Posted: 2/14/2009 8:53:05 AM EDT
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If I were to pick one version of Chinese which to learn and hopefully speak, which would it be?
I've heard Mandarin, supposedly because it is widely spoken in areas of economic importance, but I have no first-hand knowledge of this. Thanks. |
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Mandarin. Beijing, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, etc. speak it. There are so many Chinese languages and sub-languages. You think a southerner and someone from Boston would have a funny sounding conversation, at least they would understand each other. Cantonese is spoken in Hong Kong as well, they have several official languages, the good thing is that a lot of people in Hong Kong speak English, at least anyone you would have to do business with should be. For comparison, in America, English is to Mandarin that Creole is to all other Chinese languages as far as usage. |
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Quoted:
If I were to pick one version of Chinese which to learn and hopefully speak, which would it be? I've heard Mandarin, supposedly because it is widely spoken in areas of economic importance, but I have no first-hand knowledge of this. Thanks. Mandarin is the "official" language, so that's what you should learn. Chinese dialects are pretty much different languages from each other. My parents were born and raised in Shanghai before coming to America, and "Shanghai-nese" is their first language, mandarin is second, English third. |
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If you deal with people from Hong Kong more than from Beijing, then Cantonese. If you are dealing with Chinese officials and folks from Beijing, then Mandarin.
Luckily, if you learn to read and write, it's the same all over, and some of it has the same meaning in Kanji (formal Japanese). I am not a language expert, but I can order a beer in about 16 languages... ("Pijiu" in Mandarin  )
www.standardmandarin.com I used Rosetta Stone for some Thai and Bahasa Indonesia, but found it didn't help so much. Hell, down here in Phuket, they don't understand Thais from Bangkok, sometimes. My pronunciation is just bad enough to get them to try to figure out what I'm saying... By the way, the word for beer in Thai is... Beer.
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Quoted:
Quoted:
If I were to pick one version of Chinese which to learn and hopefully speak, which would it be? I've heard Mandarin, supposedly because it is widely spoken in areas of economic importance, but I have no first-hand knowledge of this. Thanks. Mandarin is the "official" language, so that's what you should learn. Chinese dialects are pretty much different languages from each other. My parents were born and raised in Shanghai before coming to America, and "Shanghai-nese" is their first language, mandarin is second, English third. How does Shanghai dialect sounds like? I can't stand Cantonese - that got to be the most annoying language on the face of this planet. My father's family came from Fujian province (the town / village is called Fujing) - lots and lots of "R". They roll that "R" heavily. You wouldn't know that they are speaking "Chinese" if you hear them. I can't stand that form of language either. I like the sound of Mandarin if it was spoken very properly and NOT by a Cantonese. Those people tend to butcher any language due to their accent. |
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Quoted:
If you deal with people from Hong Kong more than from Beijing, then Cantonese. If you are dealing with Chinese officials and folks from Beijing, then Mandarin. Luckily, if you learn to read and write, it's the same all over, and some of it has the same meaning in Kanji (formal Japanese). I am not a language expert, but I can order a beer in about 16 languages... ("Pijiu" in Mandarin )
www.standardmandarin.com I used Rosetta Stone for some Thai and Bahasa Indonesia, but found it didn't help so much. Hell, down here in Phuket, they don't understand Thais from Bangkok, sometimes. My pronunciation is just bad enough to get them to try to figure out what I'm saying... By the way, the word for beer in Thai is... Beer. Anybody can learn Bahasa Indonesia and become fluent in it in about six weeks! That language is so simple. No genders to worry about, no tenses to screw up, there is no such thing as plural and singular - completely straight forward with very few vocabularies. |
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Quoted:
Quoted:
If you deal with people from Hong Kong more than from Beijing, then Cantonese. If you are dealing with Chinese officials and folks from Beijing, then Mandarin. Luckily, if you learn to read and write, it's the same all over, and some of it has the same meaning in Kanji (formal Japanese). I am not a language expert, but I can order a beer in about 16 languages... ("Pijiu" in Mandarin )
www.standardmandarin.com I used Rosetta Stone for some Thai and Bahasa Indonesia, but found it didn't help so much. Hell, down here in Phuket, they don't understand Thais from Bangkok, sometimes. My pronunciation is just bad enough to get them to try to figure out what I'm saying... By the way, the word for beer in Thai is... Beer. Anybody can learn Bahasa Indonesia and become fluent in it in about six weeks! That language is so simple. No genders to worry about, no tenses to screw up, there is no such thing as plural and singular - completely straight forward with very few vocabularies. And it's written in the English alphabet! The only thing is, I haven't needed to use it. I was in the process of getting a position in Sumatra, and wound up in Bangkok instead. Thai most DEFINITELY is harder. Tonal languages screw me up because of my firearms-induced hearing loss. Well, anyway, I'm in spitting distance of Indonesia and Malaysia, now. Maybe I'll find a use for it. 
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Learn Standard for the mainland or Cantonese for HK and Macao. Standard ought to be easier to learn and more people speak it, but you'll be reduced to speaking English in HK because no one there speaks or will admit to speaking Standard. Also, as some other guy in this post mentioned, the natives butcher every language they try to speak with their accent, even their own Cantonese. Even native Chinese from the mainland are reduced to communicating in English in HK. Of course, if you do learn Cantonese, all the natives in HK will pretend to be unable to understand you, just to be bloody-minded and difficult.
Chinese is going to be tougher to pick up than a European language because you have to adjust the way you think. Concepts are expressed differently through the language and it requires a little different thought process to translate accurately. There is a reason there is so much "Engrish" out there from bad translations, and it's a two-way street. |
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Have fun memorizing those Chinese characters! Chinese is probably the most inefficient language although my mother can write in Chinese faster than I can in English no matter how fast I try. But then again, she's probably just cheating because I can't speak or write Chinese so I wouldn't know any better.
German anybody? That's my favorite language. Sounds like a bloody hammer! |
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Quoted:
Learn Standard for the mainland or Cantonese for HK and Macao. Standard ought to be easier to learn and more people speak it, but you'll be reduced to speaking English in HK because no one there speaks or will admit to speaking Standard. Also, as some other guy in this post mentioned, the natives butcher every language they try to speak with their accent, even their own Cantonese. Even native Chinese from the mainland are reduced to communicating in English in HK. Of course, if you do learn Cantonese, all the natives in HK will pretend to be unable to understand you, just to be bloody-minded and difficult. Chinese is going to be tougher to pick up than a European language because you have to adjust the way you think. Concepts are expressed differently through the language and it requires a little different thought process to translate accurately. There is a reason there is so much "Engrish" out there from bad translations, and it's a two-way street. I used to know a few Chinese from the Mainland who can't speak Mandarin - lots of illiterate people over there (at least back then). |