Which Chinese Dialect is the most difficult?

[@yaoqingtang5826]

Shanghainese is my native tongue. And I can verify that your pronunciation is more than impressive!🎉❤

[@phoenixhou4486]

Thank you!!! Way to go!💪🏼

[@learnpenanghokkien]

Dear Mr Hou, I stumble upon this video of yours today. I find it incredibly fascinating because over here in Penang, Malaysia. For over ten years, I have been researching the Hokkien language, as part of the effort to preserve and modernize the Hokkien spoken here in Penang, which we call Penang Hokkien. Due to the seafaring and merchantile nature of the Hokkien people over the past centuries, the Hokkien language is spoken by the Chinese across Southeast Asia, with dialects derived from variants spoken in Quanzhou, Xiamen and Zhangzhou. Penang Hokkien traces its roots to the Zhangzhou variant. You spoke of tone changes in the Hokkien language. Grammatically, we call that tone sandhi (you probably avoided using that term to make your video more easily understood by casual viewers). Tone sandhi is indeed incredibly complex. And in Penang, select words may be pronounced in the changed, or sandhi, tone, but they could also be pronounced in the original, or citation, tone, for emphatic purposes. Another observation you made is the formal and informal pronunciation of the same words. That's the literary and colloquial readings of words, not on in Hokkien, but most Chinese languages. The formal pronunciation is a remnant of Literary Chinese, before it was replaced by modern Standard Mandarin. If you ever harbor a curiosity to learn Penang Hokkien, google for "Learn Penang Hokkien" and you will discover what we are doing over here. And google for "Penang Hokkien Dictionary" to find our dictionary available for use, with audio, on the Internet.

[@jssmedialangs]

I'm currently learning Mandarin and I want to learn Cantonese and Shanghainese in the future. If I could I would learn all the languages in the Chinese family because they're just so DOPE! I genuinely think they're all beautiful! 🥰

[@rawdh304]

Hii! How have you been doing? It's been a year 🥰 Were you able to learn mandarin?? It's been few months since I started learning It.. Maybe It's gonna be a hard journey

[@ergouzian]

谢谢你的视频，一直激励我不断学习。你的上海话发音很棒，带些老派感觉。 我自己的上海话其实是出国之后才变好的，在上海时只有逢年过节见上海的亲戚才说。出国之后在平台上看了很多其他方言(语言)的教学，才开始认真回过头咬文嚼字，研究自己的措辞和发音。我对象是台湾人(南京外省)，所以我有机会向他学台湾闽南语。我也说自己在上海其实也算沈阳外省人，或许是这样的背景让我从小爱学外语。把沪语、粤语、台语放在一起做对比真的很有趣！有一些共通的中古词汇，比如说“晏”这个字，还有“畀”和“予”… 早年很多广东人来上海，再后来许多上海人又都去了香港和台湾，我猜想这样的人口流动也反应在语言上。福建话真的是语言活化石，其中各地的差异非常之大，海外还有许多变种，学起来也是一个深坑啊🤔

[@phoenixhou4486]

我所有方言学习的时候都是用了很多不同地区不同时代的材料 所以总是南腔北调的哈哈

[@JeffreyGVny]

Cantonese definitely has changing tones in certain instances. Take for example the word for fish魚. By itself, it has a rising tone. But put it in front of a type of food like soup 湯or congee 粥, and it drops to a low tone. I don’t know the tone numbers for Cantonese as I’ve never academically learned it. I’m just describing them as I say and hear it as a native speaker. There are many other examples I’m sure others can give as examples. Mine may be an example of what happens with two words in a row that normally have rising tones?

[@uliseso]

Very good explanation, thank you! And your English pronunciation is excellent. I'm from Argentina and I work with Taiwanese, so I learned Mandarin and Taiwanese people, and it's just like you say, when you learn a dialect, you learn a whole new aspect of the culture.

[@jklmnoqr]

His English is excellent because he is a native speaker.

[@jklmnoqr]

@uliseso His English is 'excellent' because he is a native English speaker.

[@sanneoi6323]

I'm Cantonese and for obvious reasons Mandarin is my second language. I began studying Wu when I went to Jiangnan, very beautiful language from a very beautiful place. While one dialect may not be "purer" than another, I think that using imported words is something we need to stop.

[@buyungadil1]

In Malaysia, it's very common for people to be able to speak several Chinese dialects plus other major languages. I understand English, Malay, Thai, Cantonese, Taishanese, Hokkien, Teochew, Hakka & Mandarin.

[@phoenixhou4486]

Immediately jealous 😭😭

[@farhan-5705]

@@phoenixhou4486 I agree! I'm from nearby singapore and I can speak English, Malay, Japanese, Mandarin, and some Hokkien and Cantonese! And read/write Arabic!

[@tatleongchan3689]

พูดไทยได้จริงรึเป่าว

[@周骏-d2n]

what a gift u have !

[@fylim7778]

I speak Hainanese, a very niche Chinese dialect in Singapore that doesn’t sound like the other common Chinese dialects at all.

[@MsAccidentallyhere]

This is fascinating, thank you so much. These are exactly the things I've been wondering about.

[@hongkang9766]

Hope you have chances to experience and tell about Hunanese Xiang Chinese, Gan Chinese, Hakka and even Sichuanese. Btw, your pronunciation on these Chinese languages aside from your mother tongue just so impressive!

[@vettaj9752]

I reviewed your channel due to a class video I was watching. You stated to why you were watching the video when you speak the language. Glad I viewed your channel. Very interesting and informative. Thank you!!!

[@phoenixhou4486]

Thank you! Really glad you like my content! Hope you find it helpful

[@Horray-zr8pc]

Very authentic Shanghainese! Great job!☺

[@phoenixhou4486]

Thank you!

[@fernandojimenez5206]

I'm mexican and i confirm that Spanish speakers can "understand" a lot of spoken and written Portuguese and italian, written French is very understandable too but not so much when it's spoken 😅 and finally romanian is probably the latin language more strange for us, but even in Romanian there are words that are very similar to Spanish. This year 2024 i started learning mandarin, and have been reading a lot about the chinese languages, history and culture. China is such an amazing and very interesting nation.

[@phoenixhou4486]

Yes I’ve recently realized that I can actually understand some Romanian because of my Spanish. But Romanian has cases so it sounds a bit more difficult 🥲🥲

[@Weareallmadheretoo]

My native town is not in China, but is famous for dialectal versions of two languages! It's definitely true what you said about learning the local language can show you a new part of the town 🥰

[@patryk88]

Colloquial Cantonese do have changing tones. But it’s not that frequent.

[@phoenixhou4486]

Yes. I've seen a list of exceptions of tonal changes.

[@Roubing-c8e]

我是杭州但不是城区，杭州城区方言和其他吴语不太一样。我母语是方言，幼儿园的时候只会说方言不会说普通话，结果上学不讲不讲完全忘了怎么讲，家里其他家人互相之间都说方言所以我听的懂，但我只会说普通话了，而且感觉方言和普通话因为词汇过于接近，导致想起一个词大脑就被普通话发音占据，反而很不利于想起方言的发音。而且由于长期不说我即使想起了音调也不完全准，然后亲爸亲妈每次一听到第一反应就是嘲笑我方言说的像外地人，还用有歧视外地人色彩的词笑话我，然后就是不教怎么正确发音，真的气死，其实我真的挺想学，但是我爸妈不给我添乱就不错了 其实虽然很喜欢本地的方言，不过感觉普通话的普及除了方便以外好处也说不少，小时候本地人特别热衷于聚一起歧视抹黑外地人，而且上一年级的时候因为我们本地学生受到家长影响，对一个其他省来的同学就很有偏见，直到二年级她普通话口音都完全和大家没区别了，现在长大了知道这不对了，但是以前地域歧视真的是极其严重，当着外地人的面用方言说，现在在学校里大家对待其他省的同学虽然大家普通话还是有口音，但是抱团排挤外地人真的比较少了

[@kennethyoung7564]

Interesting. I am American and don't know any dialects. I am trying to learn Mandarin but just started. I am sure that is hard enough without learning some of these other dialects. I do find this interesting though.

[@annax9007]

Love this video! I totally agree with with you about the “purity” of Chinese language family! A very thorough introduction for my Chinese-interested friends 🎉

[@phoenixhou4486]

@@annax9007 thank you! Glad you like it!

[@zzzzzzz726]

I am also learning Shanghainese but for what was mentioned in this video though they might impress someone who didn't know Shanghainese, these were actually very very basic like what you would learn within the first two hours once you started learning Shanghainese.

[@arthuryang3004]

2:17 I’d rather say the pronunciation of 响 in your dialect is probably the Late Middle Chinese pronunciation of 上, which is in departing tone. The distinct characteristic of the departing tone in LMC is that it starts low and slowly rises to a higher pitch. Many modern Chinese dialects retain this trait, as can be observed in modern-day Wu dialects and Cantonese. Min (Hokkien) however, does not share this phonetic characteristic as it retains much earlier phonetic traits than LMC.

[@家專廖]

之前一直以為廣東話是最難的，我住台灣講的是閩南 ，而且每個地方的普通話聲調都會受到方言影響很好玩

[@sophiaisabelle027]

Thanks for this informative video. Keep up the good work as always.

[@lifelongstudents233]

HE'S BACK!

[@phoenixhou4486]

Haha it’s been a while!

[@GenRevFoto]

awesome knowledge in chinese language!

[@tjazz979]

That's such a great content! Keep up the good work. 谢谢❤

[@phoenixhou4486]

Thank you!

[@ValentYang]

很棒的视频 尤其是imported words的部分 如果做一期mandarin以及各个dialect的imported words的视频 应该会非常有趣 或者是一期一个语言 这里面可以看到很多历史文化因素 比如我记得东北话里面会有很多日语词

[@zmcuhk]

非常清晰有意思的分析！Phoenix有没有什么推荐的学习和练习上海话和客家话的渠道？一直想学上海话和客家话，但最后也只是断断续续跟着各种视频模仿。反而广东话是本科在学校学的，因为有教材作为基础所以之后也能自行琢磨，对语言的流变也了解得更多

[@phoenixhou4486]

我一般都是找一段语速适中的音频然后跟着shadow。当然需要一定基础，对语音语调有一定掌握以后才可以🤔

[@kylajaim822]

小时候有一次回老家听到那边的长辈把“天黑”说成“落黑”，luo her，从那时候意识到方言的有趣。非常喜欢这次视频！

[@patrickpregiato1794]

Very interesting as I have studied Italian languages and/or dialects. The variation is mind boggling for such a small country. BTW the plural of stratum is strata

[@ahmedkhalidak4515]

Hello Hou, nice to have you back. I'm trying to learn Mandarin the AI way ! Where I will foucs on speaking and listening and AI can do the writing and Reading. I want to learn it for communication purpose only, and I think it could work given that I can practice daily with chines people in my town , what do you think?

[@phoenixhou4486]

Starting with a large amount of input is never a bad idea

[@lenguafranca4524]

Love the video! Great message about learning local languages at the end

[@phoenixhou4486]

Thank you!

[@RM-hu9sd]

Thank you for the fantastic video! However, it is quite wrong to translate 文/白读 as formal/informal reading. The correct translation is literary/vernacular reading. It is important to understand that the very vernacular reading represents the original source pronunciation of the language in question, while the literary stratum typically originated from the external, usually dominant, pronunciation from the region where the central government was located.

[@DudeeSweet]

New here. Love the videos! Keep it up!

[@phoenixhou4486]

Thank you!

[@edwardfan3052]

Apparently, Middle Chinese and/or Old Chinese have been preserved in many Sinitic languages. It’s a matter of proportion of linguistic elements descended from these ancient tongues in their modern successors that distinguishes their respective proximity to Middle and/or Old Chinese, though. By this criterion, Mandarin is plausibly on the farther end of the spectrum in comparison with the southern languages.

[@nickqian5965]

侯弟，我好崇拜你。我能说英语，普通话，加上出生地的原因-- -- 吴语（上海话）。日语学了两年，现在忘干净了。英语学了35年，自己觉得离母语者还相差甚远，更不敢说其他语言。如果说还敢学粤语闽南语等方言，我真的是不敢想象。但是如果有朋友或者亲人是说这些方言的， 学习起来就会快很多，否则简直不知道如何入手。如果不是中文母语或者普通话熟练，想学习这些方言简直是痴人说梦。

[@alantew4355]

我也觉得学方言的动力不大，除非是从小就学，因为说普通话就能沟通，而且把时间精力花在学英、法、西班牙语，好像更有用，可沟通的国家更多。

[@lans8211]

@@alantew4355 我会上海话普通话英语日语德语，会去学方言的都是对语言本身的多样性就感兴趣的人，并不是什么有用才去做什么。Hou一定也是这样，学习的过程中发现新东西是件快乐的事。方言很多还和文化紧密相连，你学法语西语也可以了解他们的方言，也一定能发现更多法国和西语国家你不知道的新事物。

[@tonyb7779]

As an Ang Mo with a Singaporean teochew wife I made the mistake before I met her of trying to learn Cantonese first. Hong Kong natives being who they are would burst into laughter at my pronounciations. The worst was when I said I eat (sik6) many people rather than I know (sik1) many people. Of course they would never correct me and used me as a form of amusement. Over the last 40 years I have found it easier to just pick up Mandarin words as there are fewer intonations and nearly all films/TV series are in Mandarin.

[@怪兽大]

Mother tongues of south people are not dialect, they are languages

[@DiluculoOrtus]

In case anyone is wondering, chao is a borrow word, from Ghana.

[@reducedsmell5356]

Ur English is so darn good Respect

[@phoenixhou4486]

Haha thanks!

[@queencyoy]

看了你的视频备受鼓舞！

[@栾昊坤]

太棒了👏

[@Pikoy22]

My ancestors spoke Hokkien and im fluent in it❤️

[@l3af3v3r]

Thank you! You are the rare few amicable northerner that I have encountered. If more of your countrymen can be like you China+the world would be so much more a harmonious and beautiful place. Although the points you brought up and the advice you give is so wholesome and 到位／味+忠懇/中肯 at this point I feel finally I hear a human talk instead of 鬼妖怪 talking. 😂 If you search the web in chinese you would find many a mandarin speaking person claiming shanghainese/wu chinese is better learned/comprehended than cantonese. I personally cannot fathom at all how they come to that idea. Now that you know cantonese/ have it as a base, actually hokkien is not that hard to acquire or comprehend vs shanghainese. What are your thoughts?~

[@phoenixhou4486]

To me, who grew up speaking only Mandarin, Hokkien is definitely the hardest of the Chinese languages, and it makes sense, because Min Chinese bifurcated earliest with other Chinese dialects, and has the most contact with local peoples who spoke other langauges. So Min Chinese has more distinct vocabulary and grammar.

[@l3af3v3r]

@@phoenixhou4486 Thanks for your reply. :）　Yes indeed Hokkien has more 'native words' compared to mainstream chinese words contained in Cantonese, Hakka, Mandarin. etc. But I am also of the impression that Wu Chinese is like that too. like wash isn't 洗,　s*it isn't 屎, the grammar words are all unrecognisable and even time is 辰光 not 時間~。Did the vowels or consonants in Hokkien got to you~？ Quanchew hokkien has the pinyin i sound in zi and the schwa e sound both not found in other varieties of hokkien。Me personally， hokkien varieties lacking these vowels are found to be lacking by me。

[@lucahkok6754]

Wow, world harmony is dependent on Chinese people? You have some pretty messed up worldview here.

[@Sophia-bm7pb]

Seems Cantonese also has changing tones: This rule applies to two-syllable compound words, and is by far the most common of all tone change rules.First, consider these two examples.角落 (gok3 lok6)The first character is pronounced with the third tone, a mid tone,角 (gok3)while the second is pronounced with the sixth tone, a low tone.落 (lok6)These two characters can form a two-syllable compound word, so let's put them together.角落 (pronounce incorrectly - gok3 lok6)Unfortunately, this pronunciation is incorrect. If the second character in a two-syllable compound word is a low tone, it will typically be uplifted to one of the higher tones, either tone 1 or 2.In this scenario, the correct pronunciation for this compound word requires us to change the tone of the second character, from a low tone, tone 6, to a higher tone, tone 1.角落 (pronounce correctly - gok3 lok1)What about these two characters?荷蘭 (ho4 laan1)Together, they form a compound word.荷蘭 (incorrectly - ho4 laan4)Factoring in the tone change rule will give us the correct pronunciation for the word "Holland" in Cantonese.荷蘭 (pronounce correctly - ho4 laan1)UPLIFTING OF LOW TONES TO MODIFY MEANINGTone changes are sometimes made to modify the meaning of concepts that are alike.咁大 (gam3 daai6)Changing a low tone to tone 1, can add an inferior quality to the original concept咁大 (gam3 daai1)Or sometimes a trivial quality...靚仔 (leng3 jai2) "handsome guy"靚仔 (leng1 jai2) "(naughty) teenage boy"Changing a low tone to a tone 2, will alter the meaning of the original concept slightly.糖 (tong4) "sugar"糖 (tong2) "candy"皮 (pei4) "skin"皮 (pei2) "leather"頭 (tau4) "head"頭 (tau2) "chief"Familial nounsTone changes also occur to familial nouns.Familial nouns require you to change the tone of both characters.The first syllable dips to tone 4, while the second syllable is lifted to either tone 1 or 2.爸爸 (incorrectly - baa1 baa1)爸爸 (baa4 baa1)哥哥 (incorrectly - go1 go1)哥哥 (go4 go1)弟弟 (incorrectly - dai6 dai6)弟弟 (dai4 dai2)妹妹 (incorrectly - mui6 mui6)妹妹 (mui4 mui2)CHANGING WORDS INTO NOUNSAnd here's the final tone change you'll learn in this lesson.For many verbs and a few adjectives and classifiers, changing to tone 2 will change the word into a noun.話 (wa6) - to tell話 (wa2) - speech掃 (sou3) - to sweep掃 (sou2) - broom犯 (faan6) - to commit a crime犯 (faan2) - criminalIn this lesson, you learned about tone changes in Cantonese.------Just found out this content from the internet. But I don't confirm if you mentioned about this. As a language lover, I also love learning Chinese languages, currently I know Cantonese Hokkien(Taiwanese) and Mandarin. I will start to learn Shanghainese soon and in the near future plan to learn Hakka :) By the way, I was surprised that Shanghainese has 5 tones!? Because people always said that Shanghainese just has two tones(only has pitch accent) like Korean or Japanese.

[@phoenixhou4486]

I guess with Cantonese it’s more of a sporadic tonal change rather than a systematic phenomenon. But that’s a valid point. That may be a reminiscent property of earlier Cantonese 🤔 I should look further into that.

[@tanshlai1339]

5 BASIC tones,that only use on each single characters.when it combine to words or phrase,the tone will change.

[@tsunhin]

Consider when Cantonese people speak foreign phase like “BB” which depends on context

[@gerard7817]

I speak Cantonese, excellent explanation

[@samaval9920]

Cantonese has minimal tone changes. In 2 syllable words, if 2nd syllable is low level low falling etc. ? all become mid to high rising tone.

[@Jager2560]

我是山东人 胶辽官话区 “吃晌午饭”这句跟我们那边很像 说起方言里的古汉语 我们那边方言里热水一般说汤 记得好像之前语文课本里学的文言文 汤也是指热水 不知道这算不算古汉语的遗留 还有我奶奶一般不说黑色 都说青色 哈哈哈哈 感觉有意思的东西还是很多的

[@phoenixhou4486]

是的 日本人也把熱水叫湯，但是只是指泡澡用的熱水哈哈。吃晌午飯的說法大概就是從山東河北傳到東北的

[@Taipei_103]

You speak Dongbeihua? Northeastern China is one of my favorite places in the world!

[@phoenixhou4486]

Haha the very land where I was born

[@meesteryellow]

I had picked Cantonese as my first Chinese dialect to learn more than a month ago and I love it! A lot more than the languages I had picked up before which was Japanese (almost a year now) and Korean (a few months ago). I think Cantonese is very fun to say and express. As a Vietnamese born in Canada, knowing Vietnamese helps me with learning Cantonese as Vietnamese has a lot of loan words from Cantonese, there are some from Mandarin too but it's small in comparison. Learning Cantonese also helps me with learning Vietnamese vocabs and pronunciations due to the same reason so I'm also improving my mother tongue. Vietnamese also has 6 tones and a lot of the words in both languages are pronounced the same or similarly. I will pick up Mandarin in the future

[@mirae9163]

Tiếng Quảng Đông không phải là phương ngữ, nó là ngôn ngữ !

[@meesteryellow]

@@mirae9163 Tôi biết những mà bình thường tiếng Anh gọi là "dialect".

[@EdwinBB-h2n]

@@meesteryellow Cantonese is a language. Dialect is a French word used to stigmatize languages

[@meesteryellow]

@@EdwinBB-h2n If you tried to translate my Vietnamese comment, then you'd know that I said that I already know, and that I just used what's normally said in English

[@rsl_liu]

great video

[@phoenixhou4486]

Thank you!!

[@gdaymate76]

Hokkien is my mums native tongue Andy maybe dad’s second language, and as an English speaker it is so hard

[@mostafafadel2735]

Please Tell us, How to learn Farsi (sources& methodology) and How to Have american accent like you ? I'm an Arabic Native speaker by the way.

[@ksajamx]

I suggest you to follow the professor Alexander Arguelles here on youtube, he has content about many languages, including Farsi, and listen a lot helps with accent because you start to mimic native speakers.

[@clement2780]

who teaches gan, xiang, hakka, tousan , hokchiu?

[@求主指引]

可以挑战一下福州话，我觉得这是全中国最难的方言，没有之一🤣 You can try to learn Fuzhounese, which I consider as the most difficult one among Chinese languages.

[@alantew4355]

But how do you know if Fuzhounese is the most difficult? There are so many Chinese languages/dialects. You would only know if you learn all of them.

[@求主指引]

@@alantew4355 I have been learning many Chinese dialects as a native speaker of a Mandarin dialect. And Fuzhounese is definitely the most difficult one I have ever been learning. Well, at least more difficult than Wenzhounese (I am learning Wenzhounese now), Hokkien/Taiwanese, Cantonese (which I can speakly decently), Hakka (which is easier than Cantonese) and so on.

[@alantew4355]

@@求主指引 How would you rank the difficulty of all the languages you learnt?

[@求主指引]

@@alantew4355 Do you know Fuzhounese? If you are not a native speaker of any Chinese language, I think it is difficult for me to explain this for you.

[@alantew4355]

@@求主指引 I know Mandarin and a bit of Hokkien and Cantonese.

[@Laggie74]

Cantonese does have changing tones, just not as many. For example, 黃先生, 黃 would be the 4th tone. However, 老黃，would be in the 2nd tone. If you don't switch tones, a Cantonese speaker would know you are not a native speaker.

[@juveniledavidi1183]

that Left-Prominent Sandhi Tone Values even freak me out ! coming from a Native Chinese speaker

[@deanhaword2294]

侯哥，帅帅帅！

[@Someone-ym1ny]

Just wondering but is the grammar of these languages basically the same across the board?

[@phoenixhou4486]

There are some differences here and there but not as drastic as those among romance langiagesu

[@Deibi078]

which chinese variat influenced japanese exactly? I am curious, Im sure it was not mandarin lol

[@winstonedwards2014]

There were two waves of influence. The first was influenced by Wu Chinese, with a very notable example being the word for grapes in Shanghainese and Japanese. The second, IIRC, was influenced by Middle Chinese.

[@yggdrasill7203]

are you sakai jin

[@mrgenetics4063]

Where do you find the resources to learn Hakka and Shanghainese? It’s virtually impossible to find anything

[@Taifune81]

Yes, I have been struggling

[@comradeofthebalance3147]

@@Taifune81Have you checked Chinese websites? They are more there.

[@nikserof2183]

The words dialect and language are not synonyms.

[@phoenixhou4486]

the two terms are occasionally ambiguous. A language is a dialect with an army or navy

[@alexanderkofoed9786]

In the case of differences between Chinese languages and dialects, the lines are blurred for various reasons, be they political or otherwise

[@isabellajia4756]

这个视频提醒了我不要浪费了住弄堂里不隔音的上海话环境🥲 外来词汇和方言的链接的那个部分好有意思！

[@phoenixhou4486]

哈哈哈拉著弄堂裡阿姨嘮嘮啊 下次見面考考妳

[@eb.3764]

you should check Taiwanese Hokkien since it is more standardized than the Hokkien varieties in Mainland China.

[@phoenixhou4486]

Yeah whatever

[@DanteVale-b6g]

What about Wenzhou dialect?

[@samaval9920]

Better to promote bi ir multi duakect ism!! Speak as many as s useful!!

[@Mo96afaZ]

Was it easy to find resources to study the dialects? Years back I had to give up studying Sichuanese because I couldn't find any resources to study from.

[@phoenixhou4486]

Finding a grammar book would be quite hard but the internet is flooded with sichuanese comic videos tho

[@phansiuling5087]

Korean language yo de she hou ne , ye jha pu to like as hokiien , cantosese .

[@vincentxiao1836]

Little note I would add is that it pains me that Shanghainese is the main dialect of Wu that people think of, even thouugh its the most mandarinised. To really feel the uniqeness of the Wu language, I generally encourage people to check out Suzhounese

[@phoenixhou4486]

True, I think the prevalence of Shanghainese formed during the 1920s and 1930s to the extend it became the Lingua Franca in the Wu-speaking region. 金庸先生說去台灣見蔣經國也是講上海話，兩人中一個人是寧波人一個人是海寧人。

[@patrickochinski6754]

Hakka ❤❤❤

[@jonahjiang]

Shanghainese as a dialect is actually a pidgin.

[@UKWildBird]

Wtf, Cantonese have a lot of Changing tones… where u learn it from, I am from Hong Kong

[@phoenixhou4486]

for example?

[@beachedtim3691]

I am wondering where you live actually and how is your daily surrondings

[@phoenixhou4486]

I live in Shanghai but I travel quite a bit haha

[@zacharyyan4898]

Probably Wenzhounese or Fuzhounese

[@clement2780]

wenzhou, teochiu

[@xyes]

Cantonese has no tone-switch? Because it changes the pronunciation entirely when pair with different word as phrase, e.g. uncle's wife... 🤭

[@Rolando_Cueva]

Putonghua/Guoyu is the easiest. More resources, movies, books, and the writing and speech don't differ as significantly.

[@dust-000lrp4uf1ze]

❤

[@ansonuuu]

I learnt hokkien, hakka, teochew by myself as one of my interests during my free time and now I can master them well. But I think English is the most difficult language. I have learnt it for more than 15 years, but I can only get 6 in IETLS. After coming to UK to study for a master degree, I find it is very difficult to pass the courses.

[@thelias91]

How do you find ressources to learn all these languages ?

[@natn41r]

In Singapore, the Chinese here are from several dialect groups, mainly Southern China, such as Hokkien, Cantonese, Teochew, Hakka, etc. It is my impression that Hokkien is the most widely spoken and understood, even by the other dialect groups or other ethnic groups (many of whom can't speak their own dialects, esp. Hakka.) I've always wondered if this is because Hokkien is much easier than the others. Our spoken Hokkien here is not "pure", it has absorbed many words from Malay and others, and may not be fully understood by Hokkien-speakers from Taiwan or China.

[@mirae9163]

They're languages, not dialects.

[@l3af3v3r]

Hokkien is easier if your base is Teochew. Cantonese and Hakka learn each other languages relative fast and easy and by extension, communication level Mandarin too if it weren't already force fed on all of us. Others like Hokciu is much much more difficult and Hokkien I pin as middle difficulty, not too hard even easy to learn to communicate in but requires effort and diligence to master.

[@kktz4626]

my wife and I speak Mandarin, Shanghainese, and Cantonese. It's sad to imagine my son, growing up in the US, won't be able to speak any of the dialects.

[@njasu]

This is lowkey me. My parents had moved to the US and had me and my siblings there, while my father's sister had stayed in HK/Macau and their kids speak fluent Cantonese and English. As little kids, we spoke Cantonese, but when English was introduced, it just stuck with us. From my perspective, as I can't speak for my other siblings, I definitely feel disappointed in myself that I can hardly speak Cantonese, let alone read it. My parents said we didn't want to learn the language but that was when we were little, though I feel like they should've pushed us and taught it anyway. We weren't taught how to write so we can't read or write in Cantonese, and my dad is the only one who can read it while my mom can't. My mom said she learned Cantonese by watching dramas/shows in Cantonese. I've always wondered how it'd be to grow up in HK/Macau; would I have spoke fluent Cantonese? I don't feel confident trying to speak my native tongue because my mom makes fun of me for my pronunciation. I think my parents have just given up on trying to teach us Cantonese because I've started to realize that they rarely speak to us in Cantonese anymore. I mean it makes sense, speaking Cantonese to your kids and they reply in English? And I also feel like I would have preferred learning English, because although the grammar is hard to master, the basics are enough for people to understand; even with broken English, others would likely understand what point you're trying to get across. But that might be more of a biased take because I know more English.

[@artugert]

Why do you keep using the word dialect to refer to languages? But then you also use it to refer to actual dialects, which is confusing.

[@phoenixhou4486]

You will understand someday hopefully

[@artugert]

@@phoenixhou4486 I already understand. It's that you are using the term incorrectly. Those are languages, not dialects.

[@p5ylance]

The languages of China as a whole are unified through writing system. The languages are dialects because we know/accept its all Chinese, just not a dialect we may audibly understand.

[@artugert]

@@p5ylance That is a myth. Most Chinese languages are not written down very little, or not at all. What usually happens when a Chinese language is “written down” is that it is simply translated into Mandarin, or historically into Literary Chinese. It is translated into another language that must be learned to be understood. If it is written in the vernacular, in the way people actually speak, it isn’t mutually intelligible.

[@litog888]

@@p5ylance I used to think that way too but not anymore. Mandarin may have a 1-1 correspondence with the written script but not hokkien. With the latter it Is assigned.

[@michaelchr4239]

太好的影片

[@phoenixhou4486]

謝謝！

[@mr.ketchup6925]

Omg first

[@samleung595]

I am a language idiot. You explained the dialects very well.

[@davidnord2858]

you are very cute

[@phoenixhou4486]

Haha thank you

[@flyingzone356]

I don't know how many times one needs to repeat this - these are not Chinese dialects. Dialects, in linguistics, are mutually-intelligible variations of a standard language. But Mandarin, Canontese, Shanghainese, Hokkien etc. are not mutually-intelligible. These are Sinitic languages, all belonging to the Sino-Tibetan language family. In fact, even some so-called Mandarin dialects (e.g. Sichuanese Mandarin and Lower Yangtze Mandarin) are either mutually-unintelligible or only partially intelligible, so they are borderline Sinitic languages/Mandarin dialects. So please STOP perpetuating this amateurish claim that all these Sinitic languages are Chinese dialects. The more you repeat this mistake, the more you mislead others, and the more you lose your credibility.

[@phoenixhou4486]

Yes maybe repeat a few more times 💪🏼

[@mirae9163]

Well said! 👏

[@bryank164]

Nong hao. A la sangheining 🎉

[@phoenixhou4486]

😂😂😂

[@bryank164]

Just kidding. I am Korean :) and I speak 4 languages (Korean, Japanese, Mandarin and English). All of your clips are just so much inspiring. Thanks for the videos!

[@Deibi078]

wu chinese

[@joen.8668]

Sichuan accent is the worst.

[@aapiElder]

who gives shit! Languages are for communicaiton. A particular language is difficult due to lack of purpose for you.

[@Marisa_zulk]

Good tiding to you, God has sent messenger. All good deeds will be rewarded with ethernal goodness, believe in one God, and know that there will be day of resssurectoion.

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