Using Cantonese to HACK learning Mandarin?! (Cantomando Course Review)

[@juneshoe]

Would love if they released a Mando to Canto version of this program! There aren't many effective canto learning tools online.

[@miguelpmmh8954]

I mean us who want to learn canto and already speak mandarin can use the canto to mando course, but focus just in the cantonese, can we?

[@WildZero01]

@@miguelpmmh8954 Agreed

[@hethan_life]

Sameee unless this allows u to learn vice versa

[@Philllin]

i speak cantonese and i found that the best way to learn mandarin fast is by speaking to mando speakers. I've been doing this about once a week by speaking with a friend and i am now able to speak mandarin at a conversational level (not advanced yet tho). Cantonese is also similar in structure and some words legit are the same except with a different tone. Usually, i would think of cantonese in my head then replace those words with the equal mandarin words.

[@kosrulesful]

I also want to point out that it’s a one time payment to a lifetime subscription to the courses. I really appreciate that especially for us who have limited free time to study

[@nounta1016]

How much is it? Looks like those sketchy scam ads lol, can't even tell the pricing or any other information without attending their "free" mandatory webinar. Not saying it's a scam, just very similar setup to one.

[@dazzlette]

Thanks for reviewing this product! I really wish there was a product to help Mandarin speakers use their Mandarin skills to pick up Cantonese. Like a reverse of their copy and paste method.

[@CantoMando]

😉

[@dazzlette]

@@CantoMando Wow I can't believe you guys replied! Would really love to see you guys work on a reverse 'copy and paste'. I'm a somewhat fluent Mandarin speaker but know very little Cantonese so I would really love to have a way to hack Cantonese from my knowledge of Mandarin (with instruction preferable in English). I already learnt something Just me doing a reverse copy and paste in this video, I actually learned something! Maybe Mike can your first test subject, haha

[@kenneth-theenglish289]

I wish I would've had this when I was learning Mandarin. I had to teach myself in a similar way as taught here, but had to piece stuff together myself through trial and error. This program would've saved me a ton of time. (I learned Canto first, then Mandarin - fluent in both; don't let my looks deceive you ;) ) Also note: People from Canton still have a Cantonese Flare to their Mandarin. So if you're not speaking Mandarin Beijing style, no worries, you are speaking in the style of native Cantonese speakers. By thinking you have to speak like a Beijinger, it would be the equivalent of saying "you have to speak English like you're from London, anything else is inferior."

[@emilyyoung9049]

I've been interested in this course, thanks for making a review!!

[@darrellwong4097]

Nice review Brittany! The Canto Mando boys look like they’ve done a great job! 👍👍👍

[@williamlau7247]

I'm a native Cantonese speaker so when I began learning Mandarin I was able to do a lot of what this course does on my own. I think the fact that I did not know the characters beforehand helped since I would just relate the Mandarin phrases with the Cantonese ones, not knowing that they use different characters. I definitely would have used this program if I didn't figure it out on my own.

[@wolfielin901]

Same, I'm taking mandarin classes now too and do the same you do with relating Mandarin words and phrases to Cantonese phrases since I also never learned how to read or write Chinese until taking Mandarin classes either.

[@JV-ge8bm]

Love cantomando, didtn know they have a course. Thanks for the review!

[@cantobritt]

Glad you liked it!

[@tzchen4526]

Such a helpful review! Thanks, Brittany! Also, your sentences are too cute... "Are you done yet?" "I already did it incorrectly." and "I already ate my vegetable" LOLOL love itt

[@cantobritt]

thanks sis i'm so honored 😭

[@HanleyWeng]

Cantonese is also amazing for learning Japanese and vice versa! There's so many similarly pronounced words.

[@cantobritt]

That made me think a while back I read about 808 characters that are common to Chinese, Japanese and Korean 🤔

[@rlouie05]

Some of us grew up learning Cantonese and traditional characters. Seeing a video like this existing is a bit of fresh air after hard-drilling learning Mandarin with simplified characters for nearly 3 years now.

[@tymanung6382]

Until 1500s, ALL Chinese dialects, including older Mandarin, and Asian neighbors, shared many words and sounds, like syllable end k, p, t, at times glottal stop, and m. Since 1500s, N Chinese dialect abandoned all of above, while SE and C East Chinese, and some Asian neighbors languages retain the above consonants.

[@lookingfortruth1930]

Very useful. 多謝晒！keep up with these Mandarin and Cantonese slight grammar differences

[@tedchan-music7468]

I think this is a great resource especially for native Cantonese speaker person like myself. Thank you Brittany.

[@rlouie05]

Is it working? Some of us now have new mandarin-only speaking relatives that only understand simplified characters, which means it's likely easier for someone like me to learn their way of speaking than vice versa, where I also grew up with 6 years of (now mostly forgotten) Cantonese with traditional characters.

[@bigboldbicycle]

So how much is the course exactly? The site doesn't tell you. My guess with these types of hide the price and hook them in with a "free" webinar before you scare them with the price tactics is they are at least in the $800 range?

[@techwiththomas5690]

This looks awesome and maybe in two years or so when I reached a OK'ish Cantonese I would like to try it out. I would really like CantoMando use official Juytping though. At least the numbers indicating the tones are missing, not sure if the rest of the Jyutping was a 100% legit or not. Juytping is something that all Cantonese teachers and KZbinrs should push as hard as they can to at least make it a de-facto standard. Because that will help spread Cantonese much more.

[@CantoMando]

Wanted to take a moment to answer this - we use 100% jyutping and encourage the use of Jyutping to type Cantonese in the program. You can tell it's jyutping then the Cantonese y sound like 人 is with a j (jan).

[@victorv7356]

@@CantoMando I'm not interested in the structured course or group but I'm really interested in the video content and learning resources. Any chance y'all will release a self-study version for just access to content?

[@CantoMando]

@@victorv7356 This is entirely a self-study version. It's not like a college class where you have to tune in at a certain time every day. We have a recommended schedule - but you can study whenever and at whatever frequency you'd like!

[@echelon2k8]

Prefer Sidney Lau romanisation to Juytping myself. Been around a lot longer and is easier to learn and use for English speakers. I mean, Juytping? Wouldn't 'Yuetping' seem much more natural for conveying these sounds?

[@cantobritt]

I agree with you completely Thomas, I even wrote a blog article a while back on why heritage speakers should learn Jyutping. Plus Jyutping input is something that even native speakers can use to type faster!

[@azamarabear]

Wow good review😮

[@web3wizard381]

I am learning cantonese cuz its more interesting than mandarin

[@林虤]

Anyway, both Mandarin and Cantonese have almost the same linguistic ancestor, and Mandarin and Cantonese still have mostly similar grammatical structure and lots of common words (though the pronunciations are different). So, finding the correspondences is really helpful.

[@xinzhao5858]

My review is that the product itself seems very helpful, however I really really hate the sales tactics that Sheldon uses on his webpage and in his promo video to get me to buy the product. (1) His video takes forever to watch, and he rehashes the same points over and over and over again. (2) He tries to get you to feel guilty and feel pain by reminding you what a loser you would be if you don't buy his product. (3) In the beginning, he promises to give you a valuable chart which he values at some random $100 value, but when the 1 hr video ends, you don't have any indication that you get the free valuable chart that was promised. After a few hours, he does send you the chart via email. (4) When I watch his promotion video, I wish he'd talk to me like a friend, but instead, I feel like I'm listening to a used car salesman trying to use every sales tactic in the book. (5) Uses lots of timers to get you to splurge and make an impulse buy. I hate all these timers. In summary, I'm sure the product is great, and I bet Sheldon is even a nice guy, but jeez, please redo your sales pitch and stop with all the shady sales tactics.

[@anthonymiu489]

Grew up learning traditional Chinese characters tho lol

[@ccc2403]

I joined CantoMando blueprint, it's not bad

[@rawrshegan]

How much did it cost?

[@raymondpaihk]

Where can I get a hold of that DLI hoodie you are wearing? 😅

[@cantobritt]

At the DLI 😉

[@callistoscali4344]

Some feedback, 走 actually means walk the way it is used here in Mandarin. It means run in Cantonese though. The use of 这么快 to mean so fast while correct in translation, is not entirely accurate. Like in the video, 这么 means "like this", so the literal meaning is "this fast" rather than "very fast". To say very fast unambiguously, one would use 好快. 好快 works for both Cantonese and Mandarin.

[@CantoMando]

Good point. So we actually do cover this different usage of 走 afterwards in the course as well (although it's cut here). What we frequently employ is to show the sentences AS close as possible, to give the student an idea that is relatable and similar, and then we'll go over the slight differences shortly afterwards. And yup you are correct. That 这么 is more of "very fast to this extent" rather than purely very. This is why we show this by saying how 咁 is the equivalent to 这么. This makes learning how to use 这么 a lot easier. Because if I said 这么 means "like this" (which is how it would be taught from an English perspective), then it can be quite confusing. There is no real concrete English translation. But if it's equated to what a Cantonese speaker already knows, then it's a lot easier to grasp!

[@ryntrn]

I know where that hoody's from.. I'm here now as a native (mediocre) canto speaker learning mandarin and I've noticed that they do lend well to each other. Crazy I came across this video. Algorithm strikes again.

[@andrewla.u]

Very good video thank you for the feedback

[@AB-vm3kh]

Interesting

[@jtse8675]

CantoMando looks good; however, I prefer learning using complex Chinese characters as opposed to simplified characters. Now, if CantoMando can add the ability to switch between the two, then that would be a big game-changer.

[@CantoMando]

Hey you actually have the option to use traditional if you'd like and we have a good amount of students practicing with traditional too 👍

[@xinzhao5858]

This sounds great - How much does it cost?

[@4sky]

don't remember the exact but it was a couple hundred.

[@MK-gq8fr]

I wish this would exist the other way around! I'm learning Mandarin for a while but really want to get more into Canto. But most Canto courses/resources start from the scratch or are made for native Mandarin speakers and therefore are still too complicated/advanced. So maybe the CantoMando guys could do MandoCanto in the future, haha.

[@smileveryday1]

My bf and I are trying to learn Cantonese as it's his parents' native language, but we were both taught Mandarin growing up. We were able to get a textbook called A Shortcut to Cantonese that's written in English but geared towards students who already know some Mandarin and can read some characters, and have been pretty impressed with it so far. The vocabulary is presented in Jyutping, the corresponding characters in Cantonese, the Mandarin equivalent or translation in Pinyin and characters, and the English translation, which is really comprehensive and allows you to make connections really quickly. I think it might be out of print, but we were able to snag it second-hand on Amazon! I think Mandarin to Cantonese is also in the Duolingo incubator, but I've heard mixed messages about its progress.

[@MK-gq8fr]

@@smileveryday1 Sounds actually fantastic, thanks! I'll definitely try to get one. As for Duolingo, I've tried in the past but I don't think it's that useful for more serious learning.

[@zhaofuliang9687]

i was thinking the same thing! like i want to learn canto so bad haha

[@zhaofuliang9687]

@@smileveryday1 thanks for the recommendation!

[@sususegar]

His Mandarin sounds natural but the Cantonese pronunciation is a bit strange with some unnatural stresses, like listening to an English-educated Chinese friend trying to speak in Cantonese.

[@erichchan3]

His parents mother tongue is cantonese so his cantonese should be better. I think his cantonese is fine.

[@samuelcoates3339]

Great review! What languages does Jared speak ?

[@cantobritt]

Thanks 🙏 Jared used to be a German translator at the UN. He’s currently learning Cantonese and French.

[@samuelcoates3339]

@@cantobritt that’s awesome! 👏🏾😎

[@alexanderlouie4397]

Hi Brittany! Thanks for the great videos! I have been agonizing about whether to buy this program. My speaking level of Cantonese is similar to yours, but I can't read any characters at all, except maybe my surname. My concern is, as I see from 6:10 of your video, you need to recognize full sentences all in Chinese text. Is there a pinyin option instead? And if not, do you think the lack of reading skills will make the course much harder? Thanks.

[@CantoMando]

Most students who come in have no idea how to read any Chinese. You do not any reading skills prior :)

[@dimsumlite]

can this help if I can't read chinese but can speak cantones =/

[@TulekBehar]

Danny Chan has nice songs. How to look up and translate his lyrics?

[@amateurishanimation]

Mandarin is pretty similar to written Cantonese

[@sookjenwong]

I'm interested in learning mandarin the easier way, Is the course expensive?

[@mivvy]

hi Brittany, what do you use to play the pronunciation of words you're unsure of? is it google translate or something else? i would love to know!

[@cantobritt]

I was using the Pleco app!

[@mivvy]

@@cantobritt oooo thanks! will surely check it out

[@erichchan3]

How much does the cantomando blueprint cost?

[@dazza2394]

Does the course include option for traditional characters in the video lessons?

[@cantobritt]

good question! currently it's only with simplified

[@CantoMando]

So the course is taught with simplified at the moment, but you're welcome to use whichever script you like when doing challenges. Instructors use a mix of traditional and simplified to give more exposure too. A lot of students like to use traditional and they don't seem to be having any problems

[@dazza2394]

​@@CantoMando Got it thanks! I'm curious is there any particular reason it is only simplified in the videos? I would've thought the course is aimed at overseas ABC's / HK background etc given the canto to mando angle, and canto people in general are a lot more used to traditional.

[@tannerlin6849]

some feedback.. your commentary is blocking the words

[@eb.3764]

even though the premise sounds promising, we have to treat every language as a challenge. Imagine if we learned Portuguese by "converting" our Spanish and just switching up our pronunciation and vocabulary. i think a traditional Mandarin course would be best

[@cantobritt]

Thanks for your comment, but wouldn’t a Spanish speaker learn Portuguese better from a course designed for Spanish speakers (rather than English speakers)?

[@CantoMando]

Interesting point about this - but I found Spanish really easy to grasp when I watched with a French course rather an English course. The similarities (especially with verbs) are remarkable.

[@callistoscali4344]

I think it is a little different because Cantonese is not exactly a different language. The Cantonese described here is colloquial Cantonese, which is the Cantonese that you speak everyday with friends and folks around you informally. Then there is a standard Cantonese, which is the Cantonese used for the news, novels, books and even song lyrics. Standard Cantonese is like 99% similar (written only) to Mandarin. So if you know Standard Cantonese, then I don't think you need this course. However, if you only know colloquial Cantonese, then I think this course is quite suitable, although I think the tough part would be remembering the characters, given people who only know colloquial Cantonese are not formally educated in Chinese writing.

[@egarza]

As a native Spanish speaker, I can tell you that learning Portuguese is easier converting the Spanish. But Brazilian Portuguese is so easy for us we can have a conversation in both languages and understand each other.

[@jansonleung3393]

I actually completely disagree. I am a native Cantonese speaker and has always been speaking Mandarin very badly. The types that you know are from HK from miles away in TV. I found that I could not improve until I forgot my Cantonese pronunciation (and grammar) and just try to learn the pinyin of every word from scratch. Cantonese and Mandarin are two different languages, not just dialects.

[@callistoscali4344]

Not sure what you mean by native Cantonese speaker. If you are from HK and grew up learning Cantonese in school, then I don't think this course is going to help you. If you are just speaking Cantonese colloquially but never formally learn the language in school, then this course will help you hack the language to fit into Mandarin.

[@olivermaclean8564]

先 xiān

[@RichPhan]

Mandarin speakers say 拜拜! 😄

[@cantobritt]

that's funny, thanks for the tip!

[@jimmykaming]

I'm a native Cantonese speaker. linguistics wise, English and mandarin are closer languages unlike English and Cantonese. that is the problem with English speakers to learn Cantonese. mandarin stands in the middle between English and Cantonese. Cantonese is too tonal a language to learn for English speakers.

[@13Voorheespt2]

Gotta say,not a fan of this.

[@erichchan3]

you didn't explain why.

[@regiesantos4408]

Interesting