Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
It depends on the purpose. I would say study both-they should not be mutually exclusive. I know the job market is shifting towards Mandarin. But, if you want to connect with the locals, you best also know Cantonese. Cantonese is still the primary language used on daily interactions, as I understand.
One of my high school classmates has lived and worked in Hong Kong for the last 16 years or so. He is Asian-American (so, would blend in there based on his phenotype), but he grew up in the US. He is also married to a Hong Konger. He learned Mandarin before moving there, not sure how fluent he is in Cantonese, but I imagine he has probably learned some for daily interactions in Hong Kong to carry some basic conversations- he is in an executive position for a prominent Hong Kong branch of a major US company now. Supposedly, his Mandarin knowledge helped in getting his foot in the door with that company.
Yeah that's true, but if we're talking about interacting with locals in daily life, some knowledge of Cantonese would help more.
Yes. When I moved to Hong Kong, I was fluent in Mandarin, and learned Cantonese pretty much through just living there, watching TV and movies. It helped that I could read Chinese so that sped up my Cantonese learning.
You don't write an essay or report in Cantonese. It is not acceptable.
There are many Chinese books from Taiwan in HK, but there are very few books from HK in Taiwan.
Chinese books in Hong Kong are written in proper Chinese, traditional characters, but read out in Cantonese pronunciation.
You mean, one doesn't write a essay or formal report in colloquial Cantonese (often can be found in Next Magazine, and other tabloid style publications). Written colloquial Cantonese is usually limited to parts of gossip magazines, some columnists in newspapers (who want to convey an ideomatic style).
Agree that the Taiwan publishing industry for Chinese books is far more developed than that of Hong Kong. HK visitors love going to Eslite bookstores in Taipei.
first you should know both of them are hard to learn, and many of them can speak english in this international city, so you can save the time to do other meaningful issue, like cook authentic Chinese food.
I think it should be both. Although Cantonese is still an official language in Hong Kong, Mandarin is increasingly becoming important and required nowadays. Mandarin is the official Chinese language, so it should be first priority and then Cantonese if you want to learn Chinese. Nowadays, in Hong Kong most of the newer generations can speak Cantonese and Mandarin, although their Mandarin is not that great and prefer to default to Cantonese.
Before coming to Hong Kong, it probably is best to learn some basic Mandarin first and the Chinese writing system.
Utilizing romanizations/pinyin is very important. It will be more helpful if you can find people you know who can speak both Cantonese and Mandarin if you live in a large metropolitan area where there is a significant Chinese population before you leave the country to go to Hong Kong/China.
With online learning resources nowadays on google and youtube, my suggestion is utilize them to your full advantage and take notes. Especially if you are going to be utilizing youtube videos(make sure you find a very reliable channel to begin with), you can pause to read and take notes and always repeat watching the same videos over and over again until you remember it as easy as knowing where you place your items and then can slowly move onto the next lesson videos.
Once you have at least some basic understanding of spoken Mandarin and the Chinese writing system, look up Chinese reading materials online to help improve on your reading and if you see characters you are not sure of and look interesting, look up the translations and the pinyin and take notes. Over time as you constantly expose yourself to as many Chinese words as you can and utilize the support of pinyin and translation dictionaries online and maybe on hard copy books to help you read the characters and understand the meanings, your Chinese reading can improve and I have discovered the more Chinese characters you can read/recognize, your spoken ability can go very far.
However, you should take your time and not rush. You do not want to stress yourself out. If you can, maybe hold off on traveling to the country for at least another year or better yet two-three years and stay where you are to learn the basics by utilizing online learning materials and hard copy resources.
Watching entertainment and song videos can help and being around other native speakers also helps.
Once your spoken Mandarin and Chinese reading ability is somewhat fluent, you can then slowly start learning some Cantonese. If you already know the Chinese writing system somewhat, you can easily learn Cantonese, however the way Cantonese is spoken does not match all of the words in the standard written Chinese form. There are often slang terms that supplement for some of the standard written Chinese words/terms. So keep in mind there will be certain words used in spoken Cantonese in certain context that would be used in a different context in spoken Mandarin. Sometimes there will be a little bit more extra slang terms in Cantonese. The pronunciations for the standard written Chinese differ between Mandarin and Cantonese.
In case, anyone is interested, you can also seek Cantonese pronunciation sites that can help you read Chinese characters in Cantonese as well. There are also Cantonese learning sites as well and even on youtube.
As Another Note:
When learning the Chinese writing system, it is best to learn in Mandarin first before learning it in Cantonese, because they sound very much like spoken Mandarin and will be easier to understand the writing system.
I would not recommend learning the Chinese writing system in Cantonese first, because when you read the standard written Chinese in Cantonese pronunciation, it does not sound like normal spoken Cantonese. If you are learning spoken Cantonese and learning the writing system in Cantonese pronunciations, you will realize they sound nothing alike and rather sound like different versions of Cantonese. It will get too confusing.
FOR ANY AMERICAN BORN CANTONESE PEOPLE THAT WANT TO LEARN THE CHINESE WRITING SYSTEM, LEARN SOME SPOKEN MANDARIN AND THE WRITING SYSTEM FIRST AS MANDARIN IS THE OFFICIAL LANGUAGE AND YOU ALL SHOULD AT LEAST KNOW A LITTLE BIT OF MANDARIN AND WILL BE EASIER TO UNDERSTAND THE CHINESE WRITING SYSTEM AS THEY ARE MOSTLY SPOKEN MANDARIN.
MANY OF YOU AMERICAN BORN CANTONESE MIGHT BE THINKING IF YOU LEARN THE WRITING SYSTEM IN CANTONESE FIRST, IT WILL MAKE IT EASIER TO LEARN MANDARIN, BUT IT IS THE OPPOSITE WAY AROUND.
THE WRITING SYSTEM DOES NOT SOUND LIKE SPOKEN CANTONESE AND IF YOU FIRST LEARN THE CANTONESE PRONUNCIATIONS OF THE FORMAL WRITTEN CHINESE, IT IS GOING TO BE TOO CONFUSING. LEARN SOME BASIC MANDARIN AND THE WRITING SYSTEM FIRST AND THEN TAKE YOUR TIME TO LEARN THEM IN CANTONESE LATER. NOW YOU WILL REALIZE WHY WHEN YOU LISTEN TO CANTONESE SONGS, YOU COULD NOT UNDERSTAND WHAT THEY ARE SAYING AND WHY THEY DO NOT SOUND LIKE SPOKEN CANTONESE CONVERSATIONS BECAUSE THEY ARE ALL SPOKEN MANDARIN BUT PRONOUNCED IN CANTONESE INSTEAD.
FOR ALL OFFICIAL DOCUMENTS, NEWSPAPERS, BOOKS, MAGAZINES, AND INCLUDING SONGS, AND ETC. IN HONG KONG AND GUANGDONG, IT IS ALL WRITTEN MANDARIN AND NOW YOU WILL NOTICE WHY WHEN YOUR PARENTS OR FAMILY MEMBERS OR ANY CANTONESE PERSON READING THE WRITTEN CHINESE SOUNDS NOTHING LIKE SPOKEN CANTONESE.
^^ Just to rephrase it: written Chinese is based on Mandarin, not Cantonese. So one must master Mandarin vocabulary and grammar to be able to read and write even in Hong Kong.
Fortunately, the vocabularies of Mandarin and Cantonese are very similar, especially the words used in arts, sciences, literature etc. are almost the same. Grammars are similar too. Just pronunciations can be very different.
BTW, these days are the street signs and store signs in traditional characters still, or are they converting to simplified? Which characters to newspapers and other publications use?
All the official signs still use traditional characters, although in some places they might also have simplified characters. Nearly all local newspapers and magazines use traditional characters.
dude, honestly, you should put this after your online handle here "I HATE everything about mainland China".
HKers hate mandarin speaking people, let me tell the real story here: they hold this resentment because HK is not the HK the CHinese look up to any more. Few mainland Chinese give a flying a$$ about HK nowadays. HK has fallen from the envied place of wealth and prosperity to nothing but a shopping destination in the past 20 years, and even that status is being lost. HKers are losing their long time sense of superiority, and so many HKers (as well as Taiwanese, the businessmen, the celebrities) NOW HAVE to make money in China, something unimaginable 20 years ago.
China will be totally fine without HK or Taiwan, the other way doesn't exactly work. HK would be absolutely nothing without China, despite its freedom of press, law or order and all the nice stuff, which will all be utterly useless, and HKers know it. HK may feel like incredibly international, but it is all because it has China supporting it. This is why they HATE China. They know the Chinese don't care for them any longer.
And to the OP, of course you can just learn Cantonese, if you only associate with HKers. But just so you know, a HKer, even a shop assistant nowadays has to understand Mandarin, while hardly any mainland Chinese find the need to learn Cantonese.
It is like if you live in Sweden, you COULD just learn Swedish, but in the end, its usefulness is extremely limited.
first you should know both of them are hard to learn, and many of them can speak english in this international city, so you can save the time to do other meaningful issue, like cook authentic Chinese food.
it is fantasy to even think most HKers can communicate effectively in English. And even those who do usually have a heavy Cantonese accent.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
