5 Reasons Cantonese is So Tough for English Speakers

[@OneGuyWhoIsExisting]

As a Cantonese native speaker, I’m so proud of myself that I can speak one of the hardest languages(or maybe dialects) in the world😎

[@sasasvideo4955]

Same here 😎

[@Kimmy-Kimchi]

Same here 😎

[@GladysMui-mb4po]

Same too

[@CanadianMapper4]

Me too

[@kennethsiau5096]

Me too

[@vainpiers]

I'm trying to learn a bit of Cantonese before moving to Macau. Which I'm hoping means I'll pick it up faster once I get there due to being surrounded by it.

[@dynamo116]

#3 alone with the diglossia is insane, it's like learning 2 languages instead of 1! Almost all languages is "what you see/hear/write/speak is what you get" like Mandarin, but like you said, not with Cantonese! Casual spoken Cantonese (what you use to speak with your friends/family) is different than what they use in songs and the news. I grew up speaking household Cantonese so I can "speak" Cantonese fluently, but if you put the news on for me or make me listen to a song I have no idea what they're saying because of the diglossia 😭

[@MelisaenHongKong]

It’s the same, when I studied Mandarin in Beijing we had a class for Spoken Mandarin, a class for written and a class for reading . And don’t even let me get started with the class for Ancient Chinese . Chinese language in general is just not for the faint hearted 😊

[@DanielKRui]

@3:20 there's another final particle "wo", with a higher tone compared to the one in the video. Meaning like "but he already went home", usually said to contradict/counter/shoot down something someone else has said.

[@jolintsaiforever3697]

I started with learning mandarin first before cantonese, hence, I pretty much went through all the hard parts such as tones, simplified and traditional characters. Pleco pretty much helped me with learning new characters everyday and checking the tones of each words. When it came to Cantonese, I felt it was easier for me because a lot of mandarin words have similar cognates or counterpart words in cantonese, just needed to alter some pronunciation. However, i still struggle in cantonese tones and the diglossia part. I find that can't memorise the tones, i needed to keep using cantonese and adjusting the tones like a radio, with a native speaker beside helping us identify the correct sounds. For the diglossia, again nothing is better than getting native speakers to introduce us the "real" cantonese words which is not shown in the subtitles (they always put the substitute mandarin word instead, it helps with understanding but not with my cantonese learning , CHOI!!)

[@cantobritt]

Starting with a base in another Chinese language is such an advantage! But then switching the tones and words will still take some time and practice. But keep at it!! ps - sweet username

[@thinkinting]

I think your Choi at the end is my first ever seeing this word/sound/exclamation in English in my life.

[@moonlightdrop]

哈哈我每一日都會講廣東話講and I feel lucky lol I hope you can learn it soon

[@cedude69]

Yes, Cantonese is extremely difficult to learn. I lived in HK for 5 years. I went to Cantonese school 3x a week. The tonal structure is complex & difficult to comprehend. It takes many years of constant learning to really have a decent understanding of the language.

[@faithwithfruits]

I'm from Malaysia and grow up speaking Cantonese but I never learn the written words. When I went to Macau to work in 2004 I was laughed at by local colleagues because in Malaysia we've added local flavors (words/expressions) that is unheard of in Macau. I agree there's many versions of Cantonese depending where it's being spoken.

[@thatwastakenagain]

by this extension isn't the malay hard due to the grammar with Affixes and reduplications

[@faithwithfruits]

@@thatwastakenagain Malay and by association Indonesian is not as hard as English as there are no past continuous or future perfect tenses etc etc. The affixes and suffixes you soon get the hang of it.

[@thatwastakenagain]

​@@faithwithfruits forgot that the vowell changes in other language happens w/ thoses nouns like I'm also assume there are no changes like that in malay too? like if a bunch of vowells or consonants are together?

[@maplestory2723]

Singapore Cantonese has a lot of Malay / Tamil as well :)

[@chloelovesscones]

Thank you for this video! Cantonese is a hard language to learn, but language attitudes play a big role in how a language is valued and whether it's worth learning. I love your channel because Cantonese holds a lot of cultural and emotional value that cannot be so easily translated. How we perceive a language is what might compel us to learn and become proficient. Definitely appreciate what you're doing! Especially for us Overseas Cantonese-speakers in English countries, to connect with our roots and parent culture :)

[@marthatran962]

This video was so funny, loved it! Also very helpful summary of why I’ve had such a hard time learning and teaching my kids. Thank you thank you for this video!

[@JV-ge8bm]

Great video, I notice your editing has also improved a lot btw!

[@cantobritt]

Trying to improve at every step! Thanks for tuning in!

[@belikestephanie]

I speak Cantonese as well as Taishanese. I’ve been told that I have a Toisanese accent with the vocabulary of “the elderly people from Chinatown.” 😅

[@Philllin]

i speak cantonese also and i find that being able to speak it, makes learning mandarin easier as well

[@lilove6560]

I feel validated 😎

[@telomeke3157]

Thanks so much for this video Brittany! Love your videos and I do agree Cantonese is tough -- but I love the sound and flavor of it anyway so am persevering. Happy New Year of the Tiger -- your video was published exactly on the first day of the Chinese New Year 2022! 🐅👍😊

[@cantobritt]

Thanks, you too!! 🐯

[@wintersongs1]

Diglossia makes Cantonese impossible to write. It's absolutely aggravating that writing and speaking mostly uses different words 點解 vs. 為甚麼.

[@永Tom]

Didn't consider some of these. There are so many more reasons too; -two different romanised systems (neither one standardised) -few materials define what is written and spoken It's fun though, like the channel thanks!

[@geckozero0]

Great video, I agree, the hardest obstacle I've had for learning is subtitles not matching what is said, so I've done away with them entirely. Can you do a video on final particles? I can't seem to figure them out. Sometimes laa means a command, but sometimes it means already, I hear people say "siu siu laa!" but I don't know what laa means in this instance. Keep up the good work!

[@bluecedar7914]

Laa1 can also be a more polite, respectful version of aa1 - used to emphasize the sentence - particularly in Malaysia and Singapore. Laa3 means already. The tone of these particles carry meaning as well as the consonants and vowels.

[@discovercantonesewithmissk9861]

wo3 - realize/reminder, gwaa3 - uncertain mood, laa1 command or request mood. I have one video in my channel talks about ending particles.

[@geckozero0]

@@discovercantonesewithmissk9861 Gonna give it a watch, thanks!

[@MisterHowzat]

Yes. Probably. Definitely. Something like Toishanese or any of the other rarer dialects are probably harder, though, if only because of the lack of resources to learn them.

[@azntidez16]

Didn't realize egg and cake has the character egg in it. Thought it was a different word by the sound of it.

[@discovercantonesewithmissk9861]

Yes, daan2 egg, if pronouncing as daan6gou1 cake, that means food made from eggs

[@azntidez16]

@@discovercantonesewithmissk9861 ah took me awhile to realize haha same with egg tarts. Thanks :)

[@MasonTheFurryCat]

Oh I am just watching this to see more of why my friend is struggling hella much when I try to teach my friend Cantonese

[@ochiaichannel1189]

I love your videos, and I've watched most of them if not all. Maybe because I'm Japanese (our characters have a lot in common), but Cantonese is considerably easier than most other languages that I've encountered. Sure the tones are the barrier, but oftentimes one sound only has 3 or 4 tones, or sometimes just one. And if you combine letters, you'll make sense. I talk to Hong Kongers a couple of times a week, and though I still have terrible accents and grammar, they have almost no trouble understanding me, and I've been learning Cantonese only for 6 months. I think one of the main reasons Cantonese isn't so popular although really important is the Cantonese speakers make it sound unnecessarily difficult, especially when they talk about the tones. It's not that hard, and that's what you should tell them. I look up to you as a teacher(s?!), and hope I wasn't being rude, but that's the impression I have.

[@alanbannister1874]

I love Cantonese, but I do struggle with it

[@SophieWinther]

Can you do a video on the final particles??? As a self taught canto-speaker I think this part is the hardest to grasp!!

[@erichodge567]

The fact that children can learn Cantonese just by listening is just a staggering fact about the human mind.

[@tedcrowley6080]

Very useful video. Thank you. I'm studying 普通话, which is hard enough (for Americans & Europeans). I know Cantonese is harder.

[@derekmei3440]

I think one important point that she missed mentioning that the other polyglot KZbinrs she featured did a good job of highlighting is that Cantonese actually becomes a completely different language at a high level. To go from being able to speak in a business setting to be able to understand poems and literature is astronomical and is essentially a different language in itself. I actually think just "learning" Cantonese to be able to communicate with locals, such as saying hows your day or ordering is quite easy, the real difficulty comes when you to master or experience the language to its fullest. It's like taking Korean honorifics to the extreme.This isn't exclusive to Cantonese either, Mandarin is the same way. However, I think Cantonese is still slightly harder than Mandarin in this manner.

[@cantobritt]

Thanks for your comment. I tried to explain this when I brought up diglossia and how written Chinese and Cantonese are very different. I like your examples though!

[@johna.6373]

I don't see why Cantonese would be harder than Mandarin at an advanced level. Imo I think it should be easier? If you're talking about classical Chinese, I think Cantonese should be marginally easier since it uses more monosyllabic words and classical words like 食 instead of 吃. I also think Cantonese is also better suited for poetry than Mandarin since it has resisted much more phonological divergence than Mandarin (especially with retention of 入聲) and rhymes much better. I suppose maybe for contemporary works (白話) it is centred more around Mandarin and standard Chinese but since there's a diglossia in Cantonese as mentioned I don't think it should be a big issue? Interested to hear your thoughts.

[@derekmei3440]

@@johna.6373 I think my viewpoint comes more from the perspective of if you already speak either language at a fluent enough level for day-to-day or even business level, for which language would it take more effort to reach the advanced level. And of course this is based off of a CBC's perspective overseas, but I feel like the answer would be Cantonese because Mandarin day-to-day feels more formal, uses less slang and less varied vocabulary. While, yes I agree that Cantonese is more suitable for literary works, I'm of the opinion that there would be just a bit more learn to make that jump for Cantonese.

[@callistoscali4344]

@@derekmei3440 Mandarin by definition is a formal language. Mandarin is not native to any region in China. It is created to be the standard pronunciation of Standard Chinese. Cantonese is native to Guangzhou. If we want to compare, we should compare Beijing dialect with Cantonese.

[@aoikemono6414]

@@callistoscali4344 you are being pedantic. Mandarin is mandarin. Other dialects are dying off and being supplanted by it.

[@ayske1]

It's definately tricky but also because I'm ABC. I once had a Vietnamese colleague who shared two Vietnamese words and I could not hear the difference, I feel it may be even harder than Cantonese When you say Cantonese it sounds like "cant-a-knees" 😅

[@beardan76]

Reason 1 - Tones: For the first 12 months of learning i just ignored the tones. It was too difficult to go from an english only speaker for all my life to using tones when i spoke. After about 12 months I first said 'saam1' clothes/three and that was my first word. Reason 2 -Learning a leanguage you cant read is extremely hard. Something that prevented me i think from going from intermediate to a higher level. Reason 3 - Ive only ever known spoken Cantonese so watching the news was a waste of time and something i never did. Im not into Cantopop either. If music isnt from the 90s its basically no good, with a few exceptions like Ed Sheeran and Pink. Reason 4 - I have never used final particles. It would be like a HK person using Australian slang. It wouldnt be natural. So i just speak Chinese like i speak English. Although these imo are excellent points to say Cantonese is the hardest language i think is ignoring the fact that the grammar of Chinese languages are very basic. And far easier to learn that English/French/Italian. Whoever made up the structure of the language did better than the people from other countries who made it far too complicated. English is ridiculous. And dont get me started on the spelling of English words. How could 'one' and 'won' possibly be pronounced the same way? It's ridiculous to pronounce the word 'one' the way it's pronounced. Great video!

[@discovercantonesewithmissk9861]

The difficulty of learning a second language one of the reason also depending on how different is your mother tongue comparing to that target language, but I admit that Cantonese is also very difficult for Mandarin speaker to learn

[@abby_photos]

I feel like calling Cantonese grammar simple is doing it a disservice. In a lot of ways it's simple, but it's unintuitive if you've only ever spoken Indo-European languages. Topic comment is completely different than subject predicate and until you wrap your head around that you're going to have a really hard time sounding natural and you'll probably mess up your word order. I would also point to noun classifiers if you're really looking for something complicated.

[@thisisjeffwong]

I mostly watch the news and listen to formal speech in Cantonese as a kind of training wheels for Mandarin.

[@aoikemono6414]

Won is only pronounced one in certain regions. Otherwise they are distinct. Homophones exist in all languages, and English has by far the fewest because of its polysyllabic nature and far larger phonetic system. That's why speaking Chinese using romanized words is possible but completely broken the other way around. Chinese comparatively has an excessive amount of homophones. There's even a famous poem called the Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den that emphasizes how bad the homophones in Chinese get, every word being shi. It's better in Cantonese but still not great. You may hate inflections and verb tenses, but it serves a purpose. Chinese can be too reliant on context whereas western languages leave less ambiguity. And spelling isn't perfect or phonetic in English, but it's a hell of a lot better than trying to memorize 10k characters to become fluent. You just need to know 26 letters and some general letter combinations to sound things out. Even if it's wrong or irregular, it's close enough, and beats looking up a Chinese character that frequently has zero meaning or pronunciation guide in the individual parts.

[@mattparke4370]

Shine, Endy Chow, and E-Kids are the best Cantonese artists

[@pradhameshreddy8505]

I still love cantonese even if it's hard

[@ABChinese]

That was an enjoyable video! I don’t know much about Cantonese outside of listening to the occasional 邓紫棋 cantopop

[@cantobritt]

I hope you stick around and learn more!

[@callistoscali4344]

At least there is a sizable amount of Cantonese media to enjoy. Try the other hundred of Chinese languages, e.g. Shanghainese or Wenzhounese.

[@thisisjeffwong]

There is 1 book I could find in English on Toisan-hua.

[@nnoahg9645]

As a Cantonese speaker, I find it hard to teach as well 😂 it’s actually easier for me to explain Mandarin to people.

[@letitsnow7848]

I only grew up around people with Vietnamese-Cantonese tones so it's been hard understanding people who don't have one.

[@alleneng]

cantonese slang and swearing is the most beautiful part of the language haha

[@JamesWongLife]

Wooo I have a cameo haha

[@cantobritt]

That was a well written 的 🤣

[@sotmMrPants]

Harder language to learn? Based on accessibility, Balinese. They're trying to make more materials for Balinese to the international audience but otherwise it's very sensitive with hierarchy/formality which is not what us English speakers in the Americas do much unless you're into international business. Went to Bali during my wee years after college and ... everybody was pushing Indonesian on me in the touristy areas which is related but NOT Balinese. So you could only learn Balinese by hearing it or trying to get an in-person teacher.

[@michaelma3385]

As a native Hongkonger, I think the hardest part isn't the tone because you may still brutally memorize them, but the most confusing bit is for example: 大馬 = can means big horses or Malaysia, depends on what were the topic talking about 大碼 = Large size, mainly in clothing The above characters in Cantonese pronounced exactly the same! I think this is the most confusing for beginners

[@MelisaenHongKong]

Do you mean “homophones” ? Those are just words that sound the same but have completely different meanings and they exist in many languages not only in Chinese 😅

[@oblivionfrost4970]

my gf knows Cantonese and from HK, i literally for the life of me cant speak it cause my aussie accent screws it up

[@wmy.u]

2:38 MIRROR

[@swifttransactions3595]

Hi sis. I don't think it's that hard so far, but I can only form small sentences

[@ArchOfWinter]

I do wish the Cantonese tone system uses accent mark like Mandarin. Having to remember which number stands for which tone is a lot more difficult to do than just seeing a visual interpretation of the sound. Spoken Cantonese can technically be written down but hardly anyone knows it or reads it. There are actual characters for every sound in Standard Cantonese, but some of them are just archaic that isn't in used within Standard Chinese. Some vocabulary is also different from Standard Chinese, especially around technology. Gen X, Millennial, and Gen Z Cantonese also includes more and more slangs, loaned words, and literally just replacing words with other languages. Being conversational is one thing, but being fully fluent in say contemporary Hong Kong Cantonese probably involves throwing in English and maybe Japanese usage of Kanji here and there.

[@cantobritt]

Check out “Yale romanization” there’s a great channel called Cantonese Corner that uses it. Good luck!

[@callistoscali4344]

Standard Cantonese is very close to Mandarin. The problem is about writing down Colloquial Cantonese.

[@taipo101]

I thought you were going to talk about Cantonese. Then I heard Cant knees. Yeah maybe that's why it's difficult

[@MelisaenHongKong]

😂😂😂😂

[@nothingtoseehere7404]

2:38 dee gor and 193

[@HinNgaChing]

Finally someone thinks Cantonese is harder than mandarin

[@messironaldo8622]

Hong Kong Language (Speaking: Cantonese, Written: Traditional Chinese) is very difficult to learn. Though, it is also the most interesting. By the way, many foreigners don’t know we dislike others being confused of Mandarin and Cantonese, and rubbish Simplified Chinese and our Traditional Chinese.

[@MelisaenHongKong]

Que asco tu comentario

[@Obscurai]

You definitely sound like a boomer since as a boomer, that's how my Cantonese sounds. In 1985, my cousins in HK said the same thing about my Cantonese in that my pronunciation was "very proper".

[@TheTwoJokers]

我嘅新年願望係有多啲紅包😂😂😂

[@ConsciousBreaks]

It certainly sounds hard when you pronounce it "Can't" - nese 😁 4:32 Down with lazy pronunciation! **raises pitchfork**

[@cantobritt]

BAHAHA 🔱

[@bluecedar7914]

Reason #6 Cantonese speakers tend to speak quickly - more so than the average Mandarin speaker.

[@lookingfortruth1930]

Wow I thought it was the opposite lol

[@pradhameshreddy8505]

please teach me cantonese

[@Kimi_Kiwi157]

超級簡單的對我來說

[@DoorsLeaks]

I’m sonic buddy nothing’s hard for me.

[@michyan3696]

I was born in HK so I know.

[@jonas9332]

Well cantonese has basically no grammer if you e.g. compare it to German. So I think cantonese is actually not that hard but English is very simple (few grammer, uses alphabet, no tones)

[@lilysuryani9777]

I'm live in hongkong almost 5 years but my cantonese still bad

[@cantobritt]

Check out a channel called Hambaanglaang. They have a lot of great beginner videos!

[@lilysuryani9777]

@@cantobritt thankyou

[@Grillman45600]

it is hard because it is have 9 to be than mandarin

[@hmpp7013]

One more reason Cantonese is difficult - It's difficult to teach.

[@MorgannaMGone]

cant nees

[@Kimi_Kiwi157]

Cantonese is easy

[@swifttransactions3595]

Can i just, like, choose to be illiterate??? xDDD I'll just use Hakka characters

[@Grillman45600]

你好我係居加港人

[@rexngan4664]

好簡單㗎咋，多練習就得

[@abby_photos]

I feel like comparing the relative difficulty of languages is kind of meaningless. If you want to learn a language, you can brute force it by dedicating several hours of individual study per week and at least an hour of conversation practice per week. I also think what people will find difficult will vary. Before I started learning grammar or vocabulary, I spent a month practicing the tones for an hour a day. After about three months of practicing vocabulary and tones, I was no longer thinking about them except when learning new words. I feel the same way 漢字 I can read vernacular Cantonese better than I can listen to and understand spoken Cantonese. If my teacher says a word and I'm unsure whether or not I know it, quite often I'll recognize it once I see it written down. I also find that my ability to recall a word when speaking is better if I can at least recognize the 漢字 associated with it. There's really no way around the diglossia unless you straight up learn Mandarin.

[@bluecedar7914]

The gold standard form of Cantonese? 佛山話口咼。😁

[@alberth1891]

Cantonese is a dialect

[@MelisaenHongKong]

What’s with all the disdain to Mandarin? 🧐 SOME Cantonese speakers are so full of themselves as if they never heard of Shanghainese, Wenzhounese, Hokkien, Hakka, Dongbeihua, and the rest of dialects that exist in China. For foreigners like me who learn Chinese language , Cantonese is just another dialect like the many others China has and I love them ALL . And no, I don’t think they are difficult if you got the time and energy to put it into learning it. Anyone can learn Chinese.

[@leechoonpeng1123]

Cantonese is not a language but rather is one of the Chinese dialects, it is important to learn putonghua or mandarin as it is the national language of china that is widely spoken around the world.

[@ttsese]

on9

[@JV-ge8bm]

I think most linguists consider it its own langauge

[@Atheral]

It’s considered a separate language.

[@ArchOfWinter]

Saying Cantonese is a Chinese dialect is like saying Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese is a Latin dialect. Languages evolve and diverge as people migrate through out the world. Cantonese is a close offshoot of the ancient Yue language which predate Mandarin. If you really want to use the dialect interpretation, Mandarin would be dialect of Chinese while Cantonese would be the proper successor to ancient Chinese language.

[@ljsawyer11]

It is labelled a dialect for political reasons only. Such a claim has no basis in linguistics.