Can Cantonese Speakers Understand Taishanese? (ft.

[@idylledoll]

I grew up speaking Taishanese!!! Her variant is different from the one I speak though. Many people don’t realise there are many variants of Taishanese too! I don’t really understand much Cantonese but some words here and there. Taishanese is much more of a colourful, animated sing songy dialect that profanity dominates our language more than any other Chinese dialect. TAISHAN PRIDE!!!

[@libsstry8551]

She speaks proper 台城话, and yes even different villages like couple miles away have different accents in Taishanes.

[@kaisasong1332]

@@plowe6751 L take

[@kaisasong1332]

mind as well say we don’t need chinese speak english

[@iamokay7276]

i speak taishanese and my dialect sounds very different from hers and is a lot closer to cantonese

[@druganema8219]

@@plowe6751 commie

[@jayf4612]

That was a great video. Back in the day, my Taishanese grandma on my mom's side was always communicating with my aunts and uncles using the two variants...for lack of a better way to describe it. My aunts and uncles only spoke in Cantonese and grandma only spoke in Taishanese. It just seemed like a natural process. I think there were a lot of ABC and or CBC families who have had this experience throughout the years. Then there was my grandma on dad's side who spoke the Kaiping or Hoiping version of Taishanese where some words were pronounced a little differently from the standard Taishanese. Both grandmas never had any trouble communicating with each other. These were some pretty interesting dynamics of the language that we never even thought about at the time.

[@yalazha]

With practice, it’s possible to figure out the translation between words even without training. I don’t listen to a lot of Taishanese (Kaiping family here) but I could understand most of what Jade is saying here - it’s very similar!

[@twilightrain903]

@@yalazha I don't understand a sentence of Taishanese, but I can understand and speak Cantonese pretty fluently (can't read or write though). I think it's just about muscle memory. If you were around a grandparent who spoke Taishanese, even if you can't speak it yourself, you can probably understand most of what is being said.

[@bjmcia]

Cantonese speakers CAN understand Taishanese if they just make the effort. I've been trying to understand Cantonese for years if they just slow down for me. Jade and Brittany, you have proven my theory that I've known for years!!! Slow it down, all!!!! Great ladies!!!

[@ummirandama114]

This is such a fun episode! I grew up listening to Cantonese in my household (from my grandparents). As a child/teenager, I also thought Taisanese and Cantonese are mutually intelligible. Until one time in high school, my classmates and I visited an elderly home, and my classmates had no idea what the popo was saying. Thank you Britt and Jade for this episode, I miss hearing Taisanese. Even though I can understand it, I cannot really speak it. I really hope I had spoken it more as a kid.

[@JV-ge8bm]

This was so much fun! You should do more for the other Chinese languages/dialects

[@zacharyyan4898]

The results are literally going to be zero understanding…

[@Penguinchubb0]

@@zacharyyan4898 😂

[@konno]

As a native cantonese speaker I felt a little confusing at the beginning but still could understand like 80%, then it became easier at the later part when i got used to listening to it. Felt really close to cantonese, at least grammatically.

[@jiningjyutjyupandou]

我睇呢齣影片估台山話嘅過程： 每個句子我首先估到嘅係： 1）阿爸，飲邊種茶？ 睇到羅馬字後，見到a1 bag5我先估到係「阿伯」 睇到答案後：原來gin2係「緊」 😆 咁呢個句子突然間通順咗好多！ 2）我要攬(？)隻狗，兩隻貓，同一條金魚。 當我聽到「兩隻貓」之後我就開始估阿姐講嘅「lham」可能係「三」。 3）佢嘅屋企人個個週末去飲茶。（感覺開始變得簡單喇，我掌握咗少少台山話嘅規律） 4）我嘅朋友好懶。佢成日唔翻工，屋企瞓覺。 5）外婆冇牙，淨係可以吃(食)紙包XX 第二回（我打出我聽到呢位姐姐講出嚟嘅嘢）： 1）天空嘅顏色---藍色 2）聽到「吃飯嘅地方」後我莫名其妙估「廚房」 😆 --- 聽到「係一樣家具」後我估「飯枱」 3）好靚嘅，好香嘅，玫瑰啦(「玫瑰」我第二次聽先捕捉得到個發音規律），好多顏色啦。--- 我估係「花」 4）係一個國家，佢講英文，佢鍾意飲鹹（？）茶啦，佢有一個女王 --- 聽到呢到之後我突然估得出係「英國」，然後就明白頭先佢係講「佢哋鍾意飲下午茶」。然後聽到：譬如話，伊莉莎白女王啦。然後，佢地去香港係佢地嘅殖民地。 （等等，不過英國而家冇咗女王，佢駕咗崩而家係國王喇喎。） 5）你有時嗌出門口嘅，呀，你媽講話「Brittany，你有冇嗌呀？」準備今日落水（落雨）呀。 -- 噉我估係「遮」☂️ 好好玩，中意咁樣嘅語言比較影片。我都係覺得台山話聽起嚟有啲似粵語同越南文嘅結合 😆

[@DaWatcher357]

Love this video. My grandmother spoke Taishanese to me when I was younger. I picked it up, but never learned it myself. Kind of wish I did. Unfortunately she passed away last year. This video reminded of her. Thank you. More of these challenges please, but maybe do classic sayings from both languages and see if the other can get it.

[@BenInSeattle]

I do hope they do more challenges, but the idea of doing a reverse challenge will be tricky. Toisanese speakers from Guangzhou all know how to speak Cantonese. You'd have to find someone who grew up elsewhere speaking Toisanese, which is possible but rare.

[@KK-zz3yb]

@@BenInSeattle Some ABC might just speak Toisanese but not Cantonese.

[@xlartanislx]

Literally sounds like a mix between vietnamese and cantonese.

[@Re3f1swater]

I speak the taishanese language type she speaks. So I’m just sitting here watching her struggle as I understand everything this has motivated me more than my parents ever have

[@XzyStorm]

I enjoyed this as my dad's side speaks enping dialect while my mom's side speaks taishanese and I had to go to Saturday classes for Cantonese growing up. My Chinese was literally a mash of all 3 everyone would always have difficulty understanding me. I can understand all 3 fine, but would always have difficulty speaking.

[@alcgda]

Thank you so much for this collab! Always love Taishanese vs Cantonese content. Being raised listening to both, I sometimes forget to distinguish the two 😅

[@erinhayward921]

Oo day for featuring Hoisanwa! I like putting on videos with Hoisanwa to turn on that part of my partners brain when hes not expecting it haha. It's his first language.

[@beansavacado8134]

Woah this is SO awesome- As a Cantonese speaker, I’m rlly interested in learning Taishanese now! It’s got such a cool “hl” sound that I’ve never heard before- super awesome!

[@terryfolds8733]

Omg this was so hard to understand as a Canto speaker!! You did way better than me. It really does remind me of Vietnamese. Such a fun video :)

[@abewan1235]

"My friend is lazy, doesn't work, and is always sleeping," was the one I knew on the spot. In my family the elders always talked trash about which of the younger generation wasn't pulling their weight. I think the idea was the more they talked about it, the more likely the mo-yung one was to get the message. I wonder what they would be saying about my Chinese!

[@jpopspeed1]

My dads side is Taishanese and my my mom is from HK so I understand both. Growing up I thought all Cantonese speakers could understand Taishanese. It was only later I discovered nope 😆

[@darrellwong4097]

That was fun Brittany! Great stuff! 👍👍👍

[@vicchung]

So cool to see this because I can 100% understand Taishanese but I cannot speak a bit of it... Only canto.

[@aimeiliu751]

Thank you for making this video :) I moved to US when I was 4 year old and I have been speaking Taishanese with my family for so long that I totally didn't notice that no one else can speak Taishanese with me expect my family.

[@shunde232]

I m a 75 years old taishanese and would like to thank these two beautiful girls. Their taishanese is very good indeed. Please continue to preserve this dialect

[@TomoyaKun100]

This and the initial collab video were spectacular! My family is from Hong Kong and immigrated to the USA in the mid 80's. However, I did learned that my great grandmother from my yeye's side actually was from a Toishanese speaking village. Unfortunately, my yeye doesn't speak it except for a few phrases because of commuting back and forth in NYC for the church and Chinatown. This was a great way to hear the differences!

[@wilwong83]

This is great! So amusing to watch!

[@powasjington4262]

My grandma speaks Taishanese. Sadly, no one else in my family can speak Chinese (although they can understand) because they grew up in a rural part of the US somewhat isolated from the wider Chinese community. Even as someone who doesn’t speak Cantonese or Taishanese, they are distinct enough where I can quickly tell whether someone is speaking one or the other.

[@pbworld7858]

This was a lot harder than I anticipated but a lot of fun. The consonant at the start of the word for three 'thl' is very similar to the 'll' in the Welsh language.

[@xanthedanger8293]

This is awesome! I could understand a lot more than I thought I would! Parts of my family spoke Hoisanwah and parts spoke Cantonese. What a great listening exercise!

[@RaymondHng]

臭崩崩 in Toisan sounds comical.

[@deanlittle9705]

Damn, as a Cantonese/Hakka speaker who only knows "hiak1 fan5", I can't believe I could actually understand 90+%. Can confirm, Hakka definitely helps a lot with some of the words that don't sound Cantonese.

[@cantobritt]

That’s so interesting, maybe I’ll try Hakka next!

[@deanlittle9705]

@@cantobritt Chat with Mimi! kzbin.info

[@thomashom7514]

Living amongst Hakka speakers, I found many Taishanese words are closer to Hakka then to Canto.

[@JO-tg2by]

As someone who is ok in Mandarin and very basic in Cantonese (and didn’t grow up around any Chinese languages), I was surprised by how much I could get the gist of! It seems like if my Canto was better I could def understand Taishanese more.

[@sceng2784]

Lets do more, this was so enjoyable. As an ABC I understood both, but having to speak it now 🤣 I usually mash both up

[@LintonWong]

Love this!!

[@Ann_Fred]

Awesome video! Had a lot of fun attempting to translate before the subtitles came up! Rather surprised at how well I did once I got used to it after the first guess (especially considering I've never really heard Taishanese spoken before everyone in my family speaks Guangdong/Hong Kong Canto).

[@gfong3387]

Haha, great refresher !!!

[@GeneChiu]

Love this. My mother's side of my family speaks Taishanese. I mostly speak my dad's dialect which is Xinhui. Interesting to hear this because it sounds a bit different than how my mother speaks it. I certainly recognise it, but some words are a bit challenging to me.

[@tsunderenekokun]

Round one was ok as a Hong Konger but damn round two really got me

[@metalphilic]

Haha this was great!! This was basically me with my grandma because she was Taishanese but my family only taught me Cantonese.

[@LHITShappy]

As a native canto speaker, I feel like you’ve to really concentrate in order to guess some of the words. Btw my granddad is Toisanese, while my maternal grandfather speaks Hakka, unfortunately I don’t speak these two dialects.

[@kori228]

kim ngui completely threw me off, doesn't have an onset in Cantonese. did manage to guess it after like 20 seconds of thinking tho got table, 4 legs, fan hieng ~= fan theng (food living room?), ka kui = ga geoi, hiek fan ge ei fong = sik6 faan6 ge3 dei6 fong1 couldn't get flower at all kinda got England, but only because she subbed it as Elizabeth and I heard country. could catch nui vong = neoi5 wong4 after seeing Elizabeth

[@Jumpoable]

I got it as Japanese for goldfish is kingyō.

[@kori228]

@@Jumpoable yeah I was thrown off cause Japanese Go-on /g-/ also derives from *ɦ- (行、呉、湖). Usually Cantonese preserves the ng- onsets, but it occasionally doesn't.

[@stephaniel631]

(ABC canto speaker) first 1 was impossible but after that they were all easy

[@goonhoongtatt1883]

My mom is a Taishanese speaker. I can sort of understand it but don't really speak it. Taishanese sounds really cool.

[@jasonreviews]

I'm fluent in toisanese and cantonese. I'm still learning mandarin. Cantonese is simple. You can easily read it. Toisanese chinese characters I have issues with. I'm like so we have learn more words... cantonese pop is different chiense dialect. I really can't understand cantonese pop. cantonese rap yes. Cantonese pop is like. Might as well be mandarin.

[@susanmok5994]

Thoroughly enjoyed this episode! It was so much fun.

[@jaycee5676]

This just messes with my head 😂 My family are Hakka speakers so languages like Canto are similar and intelligible. Hearing Taishanese feels familiar yet confusing at the same time 😂😂

[@leebth]

thx this taught me a new word. my parents speak taishanese, but they call weeekends lai baai mei and i just never heard zau mut before

[@mrkane7890]

I did not get most of them, and I understand Cantonese pretty well (though it is not my native dialect). But once the Taishanese words were explained to me, I could figure out the connection to Cantonese, and I can see how in some ways thet are similar.

[@BrandensOutdoorChannel]

My grandparents spoke toisan. I understand bits and pieces.

[@aaronp2542]

I remember before I was born in the 80s, my dad and mom said that Taishanese was the dialect to know as a diaspora before it was Canto. Its good to see it get some love :)

[@CaptChang]

Living in SF Chinatown means I get about 75% of Toisanwa... Hahaha. :) I'm one of those heritage Cantonese speakers who never went to school for it, so I can never pass one of those HKer tests. :)

[@tonysin4474]

when i was little i over heard my parents when they talk toisan wah. but we hardly speak it coz we or i was born in the philippine, i am fluent in bisaya and tagalog but i understand like 90% of that toisan language.

[@brothermalcolm]

After watching Jade’s other subtitled Taishanese video I have pretty much picked up every single sentence word for word without needing the jyutping 😆

[@yiefei8963]

As a taishanese person, I find this so funny 😭😭

[@conmanumber1]

Im a New Zealand born Gin. I believe we are same as Chens and Yans. Gins have a Gin, Yan Benevolent society on Clay Street San Francisco. I understand you exactly.

[@hitmusicworldwide]

Toisan has the " ł " sound instead of "l" like Navajo and Mongolian. That is the łam łii or the numbers 3 and 4 in Toisan. Í like to order food in Toisan... and of course, I learned the colorful curse words...

[@schu-ng4897]

Wow I've never seen the letter for the sound before! Thanks for sharing. I'd try to spell it like, hl....thl...sthl...?

[@alsetalokin88]

sounds like crossing cantonese and hakka and bit of min nan

[@stoneboi254]

Thank you for mentioning my chinese dialect! It's a dying dialect with only 1.1 Million people speaking it.

[@Heavenlysky89]

I learned some Cantonese here. Hoi Pingese here

[@chunkychipmunky12]

No joke, at this rate Hakka sounds like it'd be easier to understand.

[@truthful3777]

I am a Taishanese, most common words are similar to Taishanese.

[@yipshingho1510]

As others stated, for a native Canto speaker, you can pretty much make out what the sentences mean with the words that are the same as Canto. The grammar is mostly the same.

[@Not-Susan]

This was hilarious

[@limmytom624]

My parents are from Hoping and I speak Taishanese, but her dialect is a little difference from mine. However, I learned from other videos that there are 4 dialects of Taishanese.

[@aguaf]

I usually don't understand Taishanese, only pick up a few word in a dialog. When Jade spoke Taishanese slowly, I found that I could understand 90% of it. It sounds like a combination of Cantonese, Hakka, Huizhou and others. I guess Jade's Taishanese sentences in this video were too formal compared to everyday dialogs.

[@NgooDoi]

Excellent

[@jeffery_tang]

How are you so good at this lol, i think im alright in mandarin and ok in cantonese but i couldn’t get most of it

[@dukecook347]

My father speaks only Toison, can understand most Cantonese but most Cantonese can’t understand him

[@alicewu7277]

Does your friend have a KZbin channel! I’ve been trying to learn Taishanese for the longest time

[@paulinaruiz928]

Yes. The channel’s name is Inspirlang

[@smlo.]

My mom is Kaiping, my dad is Taishan, but I grew up in Kaiping

[@changclan1]

No. My wife’s family is taishanese and doesn’t sound like Cantonese at all😩

[@cantobritt]

After listening to it a little more, you start to notice patterns. And for anyone who wants to learn Taishanese check out Jades free podcasts on her website!

[@miket2394]

Taishanese sounds like Cantonese mixed with Hokkien. I do speak Cantonese amongst other languages and I can say, I am able to understand the Taishanese speaker rather well, if I listen carefully.

[@lunghingyuen6141]

i do not speak inglish only spanisha because i grow up in Las Matas de Santa Cruz City in the Dominican Republic

[@thomashom7514]

Go to Mexico and you'll find many ethnic Chinese speaking Spanish and Chinese. Unfortunately many younger generations have forgotten their Chinese whether it is Cantonese, Hakka or Toisan.

[@lunghingyuen6141]

jade should take me to taishan city guandong

[@wrench246]

I got 4.5/5. I didn't know what type of cake that was at the end until she explained it.

[@alexanderlee7476]

I am not fluent in any Chinese dialect but after watching this episode. I find Taishanese sounding like Thai.

[@caza1027]

I'm failing this so hard lmfao

[@lunghingyuen6141]

jade are you from taishan city guandong china ?

[@analysis1018]

It would probably take at least 25 minutes to guess a number of the Taishanese phrases from Jade (I'm guessing that the unedited conversation with Jade was at least that long). I tried my best to listen to your conversation with Jade and not look at the video too often. I would not have guessed some of the more complex words, such as the Cantonese words for sponge and colony.

[@lunghingyuen6141]

hi jade how are you its me Lung i want toknow do you still teach taishanese ?

[@alexboey]

your version is very much different from ours in Penang

[@Iazystan]

i miss my grandma from watching this video

[@fookriver]

Thanks but I'll stick to my amateur Cantonese

[@goonhoongtatt1883]

Does Taishanese say "lok sui" (water falling down) for raining?

[@thomashom7514]

Lok sui is raining. Hakka also says the same thing. Hakka had many similar words.

[@lunghingyuen6141]

hey jade are you from taishancity guandong provicee china ?

[@golftoy]

oh my god, Taishanese is just like Vietnamese? Are they the same language?

[@nganchaihou5459]

It's always a bigger challenge for standard Cantonese speakers to learn Taishanese/Szeyap-wah than vice versa.

[@notusedatall]

One side of my family speaks Hurng-Gong-Waah and the other side of my family speaks Hoi-Saan-Wah.

[@msbrownbeast]

Her Taishanese sounds like from Hoiping?

[@prostarproductions8354]

easy I can speak both

[@prostarproductions8354]

so I have to ask are you cbc or abc? cause event hearing you talk canto you have a gwai mui accent

[@Obscurai]

Brittany is CBC but lives in the US. Her Canto preserves the "accent" of the immigrants that emigrated 60 years ago to the Americas. Hello from Calgary.

[@lunghingyuen6141]

hi how are you its me Lung iwant to letknow that i do under stand littile bit taishanese

[@Clarisa-j7w]

For some reason I was born speaking Taishanese and I can only listen to Cantonese not speak it.

[@lunghingyuen6141]

every one how to speak taishanese

[@davidwong3613]

Here in SINGAPORE, theToishan dialect is extinct.. Cantonese is only spoken by those over 40 years of age. These were all eliminated by the Goverment's silly SPEAK MANDARIN policy.

[@randomname931]

I’m just asking myself why doesn’t she just speak canto??

[@thomashom7514]

What wrong with being able to speak both?! It is just another feather in your cap. Have you seen polyglots able to speak 5 or more languages? Most Europeans speaks more than 1 language. The butt of many jokes are only Americans speaks 1 language and not even very good at that!

[@randomname931]

@@thomashom7514 because cantonese is much more widely spoken than taishanese. cantonese itself is only useful in southern china. taishanese is only useful in a village within southern china.

[@thomashom7514]

@@randomname931If you use that logic, forget Cantonese and learn Mandarin where it is spoken throughout China.

[@randomname931]

​@@thomashom7514precisely and that's exactly what I'm doing.

[@gasun1274]

it sounds a lot like vietnamese

[@tiffany6955]

Where's Jades parents from, sounds more like Hoi Ping than Taishan! Dog in taishan would be gay, in Hoi ping it would be Gow.

[@thomashom7514]

Disagree! I am Hoiping and her Hoisan is similar but definitely not Hoiping. In Hoiping it is gow for dog. Hoisanese ( Toisan) sometimes is collectively call that even though the speaker is from Hoiping.

[@vette2014]

I’m ABC and fluent in Taishan, and I was taught that dog is pronounced Gow.

[@catnokimochi]

damn, these Southern Chinese girls look SOOOOO Southeast Asian.....almost like Vietnamese people The look soooooo different from my Central/Northern Chinese friends lol

[@thomashom7514]

Read your Chinese history of the Bai Yue people of southern China. They were conquered and and the Hans were encouraged to mix with them.

[@catnokimochi]

@@thomashom7514 yeah so that’s why they look so Southeast Asian. Thanks for proving my point.

[@thomashom7514]

@@catnokimochi There were different degrees of mixtures but not conclusive. It is like America with a Heinz 57 mixture. In Thailand some Thais look Chinese while some chinese look Thai. You can't really come up with anything conclusive.

[@catnokimochi]

@@thomashom7514 thanks for proving my point!