Is cantonese hard and is it similar to mandarin?

Question

Is cantonese hard and is it similar to mandarin?

Answer 1

Cantonese uses many similar words as Mandarin, but they are pronounced differently. Cantonese also has many words that Mandarin does not in reference to verbs and even pronouns. Cantonese can be difficult for non natives to learn....

Answer 2

cantonese is hard because there is no alphabet to it, so basically im saying u have to know the word theres barely ne way of knowing how to pronounce it jsut by looking at it. mandarin uses the sane chracters its jsut that u pronounce is diffrently wit pin yin

Answer 3

Canto and Manda are about as different as English and German. They can not communicate.

Manda is the official language of China (although only 60% speak it). Canto is the most spoken Chinese language OUTSIDE of China (UK, USA, OZ etc.).

In terms of learning the spoken language difficulty is very similar. Both have very simple language structure and grammar. Verbs and words never change.

If you plan to learn the written language then Mandarin may be easier since the written Chinese is closer to Mandarin then to Cantonese.

Whatever you learn first, it will help to learn the other one faster.

Answer 4

Yes, it is hard if you are not familiar with Asian languages.

It is similar to new Chinese is many respects.

Answer 5

They are the same in vocabulary and written form but totally different in pronunciation.  

Answer 6

Putonghua (Mandarin) is 4 tones, whilest Guangdonghua (Cantonese) is 9 tones.  The laguages are really simplistic in nature, it's just those tones that are brutal.  For example, one word can have multiple meanings just based on the tone you pronounce it as.

Answer 7

Just like Mandarin, Cantonese is a tonal language, which for most westerners, a pretty difficult task to learn. Cantonese and Mandarin is akin to English with German.

Cantonese is a widely spoken Chinese language. It is the local language in current use within the province of Guangdong, China, official language in the Special Administrative Region of Hong Kong, as well as in the Special Administrative Region of Macau, and used in many overseas Chinese communities in South-East Asia and elsewhere, with Kuala Lumpur and Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) being two places where Cantonese is the dominant language in a Chinese community that is in turn huge and influential. Cantonese is also the dominant language in many Chinatowns all over the world, including Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, London, Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, Vancouver, Toronto, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore.

Speakers of all Chinese varieties do, in general, use the same characters in reading and writing. Written language is more formal and closer to standard Mandarin, even when used by Cantonese speakers. Oral Cantonese contains many words for which there has traditionally not existed a written form. In recent decades, however, characters for many of these words have been created, chiefly by the Hong Kong popular printed media such as newspapers and magazines. It should be noted that the different Cantonese-speaking communities use one of two different forms of writing: in Hong Kong, Macau, Malaysia and many overseas Chinese communities, traditional Chinese characters are in use, whereas the Cantonese-speaking communities in mainland China's Guangdong province as well as Singapore simplified Chinese characters.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantonese_(...

http://wikitravel.org/en/Cantonese_phras...

http://www.cantonese.ca/

Answer 8

I am sorry that Mike S, the first answerer, found it necessary to insult you.

Cantonese is similar to Mandarin, in the it uses the same written form.  It is different in idioms and tones and vocabulary.