How Similar Are Mandarin and Cantonese?

In this video I compare Mandarin and Cantonese!
Are you learning Mandarin? Check out ChineseClass101: bit.ly/Class101Chinese.
(Full disclosure: if you sign up for a premium account, Langfocus receives a small referral fee.)
Special thanks to Bing Chao for her Mandarin audio samples, YingYan Ye for his Cantonese samples, and Willow Groundwater for her help with research and writing for this video.
Credits for this video:
Paul Jorgensen: Producer, host, video editor and co-writer
Willow Groundwater: Writer
Bing Chao: Mandarin audio samples
YingYan Ye: Cantonese audio samples
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Special thanks to these awesome Patreon members:
Brandon Gonzalez, Zhiyuan Shi, Vincent David, Andres Resendez Borgia, Anjo Beijo, Rosalind Resnick, Atsushi Yoshida, Paul Boychuk, Nicholas Gauci, Jacob Madsen, Yuko Sunda, Victoria Goh, Adam Fitch, ShadowCrossZero, Michael Arbagi, Trevor Lawrence, John Moffat, Auguste Fields, Guillermo Jimenez, Bennet Seacrist, Ruben Sanchez Jr, Eric Garland, Brian Michalowski, Sebastian Langshaw, Lorraine Inez Lil, Pomax, Sergei Tikhomirov, Scott Russell, Florian Breitwieser, Fiona de Visser, Raymond Thomas, divad, Justin Fast, Michael Millar, Margaret Langendorf, veleum, Sven Onnerstad, Charis T'Rukh, Mark, Mike Frysinger, Angeline Biot, Sidney Frattini Jr, Adam Powell, Donald and Alexandra Wycoff, Maurice Chou, Scott Fujan, Greg Gibson, Kenneth M Thomas, Mikael Uttermalm, Phoebe Churches, Ann DeFeo, Christopher Lowell, Donald Tilley, Stephen, Harry Kek, Andrew Woods, JESUS FERNANDO MIRANDA BARBOSA, Leo, Diane Young, Erin Robinson Swink, Stefan Reichenberger, Oleksandr Ivanov, Frédéric Fournier, Spartak Kagramanyan, Don Ross, Carl Bergquist, James and Amanda Soderling, Robert (Bob) Dobbin, Alex Hanselka, Ramsey Wallace, Adam Vanderpluym, Theophagous, Rui Rizzi, Mike Forster, Christian Langreiter, Shawn MacIntyre, Dmitry Stillerman, Kristoffer Karlsson, Henri Saussure, James Lillis, Steely Dan Rather, Jens Aksel Takle, Yasmine Jaafar, Tryggurhavn, Behnam Esfahbod,
JC Edwards, Ashley Dieroff, Thomas Mitchell, Mahmoud Hashemi, fatimahl, Kevin Law, David LeCount, Carl saloga, Edward Wilson, Mohammed A. Abahussain, Peter Nikitin, JL Bumgarner, Rob Hoskins, Thomas A McCloud, Ian Smith, Nicholas Gentry, Brent Warner, Kevin J. Baron, Matthew C, Caio Fernandes, Suzanne Jacobs, Johann Goergen, Leo Barudi, Rick Gerritzen, Mark Kemp, Éric Martin, Marco Antonio Barecellos Junior, Simon Blanchet,
Sergios Tsakatikas, Bruno Filippi, Jeff Miller, Panot.
Music
Intro: “The Last Day” by Silent Partner.
Main: “Electro Sketch” by Kevin McLeod, under Creative Commons license from Incompetech.com.
Outro: “Cliff Side” by Silent Partner.

[@Langfocus]

Hello everyone. Are you learning Mandarin? Check out ChineseClass101: bit.ly/Class101Chinese for one of the most extensive Chinese courses I've ever seen. A free account gets you access to lots of content, then you can upgrade if you want ALL OF IT :) For 32 other languages, check out my review! langfocus.com/innovative-language-podcasts/ (Full disclosure: if you sign up for a premium account, Langfocus receives a small referral fee. But if I didn't like it, I wouldn't recommend it!)

[@foodlover_pastaspecialist]

Langfocus 3:18 Cantonese has 9 tone

[@foodlover_pastaspecialist]

Joe Who are you talking to ？

[@hardtropic4750]

as a native cantonese speaker but grew up in southern mainland china I can tell that you are exactly doing a great job by figuring out such a complicated problem. cantonese is my mother tongue and i started to learn and use mandarin since i went to school. so i understand both the languages perfectly. but it's quite difficult for those hongkong people and old people in southern mainland china. and let me tell you what, people in malaysia speak better cantonese than chinese because most of their ancestors came from south china.

[@adam1984pl]

10:53 (Subititles)This are the words for bus in Manadrin:Its Google teacher.

[@jincolin7545]

"Cantonese" is just a local accent of Chinese language, you can't say it's another one.

[@hab2063]

Chinese: Different meanings by using tones Italian: Hands

[@Ida-xe8pg]

Indians: ....

[@haidarbaddah3502]

In Arabic also we use hands to change the meaning

[@pollisosuna9042]

In mexico we use insults

[@Ash_tommo]

Arabic*

[@cristiant.h.8642]

@@pollisosuna9042 hahahaha

[@francischu5373]

I’m a Cantonese speaker from Hong Kong. I can also speak mandarin. It’s always difficult to explain to English speakers the difference between the two but your video is great! Well done!

[@justsomeplantcells-]

Agreed

[@debbiechan8657]

I agree

[@user-ts6nl9ou1m]

其實湖北山區的土語語法跟粵語很像，有的發音也很像，只不過今年收到國語影響逐漸在失去他們語言本本色，至於原因我也不懂我奶奶爺爺90多歲他們不會說國語，他們說話基本沒有國語影響或者說影響很小。比如鞋也說hai 吵架叫：講口 我說o 街發音gai 戒發音gai ，語法也是跟視頻舉的例子一樣。

[@augustinepan7991]

I’m from Hong Kong too, you can’t write vernacular Cantonese for examination purpose that would be regarded to be wrong grammatically. It’s more a spoken language per my understanding.

[@chad9015]

@israel david leon rodriguez most young peope write in vernacular Cantonese on social media or when texting each other (with English words thrown in), which Mandarin speakers can't completely understand. However, everyone writes in Mandarin in exams and in official documents, as it's seen as informal

[@stankyleginc.8157]

The main difference is it's more entertaining to watch two old men yell at each other in Cantonese.

[@teamtriss]

I lol'd.

[@yanranxie7272]

Arguing in Cantonese is fun. You just have to baa (or "mie") like a sheep. “咩咩咩啊”

[@manu0-3bournemouth]

笑撚死我

[@breadman5048]

It’s so true

[@luna_cuzynot4108]

I always hear in my mums shop :X你老母，你X痴㗎？！

[@VChong1991]

Cantonese cursing really hit you in the feels.

[@breadman5048]

True

[@craftah]

why?

[@anangrytomato3093]

"diu nei lao mei"

[@240jimmy9]

@@anangrytomato3093 “qi ma gun “

[@columba3656]

@@anangrytomato3093 *diu nei lou mei

[@mikeyangyang8816]

I’m Chinese and I don’t understand a word of Cantonese. Here I am learning about Cantonese in English via VPN in China. Beat me

[@zelongzhang950]

The examples given in this video are actually quite similar.

[@kc-fz7bi]

pathethic

[@DKM675]

this video didnt teach you the truth of cantonese, i show 1 classic sentence to you ”diuleiloumoupokaihamkachan”

[@mikeyangyang8816]

saioudaidiu

[@kwokwailok8524]

Kl oon that's foul language lol

[@wks4d028]

In a nutshell, we Cantonese speakers can more or less understand mandarin but Mandarin speakers don't understand us. I never quite understand our grammar as we never have to learn them in school, Cantonese is a very spoken language and very much taught by your parents and peers around you

[@user-gx9ev1ru2u]

We are proud of being a Cantonese speaker

[@orion8981]

Do you think that is because of general influence of Mandarin being more popular(generally, not regionally), or because it's easier to go from Mandarin to Cantonese?

[@junjiepan2824]

This is because 1) Mandarin is easier than Cantonese; 2) You know the standard Chinese vocabularies, and Mandarin are always using standard vocabularies. So that you can understand Mandarin. However, Mandarin speakers don't know the vocabularies which is only used in Cantonese. If you speak Cantonese but always using the standard Chinese vocabularies, then I believe it is more easier for other mandarin speakers to understand.

[@Luka-ek1iw]

I can’t understand mandarin even though I speak Cantonese.

[@PP-zx1sg]

Cantonese is not just a spoken language, every single word in spoken cantonese has its writing in character, just that all cantonese speaking Chinese were not taught of such written words for various political reasons............. Even many cantonese speaking people thought many words/phrase they use daily are slang but actually they are not, there are proper writing character for all those "slangs", I mean proper character

[@XinyangZhang888]

A note about 先生: it's traditionally used in East Asia to refer to respectable people according to Confucian teachings, such as teachers. Sensei and seonsaeng are renditions of the same word in Japanese and Korean languages respectively. As such, it is possible to infer that the mainland chinese interpretation of xiansheng as a husband is quite possibly a lot more modern, whereas in Cantonese it has retained its more archaic meaning. It's a reminder that languages can have shared roots, but they matter less over time as languages consistently evolve and change.

[@limbandtreeremoval]

Yes, its a bumpy road and hopefully we can ALL tolerate it... English has a mix (good/ bad)...too! But thats life, unfortunately!

[@KOU_Higashikata]

As a native Cantonese speaker, you will never know how much I'm surprised LOL I mean, I can't imagine how much effort you've put on this... This topic is so complicated that I(or maybe most of Canto native speaker) don't suppose a foreigner can understand this topic But you did it, and its totally accurate... I'm really shocked LOL Btw other than Hong Kong movies, I think its really enjoyable to listen to music with lyrics written by Cantonese :D Anyway Thanks for the video! Really good work

[@sasino]

This channel is well known for doing accurate research, many of his videos shocked me too

[@cearig]

it's not THAT complicated

[@chan4man1]

Yes, it's true

[@exquize1660]

RIP Honkongese cinema

[@robindo2986]

Cantonese songs are amazing. Eason Chan, Jacky Cheung, Hacken Lee, Andy Lau,… there are too many amazing Cantonese singers to count. I’m still learning Mandarin, but listening to Eason Chan in particular has made me want to learn Cantonese as well.

[@silviomp]

I think I'll need a guitar tuner to learn these languages.

[@volund6280]

😂😂👌

[@BichaelStevens]

@Ron Maimon see see suee siee see see

[@goishikaiganmademou]

Japanese is so much easier to pronounce. Japanese has the same number of tones as European languages: Basically one flat tone (almost). (I think the same is true for Malay/Indonesian/ Filipino as well?)

[@jojbenedoot7459]

@@goishikaiganmademou actually not true, Japanese is slightly tonal with pitch accent

[@goishikaiganmademou]

@@jojbenedoot7459 Yes I know, European level very slightly. That's were my gaijin accent is :)

[@pietrow138]

I was born in Shenzhen, Guangdong, and lived there for 15 years. Whenever my parents want to talk about something and don't want to let me know, they use Cantonese.

[@adrianatgaming8640]

man you need to learn cantonese bro!!!

[@lrt_unimog8316]

I thought the negligible native population of the area consisted mainly of Hakkas? (except the W part)

[@robynvercetti9476]

Haha my parents did this with afrikaans...then I learnedit in my teens

[@diouranke]

I hear Cantonese is fun to speak

[@kitwan9364]

Chinese goverment is trying to kill Cantonese , for example schools in China even in Guangzhou province prohibited Cantnese. And even the word 'Guangzhou' is based on Mandarin so this young man mostly can never learn Cantonese unless he tries really hard.

[@chibilyrics1446]

I am a HongKonger but I can also speak fluent English and Putonghua (Mandarin) at the same time. This is actually not rare in HK as most children raised by middle-class families are taught to learn both at a very young age.

[@LOGOUT4ME]

I am from mainland China and when I hear people speak mandarin I just zoom out into space.When I hear people from Hong Kong speak mandarin it sounds so weird they have a Cantonese grammar.You Guys add some Cantonese words for some mandarin words like wang I’ve heard Wong but I don’t mind it just feels so weird.I envy that you guys can speak English so easily like what.I’m so bad at English it’s so hard.I’ve noticed when I went to Hong Kong that a lot of people have somewhat of difficulty speaking mandarin but have no difficulty understanding it

[@sunj8346]

I think the fluency of Mandarin of Hong Kong people really varies. Not everyone can speak good Mandarin. Although it's more likely the case for younger generations because of the daily emigrants from the north and the implementation of Mandarin in education.

[@zanagi]

is it obligated to learn mandarin in school? or being graded by the school

[@evelynnicky1059]

@@zanagi we hv pth classes and exams

[@antoniomarcos8661]

@@zanagi it’s obligated to learn in recent years due to the ”biliterate and trilingual“ policy, but you don’t have to be graded in DSE (the standardised exam for going to study in colleges/universities) Even for the Chinese oral exam in DSE, the students may choose either Cantonese or Mandarin for taking the exam.

[@matthiascheah3519]

As a Malaysian, I just realised that we always speak mandarin with a cantonese grammar

[@eugeneng7064]

Depends on where you are. In Cantonese cities sure. Elsewhere it's more Hokkien

[@fpgamer4566]

Tfw ur Malaysian but can't speak Chinese or Malay

[@eugeneng7064]

@@fpgamer4566 he said Mandarin with Cantonese grammar, not that he doesn't speak Mandarin

[@fpgamer4566]

@@eugeneng7064 oh, I was talking about myself. I can barely speak Mandarin and cant speak Cantonese or Malay

[@eugeneng7064]

@@fpgamer4566 I'd suggest you edit your original comment then. It says 'ur' not 'I'm'

[@rzo4204]

Here's a late comment ; ) I am from Hong Kong and I want to explain some points a bit more. First is about the phonetic symbol (pinyin) of Cantonese. Unlike Mandarin, Cantonese doesn't have a unified set of phonetic symbols. You can hardly see them in Hong Kong daily life except dictionary. (So if we use Pinyin to input, most of us choose Mandarin) Secondary schools may teach a little while some Hong Kong people may know nothing about them. However, we do have a common format for them, which is different from the video. It is "pronounce" + "tone"(written in number). For example, phonetic symbol of 學 can be "hok6", "6" indicates the tone. Second is about slang and phrases in Mandarin and Cantonese. Beside vocabulary, there are some expressions that are used only in one language. Take an example, "食死貓" in Cantonese. It means being scapegoat, which literally means "eat dead cat". In Mandarin, the same meaning can be expressed as "背黑鍋"(the meaning is still a little bit different), which means "carry a black/dirty pot on back". They can be fun and hard to understand for learners. (My mum is a Mandarin native speaker and she often have doubts about them XD) Third is about minor differences in pronunciation and usage among different regions. Thought some regions are using the same language, their pronunciation and use of vocab can still be different. Just like Langfocus have explained in the video about Chinese, Mandarin and Cantonese are dialect groups instead of distinct varieties of Chinese. Guangzhou's Cantonese is not alike that of Hong Kong and Macau. Taiwan's standard Mandarin is differs from that of Mainland China. We locals can easily distinguish them. Lastly, thank you for your great video! It explains uniqueness of Mandarin and Cantonese clearly! Hope that more people will be interested in Chinese.

[@kit0200945]

I'm from Hong Kong too; thank for your hard work!

[@lancelotwang8321]

@@kit0200945 I am from Canton, and since I was 3 years old, I can speak Cantonese... But this is the first time that I have acknowledged that there are six tones in Cantonese... From my perspective, only two... One is falling, the other is raising... So I think it is easier for me to speak Cantonese to Mandarin... But write in traditional Chinese or in Cantonese Chinese is impossible tome, haha

[@duan_meixuan]

I’ve been curious, can those who speak Cantonese generally read simplified hanzi and visa versa? I’ve read that Cantonese speakers mostly use traditional hanzi whereas in Northern China, where Mandarin is spoken, use simplified.

[@kiwiikiwii9036]

I’m from Hong Kong too

[@timsttyler7100]

Me too

[@henryrichard7619]

Trying to read Chinese languages with my limited Japanese kanji knowledge is like trying to read a Romance language with my knowledge of English and it’s really weird

[@uncleknight116]

Because many Hanzi(Kanji) that used in chinese don't usually exist in Japanese articles.

[@sereeein9555]

They are of two different grammar systems, although a large amount of vocabulary are shared.

[@harry12]

it's more like trying to read russian with knowledge of Kazakh...

[@czombei4995]

ah yes, as a cantonese i can briefly understand japanese :) i am now learning japanese! it will be easier for you to learn chinese because chinese is actually very similar to japanese ( in some weird way )

[@someonenothere8818]

@@uncleknight116 that’s bullshit lol. The real reason is because there is two different types of Chinese, simplified and traditional. After the communist government came into power, they simplified Chinese characters to make them easier to write. Many Chinese I know that know both simplified and traditional can read like…99% of kanji when they go to Japan. They can’t use the Japanese pronunciation, but the general meaning is the same. Case in point, a chinese relative of mine went to Japan, and had NO PROBLEM reading any of the kanji, and said they felt like it was easy to get around. Who the hell told you that? Some B.S. is flying around. Y’all forget that Japanese use hiragana, and katakana as well right? I mean Chinese aren’t going to be able to read those. Not that it would be hard to learn. Speaking is different, for obvious reasons.

[@GilbertZ92]

I’m Chinese from the southwest, educated and worked in Hong Kong and Shanghai, and currently living in France. Just like most followers of this channel, I’m a big language nerd. I’m a native Southwestern Mandarin speaker, grew up learning Putonghua, and adopted Cantonese and Wu Shanghainese while I lived in these two cities, 4 years and 6 years respectively. Just as some of you mentioned in the comments, most Cantonese speakers can understand Mandarin, but not the other way around. Mandarin is technically and officially a “made-up language”, and it has become the lingua franca among the Chinese community in the last 70 years. And there are major differences among Cantonese speakers from Mainland, Hongkong/Macau, and diaspora communities. Mainland Cantonese speakers tend to be more flexible and authentic when speaking Mandarin, with a minor Cantonese accent and sometimes no accent. Hongkongnese have a good level of understanding Mandarin but sometimes have difficulties speaking it, the level varies dramatically by individuals. And for Cantonese diaspora communities, I’ve met so many that only speak Cantonese but don’t comprehend anything about Mandarin, and many don’t even know how to read or write Chinese characters. Mandarin really played an important role in collectively unifying the community on a cultural level, but it also put countless local dialects at risk. For instance, most Cantonese and Shanghainese speakers I know, and kids who speak my own dialect, feel that the way we speak our dialects today is heavily Mandarinized, in terms of vocabularies and grammars. I’m neutral on this topic since I see both sides of the réalité.

[@prasanth2601]

Wdym by made up language.

[@hunshimowang]

Mandarin as a group of dialects has been there for thousands of years including your native dialect (South-western mandarin). The standard Mandarin that you may call "made-up" is a speech by the Ming and Qing courts for 600 years, the vocabulary is mostly Beijing but removing slang words. There is nothing made up. Standard Mandarin is equivalent to Queen's English in UK in pronunciation, while the vocabulary is like London speech removing slang words.

[@IR-xy3ij]

Mandarin is a Northern Sinitic language, there's nothing made-up about it. The people from the Northern Chinese plain just so happens to be the dominant faction in government for the past 700 years or so, hence it became the Lingua Franca in China.

[@kentatube1318]

you write very good English

[@The_Chicken_One]

Cantonese is more dominant than Mandirin in nearly all Chinatowns or Chinese communities.

[@purplec3108]

As a Hongkong native, I am very impressed to such a thorough and informative content👍🏻 very good job. If any of my non-Cantonese speaking friends wanna knows the difference between Cantonese and Mandarin, this is definitely recommended!

[@HelioLeung1]

I'm from Hong Kong and it has always been hard to explain the differences between Cantonese and Mandarin to foreigners, but this video explained it so clearly and accurately, thank you! I'll be sure to refer them to this video in the future:)

[@rei_cirith]

I'm on the same boat. It's seriously frustrating when they assume it's just like American English vs British English.

[@zhiruiliu2433]

我觉得广东话更好听其实，不过普通话也不错

[@Cyfiero]

There's an extremely glaring error @5:08 that they really must correct via captions. The Cantonese pronunciation of 中, 伀, and 忠 here _is_ identical to the Mandarin. _Both_ languages pronounce these three characters as [ʈʂʊŋ]. Cantonese does not use the [ts] phoneme for the initial consonant of these characters, using it instead for characters like 自, 紫, and 仔 as does Mandarin. Even in the very audio that they used, they should have been able to hear that the two languages pronounce it identically albeit with different accents. The Cantonese speaker used [ʈʂ] not [ts] which would instead correspond to the Mandarin _z_ sound used in the aforementioned 自, 紫, and 仔 and the Japanese つ (tsu). It is because, like they said when describing the sound [ʈʂ], it sounds like an English _j_ that the Cantonese romanization here is phonetically transcribed with a _j_.

[@moniewhyustealmyjamswespen6477]

I know its pretty hard but when u learn about it more u will realize its actually different I know these things already cuz I learn from school

[@iamhorny4542]

我都係香港人

[@SuperHoogen]

This guy is more expert than me in Chinese language and I’m Chinese.

[@viinisaari]

He's an expert in linguistics ;)

[@HeidenLam]

😞我都係

[@idk-xj8ov]

我哋唔會學 grammar

[@czombei4995]

我都係😭😭

[@eliecassir9106]

@@czombei4995 wo what XI? Means what

[@francistabo]

I am a native Cantonese speaker from HK. I also love languages and history od languages. You explain Cantonese and Mandarin in a smart and clear way, which can be difficult. You did a great job!!!

[@jmgonzales7701]

which sounds better?

[@tctham]

I'm a native Cantonese speaker from Malaysia. I can speak in Mandarin, Cantonese, Hakka, English and Malay. I can write proficiently in English and Malay. Since I did not take formal education on the Chinese language, I do not have a bias to use Simplified Chinese to write Chinese. Given my Cantonese roots and my interest in Cantonese culture, I picked up written Chinese much later in life and I chose to learn Traditional Chinese instead. Thus, I would write Cantonese/Mandarin in Traditional Chinese as opposed to most of my peers in Malaysia. Due to the fact that Malaysia is a multicultural country, it's not uncommon to meet people from different race, ethnic and background. And most of these people are still pretty much still connected to their roots and will speak their own mother tongue at home or to those close to them. As for Malaysian Chinese, there will be those exposed to vernacular Chinese primary school, where they will be proficient in the usage of written and spoken Mandarin and those that went to public primary school where they may not be exposed to the Chinese language as a formal subject. The latter may or may not know Mandarin well. However, as mentioned earlier, there are a different Malaysian Chinese ethnics here, we have some that will speak one or more of the Chinese dialect, such as Hokkien, Cantonese, Hakka, Teochew and etc. Our national language, is the Malay language, and most of us have studied English as well. Therefore, most Malaysians, should be able to converse in Malay, English and their native language (it could be any of the Chinese dialects if they are Chinese, or Tamil/Hindi if they are Indian), That being said, we're not god, and given we have to learn a myriad of language throughout our lives, I believe, some may see our level of proficiency in the particular language, may not be as high as those that speaks only in 1 language.

[@prasanth2601]

And here I'm thinking knowing three languages is so cool.

[@rdgrdmedflde4710]

Kudos for choosing traditional over simplified!

[@wanmohdadam6611]

U r great since HKers just insist to cntonese only,, & Mainlanders stick to Mndarin generally,, but U cn mster both, great Malaysian,,, As a Malay, I wonder pretty huge,,, hw difference between the two(Mndarin vs Kntonis) I'm extremely curious,,, I wish I could be a Chinese to sense both languages,,, 🤣I think maybe it's like Phillipine vs Malay,, hihi

[@starstriker1881]

@@wanmohdadam6611 not exactly the same but closest comparison is kelantanese malay vs city malay language

[@wanmohdadam6611]

@@starstriker1881 Oo,, mybe Kelantanese=Cntonese Stndrd Malay=Mndarin

[@jackyhu2018]

3:14 *this makes Cantonese harder to learn for English speakers* _people who speak both:_ 😎

[@ritayim6555]

not to brag but i speak both but because cantonese is my first language it’s easier for me lol

[@chrisyeung8623]

AA those people lives in Hong Kong

[@notmandy]

Me who speak all three, english canto and mando: 😎😎😎😎

[@eded2777]

So true😎

[@MusicSounds]

Me: speaks both Cantonese and Mandarin fluently, but am also proficient in English 😎 Benefits of living in Hong Kong

[@natchan1178]

I'm from Hong Kong and cantonese is my mother-tongue. Basically, people who know cantonese will understand the "written mandarin" (or chinese) as we will also write in Standard Chinese, yet we don't understand mandarin unless we have learned it from school. On the other hand, people who know mandarin will have trouble understanding the informal written form of cantonese writing and spoken cantonese due to the following reasons: - There're many phrases that are specific to either cantonese or mandarin that are not cognates. loan shark= 大耳窿 (cantonese) /高利貸 (mandarin); messy = 哩咁迆 (cantonese)/狼狽(mandarin) - The sentence structure in Spoken Cantonese is different from mandarin, for example: in cantonese usually will be adj+adverb (瘦得滯 = "Thin" "too much"), verb+object+subject (比枝筆我, give the pen me) ; in mandarin would be adverb+adj (太瘦= too thin), and verb+subject+object (給我一支筆, give me the pen) I love Cantonese and Cantonese is a fun language to learn :) there're many adjectives and phrases that are related to things we observed, like we will use "雞咁腳 "(chicken-like-leg) as an adjective to describe people who left in a hurry, just like the chicken quickly moves its legs

[@qrsx66]

我好鍾意廣東話同埋香港!

[@cyf5484]

I am Malaysian and most of the people in my town speaks Cantonese. We learn mandarin in school and we learn Cantonese and other dialect like hokkien or hakka at home.. Mostly we understand the fun of Cantonese from the tvb series. We watched it since young 😂

[@ngaszeng129]

你D examples好正🤣👍

[@joezhou2334]

Just being careful, I'm sure 狼狈 is not unique to Mandarin, since 狼狈 is a phrase well established in historical Chinese literature. I guess 高利贷 is also just a more formal way of expression. On the same level of the Cantonese phrase you gave, I would give loan shark = 印子钱, messy = 埋汰 in Mandarin/Beijing dialect. These are the informal/fun way to say the same things. Also it's clear that 太瘦 = 瘦得很 in standard Mandarin, which may be what you're looking for. Also if you're a fan of Langfocus channel, you must be able to tell that in the phrase 比支笔我, "我" is the indirect object, not the subject. In Mandarin we also have a fun phrase expressing people in hurry: 比西方记者还快, although there are other variants of this expression.

[@CultureDTCTV]

@@qrsx66 I've never heard of 哩咁迆 lol, I'm probably too young to know some of the older Hong Kong slangs

[@cocobmoiaofong]

今天才由演算法看到你們的影片! 製作得很認真和出色! 講解的風格和講者的聲音讓我想起90年代香港電台製作的教育電視! 是小學時幾乎每天都看的節目, 滿滿的回憶, 謝謝!

[@alphawai]

I am a Hongkonger and I really appreciate you for making a video which make others understand what Cantonese actually is! And It would be much more better to learn more about Chinese culture by using Cantonese, as a lot of rhythm words in Chinese poems could only be pronounced in Cantonese and it would be much easier to understand the cultural value of Chinese! In addition, at 11:00, the Mandarin words meaning “bus” should be written as “公共汽車” instead of “公共氣車” as the word “氣” and “汽” which also mean gas have different use cases, where “氣” mainly means general air and “汽” mainly means mechanics using gas supply, like vehicles “汽車”

[@charioteer0821]

Thank you for explaining that I was about to say that when I saw it

[@junjieki5472]

汽车 is simplified from 汽油车. 汽 means a material that is liquid at room temperature and pressure, but is now vapourized into gas. Like 蒸汽, 水汽. Since gasoline tends to vapourize, and it also vapourizes in the engine before being burned, so it is called 汽油.

[@ruochongji4838]

公交车I use it more often 公共汽车/公共氣車It's a very formal name.Of course，巴士 and 大巴 Those of us who speak Mandarin understand what it means.

[@janesweetman9890]

See....see....see....see....see....see I wish I could hear a difference but it's not happening.

[@LeftClickShift]

It is the curse of having a mother tongue that doesn't have tones, our brains have been repeatedly taught that listening for those subtle differences aren't necessary... It takes a lot of practice and listening to get our brains to catch on to the subtly, unfortunately :P

[@robertopascarelli6105]

That’s a relief, I’m not the only one. The problem is that I’m trying to learn 😢

[@mng3941]

Good luck reading that poem the other guy posted above.

[@derpscoot2741]

2nd one is basically "Shit"

[@Melonhead-gp9du]

@@LeftClickShift Yeah, I'm like "how do they tell if they're angry, sad, excited, etc, if they use different tones for everyday words all the time?" We use tones for emotional meaning, not literal meaning :/ It would definitely be a learning curve to try any sort of chinese

[@changjunzhang]

I speak both Cantonese and Mandarin, both natively, I can tell the 4 tones of a character in Mandarin, but I can not tell what the tone is in Cantonese.

[@roseleong9672]

Me Too

[@kennethlew]

Same

[@ramyfili1434]

It just comes so naturally to you it's hard to tell? Or because the tones are a bit more complex then that and it's hard to quantify?

[@mng3941]

I just repeat the six tones to myself and compare…unless it is tones 7, 8 and 9, in which I get stuck.

[@foreverhobbes]

@@mng3941 As he said, those aren't really in use anymore, so you don't need to worry about 7, 8, and 9.

[@siamakalaei1148]

Thank you so much for the video. Your explanation is like a full course class, and I've learnt a lot from your videos. Best wishes.

[@Antilli]

After watching multiple of your videos, I was looking for a Thai one, and was surprised to find that you didn't make one yet. Please do!!

[@0703Jackie]

Hi Paul, my name is Yuki from Japan. I"m a chinese translator and have been learning cantonese as well. Your video is very nice, I've watched all of your works!! がんばってください！加油！

[@warnercheng5564]

Yuki- sh your Cantonese is good

[@user-dq4bk8ot2i]

加油呀～ よろしく　私は中国人で、日本語を勉強したい

[@0703Jackie]

Thank you so much!!! 我應該更加努力學習~ 哈哈哈 我會加油嫁~

[@0703Jackie]

こんにちは〜　メッセージありがとうございます！ポールさんも日本語上手ですよね、ポールさんのビデオが参考になると思いますよ〜がんばってー

[@fat1fared]

すごい！俺は中国語も話せます、広東語も勉強します。もちろん、日本語が大好きです！

[@planet231]

Cantonese: Six "Basic" Tones. Plz

[@firewoodloki]

Nine if you count the advanced XD

[@josefckngai6114]

those 3 additional tones can be easily spotted by a native Cantonese speakers in HK, when you get them wrong. And it is a very very effective way to tell if you are from HongKong or not (by a HongKonger)

[@zty3529]

9... BTW I was born in HK

[@gredangeo]

2:31 I couldn't hear the difference between those damn things. Tonal languages make zero sense to me.

[@Yoshiaki48CIV]

It’s 九聲六調. That’s why.

[@evelynmedrano]

Thank you so much! I’m learning both. This video is helpful 😊

[@jleung7347]

impressive research and presentation. Thank you!

[@eazypeazy2964]

In all my five decades of existence, you are the first Westerner I've come across who have grasped that while one can read and write Chinese, one paradoxically cannot speak Chinese. A No-prize to you, sir, and well done!

[@wilderuhl3450]

Who needs to be literate? Edit: 69th like added. Nice

[@3dsaulgoodman43]

I've been learning Mandarin for almost a year now and for some reason, I tend to forget characters when writing, but remember them when reading. I thought that isn't a good thing, but a my Chinese friend(that didn't attend a Chinese vernacular school, instead learned Chinese characters by going to tuition/reading newspaper) said that she can read Chinese very well, but can't remember how to write them. So, I learned that's actually normal, unless you attend a Chinese vernacular school.

[@hertz816]

@@3dsaulgoodman43 honestly, even among native speakers it's a common sight to see someone writing something and then turning to their friend and asking how to write a certain character. For example, my dad and his friends. They all graduated college in china, and yet I can't tell you the number of times one of my dad's friends has been writing an address or someone's name out only to forget how to write a character and turn to someone else for help. It's kinda like how if you read a paragraph in English, you can recognize the word and figure out what it is instantly right? But if someone puts you on the spot and asks you something like "How do you spell Missouri?" You'd probably have to think about it for a second before replying right? It's a really common occurrence in China even among the educated folks, and there's an English equivalent too, so honestly I'd say it's normal no matter what language you're speaking.

[@kathryncarter6143]

I've seen this guy talk about a variety of languages from all over the world. He sure does seem to know his stuff.

[@pb1634]

​@@3dsaulgoodman43 I once met a Chinese who couldn't even write 太 (he wrote 犬 instead) but he admitted he had never read or written anymore after leaving school (it was before the internet existed), but as a Westerner I don't have problems writing characters, except for the less-used ones, like 喷嚏. Probably depends on the way you think, like thinking in images, and if you like reading or not. And I really enjoy writing characters.

[@billyk8397]

To conclude: they’re both extremely difficult :)

[@namingisdifficult408]

Billy K yep

[@JSo-ns2xw]

Not to me, I am a native speaker :)

[@readjordan2257]

its all about positioning. if you learn how to make it easy for you, itll be easy. or as 孫子曰：Victory goes to those that make winning easy. 加油.

[@pcstar123]

It's just as difficult going the other way, that is learning English as a native Chinese.

[@JSo-ns2xw]

Pat I'm a native Chinese, but I don't see it as hard... (Spanish is though)

[@crystalblueocean]

Fabulous video, thanks so much. Cleared up so much for me

[@Itinatsunoyaku]

Hello! I'm from Guangzhou, I use Cantonese and mandarin.You introduced Guangzhou dialect in great detail.Thank you.

[@Langfocus]

It’s my pleasure. Thank you!

[@kartikpoojari22]

I have heard Medical Colleges in Guangzhou are great Mu cousin is planning to move their for completion of his medical studies

[@Jennifer-sh2eu]

Excuse me!!! those 6 tones sound all the same to me😭

[@jianyuhua]

Jenjen as a Chinese who speak Mandarin I can barely tell the difference between the med and the low part

[@tomsun8905]

As a native Chinese speaker，I can't distinguish them either. You are not alone ！

[@voqsonofnone789]

Jenjen EZ for me as a non local LUL Actually in Chinese there were 8 tones date back to ~C10-11. And almost tones of all Chinese varieties are based on the 8-tone system.

[@krzysztofstrzegomski5662]

Yep. Differences are minor

[@decem_sagittae]

They're all the same.

[@akitoes]

Fun fact: sīnsāang 先生 is sensei 先生 in Japanese both meaning teacher.

[@sgtK0420]

It meas teacher in Korean too. The pronunciation is "Sun-Seng"

[@akitoes]

What about Vietnamese? 🤔

[@FabiusStephanus]

@@akitoes-In vietnamese is 'thầy giáo'.

[@sky65]

@@sgtK0420 선생

[@drunkqi8019]

It means the same in Mandarin too(used by elders)

[@jonathans4832]

I am speaker of both Mandarin and Cantonese and I live in Singapore. I watch your youtube with great interest !!! Good Job !

[@lliopmi2896]

Clear explains, well research, as a native Cantonese speaker, I am really appreciate for introducing our language!

[@notcaaaramels]

I'm Chinese, I was the first generation born and raised in Australia and taught Chinese at a young age. For me, when I hear Cantonese I can only understand bits and pieces if the conversation. For example, I was in an elevator with these two Cantonese women and they were talking about fruit. I could only understand small snippets and gestures, but the actual conversation was too fast for my brain to comprehend. Cantonese is usually spoken really fast and loud, making it even harder to understand for most mandarin speakers.

[@rickywong4924]

I speak Cantonese lol

[@creativefreedom9143]

Growing up in the US, when I went to Chinese buffets with my family, the staff always sounded like they were speaking a loud, sing-songy, up and down, cacophonous language. When I was younger, I always thought Chinese was just one language (I didn’t know about China having multiple languages) and assumed that the staff were speaking Mandarin; now I know there is a possibility they were just speaking Cantonese the whole time.

[@samforfun889]

Actually Cantonese is more suitable as a spoken language…. its pronunciation and phrases are more friendly to your tongue cause they are not so rigid as Mandarin…..

[@IR-xy3ij]

​@@creativefreedom9143 Yeah Mandarin is more monotonous and typically stress-timed on some level in casual speech

[@jmgonzales7701]

@@IR-xy3ij so is that the stereotypical Chinese sound? the phenology

[@CubySteve]

im proud because I can speak both!!

[@sternschnuppe.]

@fleetlordavtar bruh, just let this person be proud because both Madarin and Cantonese and difficult languages and they have the right to be proud. so chill out

[@geraldeencortez1361]

Same..͡° ͜ʖ ͡°

[@miisora.]

Lucky, i speak Mandarin Chinese and sometimes Korean to my friend i really want to speak Cantonese

[@michellelyston8566]

@fleetlordavtar Ugh! Jealous! That emoji can really match your personality any day!!! SMH!! Technical kid!! Shut up and get a life!! (This is me being dramatic purposely, don't worry!)

[@respectedgaming]

If someone speak either Cantonese or mandarin that would give them an advantage to learn the other language Well done

[@shelteredinnyc2714]

Fantastic summary and research

[@Sanguinello0s]

You should do a video about the difference between Taiwanese Mandarin and Chinese Mandarin, that would be really interesting!

[@lowinglok2002]

As a Hongkonger, I can understand mandarin mostly but cannot speak it very correctly. One things to note Cantonese speaker in mainland speak differently in tone and choice of vocabulary.

[@drhoo367]

Same.

[@charleyskylam6511]

Ayeee hongkonger too but honestly I suck at Mandarin

[@miket2394]

I speak both Mandarin and Cantonese but prefer to use Cantonese more often as it is my mother tongue aside from English. Most HongKong movies and shows tend to sound and present their humour and flavour better rather than the Mandarin dubbed versions as these are somewhat lost when they are translated from Cantonese to Mandarin. Just goes to show they are in essence 2 different but related languages akin to French and Spanish.

[@MaMi-jv4ws]

Totally agree.... (sometimes... I rather speak English in mainland) plus... younger generation, all hongkonger HAVE to learn mandarin even though I hate it so much

[@user-if8sh6fj1w]

Haha me too, from hong kong! I can't speak mandarin very good XD only cantonese and english 4 me

[@awwmanboi9791]

'Cantonese is hard.' Me, who is a native speaker of Cantonese: I'm 4 parallel universes ahead of you

[@riccym4039]

Excellent you really open eye even for Chinese Very professional I wonder There are any Chinese professors have such knowledge putting it into teaching Invincible keep on trucking

[@icewingt-ez6fq]

我諗好多香港人對廣東話認識嘅程度都冇你講解得咁深入，我都獲益良多，多謝。 I think many Hong Kong people don't know Cantonese as well as you do, I've benefited a lot, thank you.

[@user-qy2hc3xl7j]

As a Malaysian Chinese we learn Mandarin through school, we learn Cantonese through Hong Kong drama/movie and most of the Chinese in Kuala Lumpur can say Cantonese fluently.

[@3dsaulgoodman43]

Most households in Johor can speak Hokkien as well, and almost all in Penang can speak Hokkien. It's also common to pick up those languages just by living next to someone. My friend's father, who is a Sikh, can actually speak fluent Hokkien, and he gained the proficiency just by speaking Hokkien with his neighbours.

[@user-qy2hc3xl7j]

@fleetlordavtar gambateh

[@moosc4640]

Fluently but not native

[@sassyrice7662]

Chinese from ipoh also speak Cantonese

[@cylepsycc1050]

大马朋友你好！我完全不会广东话 好羡慕

[@KanojoRinko]

I laughed so hard when you said how learning Mandarin meant you could be understood in China, then Malaysia and Singapore, then you proceeded to sneak in a "but they'd probably speak English to you". Nice detail!

[@Langfocus]

It’s true, isn’t it? :)

[@KanojoRinko]

Very true! Singapore had a Speak Mandarin Campaign in the early 1980s which wiped out dialects from daily use. Youths today lack the ability to speak dialects as a result, preventing them from communicating with their grandparents. The focus of this campaign switched to maintaining the ability to speak it because English is dominating both the workplace and school. 90% of the curriculum is in English with one subject dedicated to the mother tongue, and the other problem the government faces is the usage of Singlish, the English creole created from our 4 languages. (Won't lie, I love it because it shortens English a lot) It's quite amusing how in the attempt to create a bilingual population, you end up with not fully bilingual speakers. Malaysia has a different issue where Malay is used more often, so I can't offer my opinion on Malaysia. Thank you for all your hard work, I enjoy your videos a lot, they are quite educational and fun to watch!

[@simonlow0210]

Cantonese are also commonly used among the Chinese mainly in Kuala Lumpur and Ipoh areas of Malaysia. This due to the past immigrants of Chinese people from the Canton(Guangdong) region mainly to these two regions of Malaysia.

[@IAmTheBeckett]

Living in China and it's always slightly frustrating when (mostly younger) people automatically speak English to me. I need to speak more Mandarin to improve!

[@eugeneng7064]

The trick is understanding the Manglish/Singlish that the locals speak. Many people come to this region expecting people to speak standard American or British English, only to find out a minority do. Most often people speak English with a different intonation with heavy borrowings from other languages.

[@downtoearth5108]

Great insights. Thankyou.

[@sitmengchue4077]

You are absolutely amazing, Paul!

[@Langfocus]

I'm really not, but thanks!

[@human-zf5yu]

2:46 Fun fact, in Cantonese the word"史" can also be spoken as"屎", which means SHIT.

[@Frups12345678]

Sexsiaa

[@tylerzeng6692]

You show a very thorough analysis. I'm a speaker of both

[@luciano8528]

I am learning Mandarin, maybe one day I'll learn the Korean/japanese language too. I find the asian culture so interesting. And I gotta say... Learning Mandarin is a challenge.

[@Hamadto1000]

我学了中文为一年，现在我觉得我水平不错，而且我要学粤语，我觉得好听，你会帮我，我有挺多的问题 ，例如为普通话有hsk 汉语水平考试，粤语也有考试是吧？

[@johnathanlau6046]

I don't think there is a standard proficiency test for Cantonese on the same level as HSK. Some places do offer proficiency exams (after some googling) though, like the one offered by CUHK. Take a look at this wikipedia page...en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_language_proficiency_tests#Chinese_(Cantonese)

[@vjzapp]

Love it mate! As a native Cantonese speaker from HK it’s kinda impressive seeing how you break things down between the two! Things myself can’t explain as detail as you do! Hands down! Verbally Cantonese is much more complicated than Mandirin that I can be sure of! In Cantonese the same word in different can meant something totally different! I’ll say it’s the same thing but… very very different!

[@yanjuji]

Hi! I’m a native Mandarin speaker in Mainland China. Nowadays I have already learnt some basic Cantonese grammar and words so it’s actually not that difficult for me to understand Cantonese texts. However, before I learnt it, I understand nothing, even if it’s the simplest text or the slowest audio. There are numerous characters that Mandarin doesn’t use at all. And by the way, nice video! This is the best video I’ve ever seen about these language and you even talked about “n” and “l”, which I thought you won’t get it before. Keep making high-quality videos and never give up!

[@ghostland8646]

but can you speak Cantonese fluently at a native level

[@Amaling]

How difficult would you say the learning curve for Cantonese was compared to English? I would have to imagine it is much easier since Cantonese and Madarin despite the facts from this video are still very similar

[@YorgosL1]

係呢度.

[@YorgosL1]

@@Amalingcantonese and mandarin are absolutely not very familiar lmao. They are distinct chinese language originate from different dynasty

[@chriswong2012]

There's a typo. Bus is "公共汽車" instead of "氣車". But I'm really impressive that you did very great in researching the differences between Cantonese and Mandarin! Wish to see more language videos from you!

[@Moogsowo]

Ferry & Tram 公共汽车？

[@entropy616]

汽 is for gas that are usually in liquid form, such as petrol汽油 and vapour蒸汽, hence the three dots of water on the left; 氣 is for gas that are usually in gas form, such as oxygen氧氣 and air空氣, and I have no idea why there is rice in it.

[@cycla]

​@@entropy616 Based on my knowledge, 氣 actually originally meant "to give someone food (grain/meat)", hence the 米 (rice) inside; e.g. in imperial China, the food/ration stipend given to a student under official capacity is called “廪氣” “廪餼” (餼 later invented to replace the original meaning once 氣 was taken to mean "air") or "廪饩"; (饩 is the simplified version of 餼). "气" itself, however, is not a "simplified" character of "氣" but a traditional one. The character "气" in the bone script or the other ancient scripts ("jin script") are written with three horizontal strokes, similar to the word "three" or "三", later scripts (篆zhuan), the last stroke was extended to form what the 气 character looks like today.

[@andyw.3048]

Also 什么 instead of 什麼

[@DD-oz9tj]

Ferry & Tram is 车 not 車 車 is used in chess

[@martinfung2165]

Hi Paul. I am a Cantonese speaker living in Hong Kong. I am fluent in Mandarin. I think it generally requires less effort for a Cantonese speaker to learn Mandarin, than the other way round. Seriously, Cantonese is just very very difficult to learn. I saw many of my mainland China friends struggled. Pronunciation alone gives them heavy headaches. But Mandarin is very easy for us. It is like a similar language with easier pronunciation. We have Mandarin lessons in school. And, I just spent some time on mainland and Taiwan TV shows, and... done! Haha! For foreigners, arguably, I think learning Mandarin is more rewarding, since it can take you to more places. And many Cantonese speakers can understand Mandarin (but speak with an accent). Well, I don't want my fellow Cantonese speakers to think I betrayed them... I am proud to be a Cantonese speaker, and I would love to would pass it on.

[@Rick-ko1bz]

Haha don't feel you're betraying anyone. I'm French, proud of my language but will easily recognize learn English is more useful nowadays. But it's not completely contradictory: a lot of English words are from French and Mandarin/Cantonese share lot of things, like characters. At the end, they could switch later on or be interested by both, when they'll discover learning languages could be a pleasant experience :)

[@martinfung2165]

Wow. Man! I never thought of this! Mandarin and Cantonese are really quite like English and French. Yah, languages should never be contradictory. No one is more superior than the other. And it is always good to learn one more language/dialect/tongue, to understand one another. Through this, it would even help to understand the fascination of one's own native language. :-)

[@zhenghaohe2109]

I like your attitude. Some Hong Kongers think it's either Mandarin or Cantonese, but why does it have to be either-or? People from the Netherlands can speak 4 languages on average. It is no burden at all for Cantonese speakers to learn Mandarin, since formal writing in Hong Kong mostly conform with Mandarin.

[@michelleli2175]

I am planning to speak Mandarin with my Canto accent for the rest of my life. lol

[@michelleli2175]

JLO L can u even speak both languages? And know the Chinese culture well? Tang Dynasty's poem rhymes with Cantonese NOT Mandarin.

[@gerrbaby90]

Thank you for the video. I've always wondered what the differences were.

[@kidokaito8526]

I love your video!!! It is very accurate !!!

[@essennagerry]

I fell inlove with Cantonese about a month ago and you have NO IDEA how much I wanted this video! :D I actually searched through your videos to see if you've made one even though I knew you hadn't, haha. BUT NOW IT'S HERE! ^^ Thank you so much, I really appreciate it!

[@user-uf3zw9jt1o]

essennagerry hey, i meet you again!

[@Chr1551]

Recently I felt like it would be a healthy thing to do to learn a new language. After checking out a bunch of different languages Cantonese was by far the one I felt the most passion for , so that's the one I decided to go with.

[@essennagerry]

KevinChoi文 Haha, hey Kevin!

[@essennagerry]

Chr1551 It actually is a very healthy thing to do, literally! There are many cognitive benefits to it, one of them being decreasing the errr, congitive decay so to say? as you aproach old age. Another being enhancing your problem solving skills. That is, if you become fluent and keep at it. Cantonese is my favorite language right now. :D I don't even know exactly why, it just is. I'm interested in Japanese, Korean and Mandarin as well. And looking at my future plans and ambitions Cantonese will be by far the least useful of the group. :D But I like it so much! I wish you all the best in learning Cantonese! ^^ May I ask where you're from?

[@user-uf3zw9jt1o]

essennagerry 😊😊 i also learning English, but not fluently. & why do u like Cantonese?

[@Sunrise19995]

I am a native Chinese speaker(Mandarin) , and when I try to communicate with someone who speak Cantonese, we can barely understand each other. So we just use English instead.

[@awwmanboi9791]

me who understands all of these 3 languages:

[@vanavana593]

@@awwmanboi9791 别以为你牛逼 老娘我也可😊

[@czombei4995]

@@vanavana593 why so pressed? they are just sharing

[@CheesyIsSalteh]

@@awwmanboi9791 yeah but I use English the most because it's easier to conjugate and I just speak it like a main language most of the time when I'm with my friend.

[@ccys0911]

@@awwmanboi9791 In hk this is normal

[@liliannam565]

That's a great summary! You can say that again!

[@campusballistics1138]

In my opinion Taiwanese and Chinese accent in Mandarin differs similar to US and UK accent, we've each developed different buzzwords, and sometimes Taiwanese added bits of Minnan, Japanese, English to the mixture.

[@jasonshih3633]

Its honestly pretty different. The way we say hello, goodbye, good morning, how we address our families, how we describe smth is all really different. Sure, its the "same" language, but if its Beijing accent or anything north of there, its pretty much impossible to udnerstand what theyre saying.

[@elauneintunkhanein8727]

Taiwan is part of China.

[@marcburo]

This video is extremely professional, from a native mandarin speaker who learned a bit of cantonese.

[@Sashalexandros]

Do you see then each other as a whole nation? Look at Sweeden and Norway, both languages mutually intelligible but they are separate countries. Do you think that it would be correct for chinese to split in countries based on the language/dialect?

[@trgfernando5793]

@@Sashalexandros If they do what you said, then China would be split into at least 20 countries...You have no idea how many dialects they have, for example, in Zhejiang or Jiangsu province, a person who travels 100km away from his hometown may just be completely unable to understand the people around him, but he is still in the same province...

[@homosapiensisnotme]

​@@Sashalexandros The first emperor Qinshihuang unified China around 210BC, in this progress, he also unified the written language of China. Since then, it became a part of our culture that if one speak the Chinese language (no matter which variation) and follows our everyday customs, that person is identified as one of us. And I personally detest the idea that people should be split into different groups based on their dialect.

[@blessedevelyn339]

8:39 sounds like a threat lol

[@SoopaFlyism]

So. Cantonese is even more difficult to learn than mandarin.

[@lokang]

I guess u are right. I speak both and Cantonese is my native language. I found Mandarin much easier to learn Partly because of the complexity of Cantonese, also because Mandarin has a more systematic and structuralized pattern.

[@btsot7306]

Me as a hongkonger learnt Cantonese AND YES MANDARIN IS EASIER but if u k Cantonese all languages will be easy to you especially Japanese and Korean easy af

[@Hydrophiidae]

@@btsot7306 While it is hell to learn the honourific speeches of both Japanese and Korean, and get your tongue twisted to make the trilling sounds of many Roman languages and Slavic languages

[@katherinetutschek4757]

I learned Mandarin and Cantonese as second languages (native English speaker) and I honestly didn't find one more difficult than the other. Neither of them are as difficult to learn as people think. I especially find it funny when native Cantonese speakers tell foreigners Cantonese is harder than Mandarin when they've never had the experience of learning it as a second language.

[@birdnest1994]

@@katherinetutschek4757 I think the main obstacle is merely the pronunciation of the words. Both languages have no tense, no gender, no cases, etc. so it is actually not hard to learn if you are good at memorizing all the vocabs and their pronunciation. If you could figure out how the tones work, Cantonese it is actually easier to learn than Mandarin because Cantonese have fewer words that share the same pronunciation with each other, which brings advantage in listening and understanding with other speakers. Provided that you don't dive into the writing system lol

[@not_vinkami]

Wow I'm very impressed by this video! As a native Hongkonger who speaks fluent Mandarin and Cantonese, and writes both normal Chinese and vernacular Cantonese, I actually thought *a lot* throughout the video. I was always searching for the missing information that I could have included in this comment. However, there turns out to be only *2* things missing. Others like the written vernacular Cantonese vs normal written Chinese, the grammar differences, the lazy pronunciation of Cantonese, the correct characters for a Cantonese sentence, etc. are all covered, which is surprisingly amazing. These are the things that should be mentioned: 1. 乜嘢 in 你叫乜嘢名 (what's your name) can be contracted as 咩 2. The Cantonese romanization is not the most popular and official one. The official one should be Jyutping (or Linguistic Society of Hong Kong Cantonese Romanization Scheme). The differences are that the tones are represented by numbers from 1 to 6 and some syllable initials and finals use different characters

[@hauyung1210]

This video is actually really cool! As a HongKonger, I have never investigated the similarities and differences before. My first language is Cantonese and I can understand fully in Mandarin, but mainlanders usually don’t understand Cantonese (or maybe just a few phrases or words). Thanks for the video, I’ve learnt a lot:)

[@hardtropic4750]

as a native cantonese speaker but grew up in southern mainland china I can tell that you are exactly doing a great job by figuring out such a complicated problem. cantonese is my mother tongue and i started to learn and use mandarin since i went to school. so i understand both the languages perfectly. but it's quite difficult for those hongkong people and old people in southern mainland china. and let me tell you what, people in malaysia speak better cantonese than chinese because most of their ancestors came from south china.

[@cheuktingho]

Native speaker of Cantonese learnt English at kindergarten, learnt Mandarin at secondary school. I always think Mandarin is my 3rd language. It's easier to comprehend and express my thoughts in English than in Mandarin (I live in the UK for 5 years now)

[@charlotteha7702]

You did such a great job there!! I'm a native Canto speaker from Guangzhou, even tho we learned Mando as early as elementary school (kindergarten nowadays), my Mandarin isn't as good as those from northern China, I'll consider Cantonese as my mother tongue, and Mandarin as C1 level. And I'd consider the difference between Mandarin and Cantonese similar to the difference between Spanish and Catalan.

[@candyflossz099]

This is honestly sososo useful and so informative and detailed Whenever my friends ask me again the difference I'll just send them this video im so tired of explaining

[@candyflossz099]

and the cantonese sentence examples are so on point as you have to know that cantonese is hard to follow because it's quite volatile when it comes to daily conversation

[@prasanth2601]

@@candyflossz099 Does mandarin sounds like a different language to you. I mean southern dialects like Min, gan, hokkein are closer to cantonese right? Because of various influences did mandarin lost it's Chinese elements

[@merrymerryjerry6736]

when you were comparing the tones, with the Mandarin one, I could easily reproduce them (I speak no tonal languages, btw.) I tried doing Cantonese, and got two of the tones before I went "What the shit is this?"

[@bettyhu500]

Native Mandarin Speaker here, I can understand Cantonese 70% due to exposure. But I really lost it when trying to tell the differences in tones.

[@huahualipo]

Don't worry, a native mandarin speaker like me can't tell some of these Cantonese tones apart lol

[@Odinsday]

That's because Cantonese is bullshit.

[@Chr1551]

Mandarian tones are weirder and more dramatic. There's one tone that starts very high and ends very low, another that dips down and goes up again, a 5th (neutral) tone that changes... Cantonese tones are more straight forward: 4 flat, & 2 that rise a little bit. Plus Mandarin pronunciation is harder. It has a lot more sounds that are difficult for me as a native English speaker to pronounce. I tried learning both, but went for Cantonese, first because of the easier pronunciation. Plus many Cantonese words come from English thanks to Britain's influence on Hong Kong.

[@Chr1551]

For learning the tones what I did was say "do re mi fa sol" in my head and matched them up with the different tones in Cantonese to make sure I was getting them right at first. It takes practice but eventually you internalize it, and know the correct tone right away, so I don't have to rely on that method as much as a crutch anymore.

[@innesreilly7777]

I love your videos! I'm always excited when a new one comes out and I rush to watch it. I am a learner of Japanese, native English speaker.

[@riverhalorix4203]

I'm Chinese, born and raised from Hong Kong. I speak Mandarin/Putonghua and Cantonese. It was really difficult to switch to Cantonese as my Chinese learning language when I was in pre-s1, and it was also pretty difficult to explain it to foreigners. Your videos is great!

[@Cloudy0123]

Awesome video !! :)

[@crystalbarnes4876]

I grew up in Canton and thus speak both languages. Nowadays everyone in mainland speak Mandarin because it is mandatory in schools, so at least for the younger people, I don't believe that there is anyone who does not at least understand, if not speak well, Mandarin. As for writing, unless you are a really hardcore Cantonese speaker, people generally write in Putonghua/Mandarin regardless of what language they are actually speaking so we all understand each other through text perfectly with the exception of a few different terms that we use for certain things, but that is more of a regional, or North vs. South, problem than the Mandarin vs. Cantonese thing. Also I would like to point out that when you talked about bus, you used 氣 instead of 汽. The previous means gas while the latter means steam, and 汽 is the correct one. Oh and to answer the question of the day, generally Mandarin speakers, especially Northerners, don't even have the slightest clue what any Cantonese means. However, it is also important to take into consideration that there are so many regional dialects, virtually everyone outside of Beijing speaks some sort of dialect. The Northern dialects are, as far as I know, generally rather similar to Mandarin (at least more so that Cantonese) while the Southern ones are much less similar to Mandarin as well as among themselves. At the end it really comes down to proximity to Canton. The closer you live to Canton the more similar your dialect will be to Cantonese and thus you will have a better chance of understanding it. That said, similarity doesn't really do that much. Dialects can vary by city, and then the whole dialect continuum things steps in and chaos ensues. I lived in a small town in Jiangmen and our dialect is, although very similar to Cantonese, hardly mutually intelligible to it. So all in all, my point is, Northerners will not understand Cantonese; Southerners have a better chance but it depends on where you are from; even for Cantonese people, if they have never really learned Cantonese in some way, they will have a hard time understanding it as well.

[@and2019]

agreed. it's 汽车/汽車.

[@bls5366]

书同文，车同轨，古人做不到音同韵，现在可以做到。不过，也不见得是一个坏事。

[@nataliaparadela3860]

Crystal Zheng m

[@thomasinatsai3485]

Unfortunately, no standardized written Cantonese, or even proper Cantonese grammar/tradition is taught anymore in Mainland China. I speak the language but am having a hard time reading it. Have to sound out every character...

[@terenceng1827]

Except that you live in Hong Kong...咁你就會直接打廣東話出黎

[@LMB222]

To Add to the confusion, Cantonese and Mandarin use vastly different romanizations.

[@ahfei6847]

There are different romanizations for each language too

[@jimmkhanz9266]

Everthing was flying over my head like bullets. 😆😆 But honestly youve done a good explanation and presentation. Keep up the good work 👏

[@Silvia0719]

Very educational and informative video. Happy to see that was made by a Westerner as you can give more points of view from foreigners to learn and distinguish Mandarin and Cantonese. Many foreigners have mixed up this concept when I talk about Chinese and Mandarin. We share with same character system but speak in different dialects. Even though people from China and Taiwan are speaking Mandarin, there are still some differences in their wordings, not just only accents. 🤣🤣🤣 Cantonese is my mother language. I can speak and listen to Mandarin. For Hakka, I only can listen but can't speak. The more interesting thing is that there are several types of Hakka depending on which area you lived in. My parents can speak 2 types of Hakka, esp my Mum, who is Chinese Indonesian. Her Hakka sounds a bit Cantonese, which is very easy to understand. This dialect is very common for those Chinese Indonesians who lived in West Kalimantan in Indonesia. Support your video! 😊😊

[@paralist]

There are two inaccuracies: 1. the correct traditional Chinese word for car is 汽車, not 氣車。 Both 汽 and 氣 mean “Gas” but only 汽 is correct in the case of car. 2. The distinctions in pronunciation between the polite （您）and casual（你/妳） form of you only exists in Mandarin Chinese. In Cantonese, it always start with the the nasal sound(“N”). Those who say it with “L” sound, are those speak Cantonese with what we call “lazy sound”.（懶音）

[@P3TNuT]

hey Paul to answer the question of the day: I'm a Malaysian Chinese born in 1997 in Malaysia, and grew up being a native speaker of Mandarin, Cantonese, and Hokkien (another dialect of Chinese from the Min branch), Malay, and English. I am also fairly fluent in German but that's a story for another day. My mother's ancestry is from Guangzhou, which is why I speak Cantonese with my maternal grandparents. My dad's ancestry is from Fujian, which is also why I speak Hokkien to my paternal grandparents and within my family. I use Mandarin Chinese when speaking with peers of the same race, spoke Malay at high school, and English in the city. I find Cantonese much harder to "learn" than Mandarin, mainly because we do not receive formal education for dialects here in Malaysia. I am much less familiar with the vernacular Cantonese writing system, but can understand Traditional Chinese reasonably well. That being said, I find it easier to just read a Mandarin text and when reading it out, automatically replace or rearrange word order to form a vernacular Cantonese sentence. Also, I understand Cantonese almost as good as Mandarin when spoken.

[@mosamuel7708]

Ricky Ooi hello my fellow countryman

[@sammyliaw4889]

I agree. I find it hard to pronounce Cantonese mainly because my learning source of the language is from tv shows/ my elders speaking it. Like you said,since we Malaysian Chinese don’t really receive any form of dialect education, the only way I can improve is by speaking it on a daily basis. Sadly, I live in N9 where most of my peers speak mandarin/ English. I really struggle trying to speak Cantonese but I still speak it anyway hoping not to disappoint my ancestors haha.

[@mosamuel7708]

Sammy Liaw but u guys can understand cantonese still right? Like when watching Ip Man films

[@P3TNuT]

helloooo! btw bukan semua paham. those with non-cantonese ancestry, does not live in Perak - Selangor area, bananas etc will not understand cantonese at all.

[@mosamuel7708]

Ricky Ooi wow i didnt know that, tapi mandarin u all same tak with Republic of China punya mandarin?

[@aldrickdurango8424]

The most informative video I have ever seen.

[@ChasMusic]

Rewatching this after a few years and still enjoyable! Former Cantonese student here; never became fluent. I once ran across a reference book of differences between Mandarin and colloquial Cantonese and it ran several hundred pages.

[@user-ld1gp9jn8b]

As an old fan of the Langfocus Channel and as well as a native speaker of both Mandarin and Cantonese, I am so glad and surprised to find out that Paul has made and uploaded a video regarding the both languages onto the KZbin. Thanks, Paul! And as I have mentioned above, I am a native speaker of both Mandarin and Cantonese. I grow up in the city of Guangzhou( for which I recommend the name of Canton instead of the Pinyin name of Guangzhou), and had learned Cantonese as I communicated with my fellow friends or watched local TV programs. In mainland China, schools had not been allowed to teach local languages and all the students had been required to speak only Mandarin (those who didn't may be punished). However, in Canton, Cantonese is admitted to be used in station announcement of public transportation and most importantly, as the broadcasting language of radio station and TV programs. Of course you can't see written Cantonese on newspaper( even in Hong Kong it is not so common to use it I suppose ), everyone just writes in Standard Chinese. With the special permission of the use of the language (which is not common in Mainland), young people remains in touch with Cantonese. And the TV dramas and films produced by Hong Kong also helps a lot! As the movie mentioned, there are actually a lot of differences between Mandarin and Cantonese. And actually as one who has been living in a bilingual environment, it is hard to tell if there could have been any difficulties to understand these languages. Perhaps people from Hong Kong(where schools use Cantonese instead of Mandarin) or the elder living in Canton could say something about this topic but not me. LOL. But I am sure that Cantonese has been largely influenced by the Mandarin, especially for the area within the Mainland China since the foundation of the PRC back to the year 1949. The gradual replacement of the word regarding 'Teacher' actually reflects the process. (by the way, 先生 had been regarded to teacher before the year of 1949 in Mandarin, and it is now still used by Japanese regarding the same thing but in a different pronunciation as Sensei. So you can see that the history of Chinese remains in these non-Mandarin Chinese languages) In Hong Kong, due to the lately 1997 transfer of government over Hong Kong, the Cantonese language spoken within Hong Kong is largely different from the Mainland side. We have much more Mandarin words used within the language while in Hong Kong there are much more words derived from English. Both sides are mutually intelligible though. What's more, the political conflicts regarding the relation between Mainland and Hong Kong these days has made more and more young people in Hong Kong regarding Mainland people as nasty which I am so sad because there is a lack of mutual communication between the both sides. Along with the vocabulary, the pronunciation is also different in some ways between the Mainland and Hong Kong but I can't tell it clearly so those who are interested in this topic can Google for it themselves LOL. Finally, the Cantonese language is recommended for those who would like to travel to or work in both the city of Hong Kong and Canton because it makes you be friendly to the local people! Welcome to Canton! P.S 一個廣州人嘅感想

[@12315yh]

For a typical Guangzhou local such as me, I can speak Cantonese and Mandarin perfectly, read Cantonese and Mandarin perfectly, but I can only write in simplified Chinese.

[@alexng704]

shame on you for not able to write traditional characters

[@berl2343]

Traditional is better...

[@andysshanghailife6595]

CHILL PILL 你普通话发音肯定不太标准… 别那么骄傲啊！

[@kafkax3530]

@@alexng704 so what tf are u man

[@Corujadocerrado]

Hey, man, please, help me here! I want to study the Tao, the Wushu and the Confucianism. So, in this case, is there some of those two languages wich would help me more? Wich one would it be?

[@ManLiMusic]

As a native Cantonese speaker, I recommend non-native Cantonese learners learn about the system of JyutPing, which is a more standardised system for learning pronunciations of Cantonese.

[@ponta1162]

I'm a native Cantonese speaker, but I'm learning JyutPing 😅

[@FadedXenox]

As someone from Guangzhou, I can say that I can understand both languages quite well, but Cantonese is my preferred language because it’s spoken at home regularly

[@kelvinchu8465]

I'm a native Cantonese speaker from Hong Kong. Most of native Cantonese speakers can speak or at least understand spoken Mandarin (because of the compulsory government education of spoken Mandarin which is a separate subject in school other than Chinese Language subject). Learning Mandarin is easy for a native Cantonese speaker. However, Mandarin speakers from China usually cannot understand both spoken and written Cantonese at all and it is hard for them to learn Cantonese. As Cantonese is much more difficult. Also ,there is no formal Cantonese education in China except in Hong Kong and Macau. By the way, spoken Cantonese in Hong Kong is actually a little bit different from Guangzhou because of the end sound of words (Hong Kong Cantonese end a word faster and sharper), the use of words (Guangzhou Cantonese use more words in written Mandarin while Hong Kong Cantonese will mix some english words in a sentence) So Hong Kong people can easily distinguish whether a native Cantonese speakers is from Hong Kong or Guangzhou.

[@songwaikit8718]

I found it funny that When ppl from guangzhou tried to speak english they sound like the rest of China rather than hk. I always though that they would sound like HK English since both are native canton speakers

[@300blackcats]

Song Wai Kit Really? I feel like they do sound more like us than other Chinese people when speaking English:o Would that be becauae they grew up speaking Mandarin/some other dialects of Guangdong province?

[@user-uf3zw9jt1o]

Cantonese written Cantonese words, not mandarin. BTW, We r Cantonese, not GuangZhouese.

[@songwaikit8718]

cloudnine maybe because they all got the same english teachers... So the whole china has the same english accent

[@user-uf3zw9jt1o]

Song Wai Kit No, We have our own accent, Both Mandarin accent and Japanese accent are much different from us

[@kelvin123456789ifc]

I'm a native Cantonese speaker from Hong Kong. Before I started learning Mandarin seriously, I can only understand its written form, as there aren't many differences. But when I was listening to Mandarin, I understood nothing. Schools in Hong Kong provide Mandarin courses. But I barely listened to anything they taught. Instead, I learned my Mandarin from the internet. Until now, I can speak and listen to Mandarin with no difficulties. Just to let you know, "bus" in Mandarin is 公共汽車, instead of 公共氣車. I love watching your video. Plz make more of them :)

[@Mic33399]

I was born a Cantonese in mainland… only 90 mins away from HK. It’s mandatory for us to learn mandarin since 7. And I went to Tianjin and Beijing to complete my university education. Therefore, I speak fluent mandarin as well. What a bless! 😊

[@paktocheng]

As a Cantonese and Mandarin speaker, I still learned something new from this video. Well done!

[@KevinBorlandMusic]

Excellent detail in this one.

[@donaldtrump8906]

Kevin Borland No. Mandarin also can separate as center mandarin,northeast mandarin,southwest mandarin and Jianghuai mandarin.people even don’t know jianghuai mandarin belongs to mandarin or not. And Jianghuai mandarin could separate as huang tone, hongchao tone and tongtai tone . Also hongchao tone could separate as huai-east and huai-west tone.whats the important,they cannot communicate with each other by their tones.

[@user-wn3bm5he4f]

这里的普通话是怎么定义的。。。。 普通话不管什么口音 总是能交流的吧

[@riendedire]

@@donaldtrump8906 those are accents, not dialects or languages

[@chsbookshelf7387]

Cantonese is a beautiful language:) Everytime I heard it, always remind me of some Chinese Poems. by 路過的臺灣人

[@RC-sc5li]

花花的書櫃 CH's Bookshelf You remind me of 梁逸峰🤣🤣🤣

[@Amelia_-qy9nz]

Cantonese is actually more close to the Old Chinese so it sounded better in Chinese poems

[@alilili5475]

I always feel like ppl speaking canto sound like they were fighting tho lol, but there are indeed tones of beautiful songs in cantonese. Don't know if it s true, but I heard some of the poems were meant to be read in canto cuz the dialect certain poets speak in is more similar to canto back in the time.

[@vokha3870]

Li Alice It’s because Cantonese derived directly from Tang pronunciation (Middle Chinese), meanwhile Mandarin has also been influenced by Manchurian, Mongolian,...

[@GIN.356.A]

@@vokha3870 I know Hkers like to say that so it makes them feel better, but it's not academically substantiated. of course you being Vietnamese, it is not your fault for not knowing.

[@ette4456]

basically if you know Cantonese, you could GUESS how to pronounce Mandarin.

[@uberjava]

I'm a native English speaker that learnt Cantonese in HK before Mandarin was a thing. One of my most proud achievements was to learn Cantonese as an 18+ year old and I often compare my ability to that of a native Cantonese speaker who is aged about 4. I had a go at Mandarin when I was older but it's kind of fun to watch this video and see a more systematic breakdown of the differences between the two. I consciously didn't release the extent of the grammatical differences, as to me, one is just spoken, and the other was something to be studied.. :-)

[@srsmm1549]

What do you mean before Mandarin was a thing😂. Mandarin has been there for ages. Even the emperor in Qing dynasty spoke perfect Mandarin. Standard Mandarin nowadays is largely based on Beijing dialect, and that means not only Beijing, Cities and Provinces around Beijing all spoke Mandarin, not exactly ‘standard’ but very, very similar. For example, the whole northeast China spoke Mandarin, but by then, Mandarin wasn’t called Mandarin, it doesn’t have a name, people just call it Chinese by a general definition. So what I mean is that Mandarin, the name, may haven’t been existed for long, but people have been spoken in Mandarin(by that time it wasn’t given the name ‘Mandarin’), for hundreds of years if not thousands.

[@janisfok8848]

There is some deep thing about your "Cantonese is just spoken." The Chinese language is a messy idea. It can refer to (1) Chinese characters and/or (2) different Chinese spoken/written languages (so called "dialects" according to the CCP) in terms of vocabulary and grammar. For characters, put aside traditional and simplified characters for simplicity. Just consider there is only one set of characters like ABCDE... Cantonese has more characters. Ignore them for simplicity too. For languages in terms of vocabulary and grammar, there are many spoken Chinese languages which are usually considered not 'formal', e.g. Cantonese. You are not encouraged to write all Chinese languages except one, namely Mandarin. It makes you feel that there is only one legitimate Chinese language, the one that you can write, namely Mandarin-based Chinese. Such feeling is enforced by examinations, government documents etc. They are all in Mandarin-based Chinese. But actually you can write Cantonese. German written in ABCDE... and English written in ABCDE... are different languages. Similarly Cantonese written in Chinese characters and Mandarin written in Chinese characters are different languages. P.S. But why do these things happen? it is more a question of culture/politics than merely of language.

[@jsensei3421]

This video was super informative! Thanks so much!

[@cheetahman2282]

As one who speaks fluent Mandarin and Cantonese , I attest to the accuracy of this video. Concise and professional ! No wonder you have over a million subscribers!

[@user-sanningo]

你是哪里人？

[@janelouie2153]

Cantonese is my mother tongue and I can understand Mandarin perfectly well. There is a standard grammar in written Chinese and people from different parts of China uses different slangs like the examples you provide. We would write the slang out when talking with friends but would never do it in proper writing. Also I can make out most of the simplified characters but can’t write with it. Chinese is such a beautiful language with so much culture and history behind it, it is very difficult to master and I really appreciate your interest in it and sharing it with so many. Thank you.