Chinese dialects in use today, 1- Mandarin, 2- Cantonese, 3- Shanghainese, 4- Taiwanese, 5- Hakka. Shanghainese would be a no-brainer considering the in-house labor pool. Jenny could just record 2 sessions for each lesson. The transcripts would be similar. In light of the fact that Praxis has message boards for Cantonese it seems like there is a measure of support for the language (and correct me if I'm wrong...doesn't Praxis also own "Cantonesepod.com?") Even if Chinesepod added lessons for all 5 dialects there isn't a need to go further than that being that the other dialects are either mutually intelligible branches of Mandarin or one of the other dialects, or so obscure that there wouldn't be enough support for the subject of creating lessons for those dialects to come up.

AuntySue, just wanted to say something about one example you used. Namely, the construction 有冇? in Cantonese, as opposed to Mandarin's 有没有？ I believe that in Mandarin, there is a word -- 否 fou3 -- which has a similar function to 冇. Hence in Mandarin you can say 是否 instead of 是不是？The difference is that in Mandarin, this is a rather formal construction, whereas in Cantonese this kind of construction has been preserved in everyday speech. Let's go for it!

sebastian: I agree, it seems to me creating lessons for the big 3 Chinese dialects shouldn't be too labor intensive to produce, (at least a few to initially put the feelers out). It seems to me that those interested in learning Cantonese or Shanghainese could easilly be "upsold" to a membership that includes all 3, bringing more members into Chinesepod and making more money for Praxis. It sounds like a win / win proposition to me.

xiaohu, no no no! Half of my genes are frugal Hakka genes (from my mother), I like to spend as little money as possible. I've heard Hakka relatives saying that artificial flowers are the best because they "last forever". Hakkas are the Chinese people who will NEVER remove the plastic cover that their new sofa had upon delivery, which you are supposed to remove and discard.

If anyone still thinks that the term "dialect" is appropriate, have a look at these two beginner lesson sentences from my book, where I've mangled the Mandarin to be as close to the Cantonese as I could. English Do you have any books? No. Mandarin 你有不有书？不有。 你有不有書？不有。 Cantonese 你有冇書呀？冇。 Nei yau mo sue a? Mo. English He's coming to visit us tomorrow. Mandarin 他明天来拜访我们。 他明天來拜訪我們。 Cantonese 佢聽日嚟探我哋。 kui ting yat lai taam ngoh dei. When Cantonese people read Mandarin writing and speak out Cantonese, they're actually doing a little translation, much like a non-Spanish speaker could read an easy Spanish sentence, inferring and recognising similar words, and say it aloud as an English sentence. When you listen to Spanish, as an English speaker, you can pick up a lot of the meaning. I suspect that on the spoken level it is not so easy between Mandarin and Cantonese. In fact, Spanish/Portugese and Portugese/French are pretty close in sound for understanding, and they're separate languages with a very similar script. So from my tiny experience of these languages, I think the word "dialect" is misleading here.