Cantonese in LA

[gato]

Good article. Some excerpts:

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-cantonese3jan03,0,7885274,full.story?coll=la-home-headlines

January 3, 2006

Cantonese Is Losing Its Voice

# Speakers of the spicy tongue that can make words of love sound like a fight are having to learn its linguistic kin, the mellower Mandarin.

By David Pierson, Times Staff Writer

With the changes, some are lamenting — in ways they can do only in Cantonese — the end of an era. Mandarin is now the vernacular of choice, and they say it doesn't come close to the colorful and brash banter of Cantonese.

"You might be saying, 'I love you' to your girlfriend in Cantonese, but it will still sound like you're fighting," said Howard Lee, a talk show host on Cantonese language KMRB-AM (1430). "It's just our tone. We always sound like we're in a shouting match. Mandarin is so mellow. Cantonese is strong and edgy."

Cantonese is said to be closer than Mandarin to ancient Chinese.

Popular phrases include the slang for getting a parking ticket, which in Cantonese is "I ate beef jerky," probably because Chinese beef jerky is thin and rectangular, like a parking ticket. And teo bao (literally "too full") describes someone who is uber-trendy, so hip he or she is going to explode.

Many sayings are coined by movie stars on screen. Telling someone to chill out, comedian Stephen Chow says: "Drink a cup of tea and eat a bun."

Then there are the curse words, and what an abundance there is.

A four-syllable obscenity well known in the Cantonese community punctuates the end of many a sentence.

"I think we all agree that curse words in Cantonese just sound better," said Lee, the radio host. "It's so much more of a direct hit on the nail. In Mandarin, they sound so polite."

To stress a point or to twist a sentence into a question, Cantonese speakers need only add a dramatic ahhhhhhh or laaaaaaa at the end.

Something simple like, "Let's go" becomes "C'mon, lets get a move on!" when it's capped with laaaaa.

By comparison, with Mandarin from China, what you see is what you get. The written form has been simplified by the Chinese government so that characters require fewer strokes. It is considered calmer and more melodic. [Not really, if you listen to some people talk in the north.]

[Quest]

"You might be saying, 'I love you' to your girlfriend in Cantonese, but it will still sound like you're fighting," said Howard Lee, a talk show host on Cantonese language KMRB-AM (1430). "It's just our tone. We always sound like we're in a shouting match. Mandarin is so mellow. Cantonese is strong and edgy."

I dont' agree with this, it depends on the speaker and the way he/she says it. Listen to some lovely Cantonese girls talk.

"I think we all agree that curse words in Cantonese just sound better," said Lee, the radio host. "It's so much more of a direct hit on the nail. In Mandarin, they sound so polite."

They don't teach obscenity in Mandarin classes, that's why.

And teo bao (literally "too full") describes someone who is uber-trendy, so hip he or she is going to explode.

What's that?

To stress a point or to twist a sentence into a question, Cantonese speakers need only add a dramatic ahhhhhhh or laaaaaaa at the end.

There are more endings than 啊 and 啦.

Something simple like, "Let's go" becomes "C'mon, lets get a move on!" when it's capped with laaaaa.

How? 嚟啦，行啦?(Lai La, Haang La?)

By comparison, with Mandarin from China, what you see is what you get. The written form has been simplified by the Chinese government so that characters require fewer strokes. It is considered calmer and more melodic.

Does the author know what he's talking about?

[Ncao]

I agree with Quest, it depends on the person's voice. But one thing that's true about Cantonese it's that it's very good for creating curse words.

[bhchao]

You beat me to it gato I was about to post this article this morning, but had to leave for work.

It's a very entertaining article. Personally I prefer the smoothness and elegance of Mandarin, but Cantonese is more fun to learn and speak than Mandarin even though the former sounds rough.

If you really want to piss someone off, Cantonese is the dialect to use.

I wish I would have picked up some Cantonese from my father, but we all used Mandarin in the family. (kind of embarrassed not knowing how to speak Cantonese)

In college I had a Cantonese girlfriend who preferred Mandarin over her first language. She said that two people speaking Cantonese to each other sounds like they're fighting. But she was a soft spoken girl, and the way she spoke Cantonese didn't sound rough at all. The language itself may sound blunt, however I agree it sort of depends on the person's style of delivery.

Anyways I never heard a dialect with so many waaaaaahhhh's and moooooooo's.

[Quest]

Anyways I never heard a dialect with so many waaaaaahhhh's and moooooooo's.

That's Taishanese not Cantonese... Americans think Taishanese = Chinese, American Chinese think Taishanese = Cantonese. I think they are as different sounding as Spanish and French.

I would like to hear sample sound files of "waaaaaaaaahh and mooooooo", since I don't think those sounds exist in Cantonese.

[geraldc]

We use "waaaaaah" a lot, e.g. before 有冇搞錯

For "mo" do they mean 冇? (as opposed to a cow's "moo")

[Quest]

We use "waaaaaah" a lot, e.g. before 有冇搞錯

That's expressing surprise 哇！It's only used as often as it's used in Mandarin. I really meant waaaaaaaaah and moooooooooo as ending particles. As these two endings are typical Taishanese old lady yelling in the street kind of accents.

[wai ming]

Quest,

And teo bao (literally "too full") describes someone who is uber-trendy, so hip he or she is going to explode.

I guess the author meant 潮爆, like the name of that song by PingPung... strange choice of romanization though.

[Quest]

In college I had a Cantonese girlfriend who preferred Mandarin over her first language. She said that two people speaking Cantonese to each other sounds like they're fighting.

Where is she from? I don't think a girl from Hong Kong or Guangzhou would say that or would prefer Mandarin over Cantonese.

[WilsonFong]

Let's get to the real question, how are we gonna save cantonese in north america?

Quest, I don't think cantonese and taishanese sound as different as spanish and french. my grandparents speak taishanese and i understand them almost perfectly, and i speak and understand cantonese like a 6 year old. taishanese is just cantonese in a non-standard accent.

[mr. fanglang]

all dialects are certainly worth preserving but those who insist on learning any local dialect at the expense of mandarin are missing the bigger picture, in my humble opinion. even people in HK are realizing that.

[Quest]

I don't think Cantonese needs to be saved in North America, there's more danger in China. I can't understand Taishanese, though I recognize there's a few accents, some are more understandable for a Cantonese speaker than others. The two dialects have very different pronunciations, tones and stresses.

[Ncao]

I find it kind of odd how a Taishanese can easily understand Cantonese, and a Cantonese has problems understanding a Taishanese.

[Ferno]

I thought I was the only one that thought Cantonese sounded so aggressive!

In fact, I think that Cantonese (because of Cantonese speakers traditionally having the most influence in North America, etc..) is where people got the idea to sterotype/mock Chinese - ie, making the squaking noises

it personally reminds me of the battle-cries of the VC or NVA in all those Vietnam war movies.

pop culture is important - hong kong's pop culture influence has always been huge despite them having less than 7 million people, and it's been instrumental in preserving canto imo. In fact, Mandarin's spread can be largely attributed to the pop culture influence of Taiwan.

[Ian_Lee]

Is that the case in L.A.? But my experience over here is that many more people have picked up Cantonese -- be they from Mainland or Taiwan, or even Vietnamese and Filipinos who do business in Chinatown -- have all learnt some Cantonese.

The behavior of Cantonese in Chinatown resembles the behavior of many Japanese tourists in foreign countries.

Many Japanese tourists keep speaking Japanese to foreigners on foreign soil -- they must have assumed that the whole world should know Japanese.

Many Cantonese shoppers keep speaking Cantonese in Chinatown -- they must have assumed that everybody in Chinatown should know Cantonese.

[Ian_Lee]

Actually the earlier immigrants in North America, Taishanese, Zhongshanese,...etc have an "inferiority complex" when they cannot convey their ideas to other immigrants whom speak more orthodox Cantonese.

If you speak Cantonese to some folks in Chinatown whom speak Taishanese which is barely comprehensible to you, usually the responsiblity falls on him to clarify his idea again.

But if you speak Mandarin to him, he will probably disregard you because he cannot understand you at all!

[Ian_Lee]

I agree with Quest that the danger of Cantonese lies in Mainland, not in overseas.

And realistically in a few decades I guess maybe Guangzhou will fall into a Mandarin city, and the last bastions may be Hong Kong and Macau.

Or maybe Kuala Lumpur if Hong Kong cannot hold.

[bhchao]

Where is she from? I don't think a girl from Hong Kong or Guangzhou would say that or would prefer Mandarin over Cantonese.

She was quite secretive about where she was born or originated. When I asked her about it, she dodged the question. In fact she was a fairly private person who was not as open compared to the girls I dated in my post-college years. She was definitely not from Hong Kong.

Listen to some lovely Cantonese girls talk.

Given my own "pleasant" experience, I should start listening to Teresa Teng's Cantonese songs to hear how Cantonese sounds in her own voice.

[geraldc]

Cantonese is too much a part of Hong Kong's identity for it to ever become a solely mandarin speaking city. They still have a long way to become bilingual in Cantonese and Mandarin.

I saw an article on the news where they interviewed school children in Hong Kong using mandarin. Their mandarin was so bad it was quite charming.

In London's chinatown, it's still a Cantonese speaking area, customers may ask a question in mandarin, but the responses are generally in Cantonese. You do hear a variety of dialects on the street though.

The Mandarin speakers in the UK are only in the UK for a short while, mainland students over to study etc, most of the settled Chinese speak Cantonese.

I was amazed that LA has it's own Cantonese radio station, in London, there's just 1 hr of Cantonese radio a day, and we have a couple of satellite channels, which broadcast in both Mandarin and Cantonese.

[Quest]

I find it kind of odd how a Taishanese can easily understand Cantonese, and a Cantonese has problems understanding a Taishanese.

A Taishanese is likely to have more exposure to Cantonese than vise versa.

She was quite secretive about where she was born or originated. When I asked her about it, she dodged the question. In fact she was a fairly private person who was not as open compared to the girls I dated in my post-college years. She was definitely not from Hong Kong.

If she's not from one of these places, how can she be a native speaker of Cantonese?

Given my own "pleasant" experience, I should start listening to Teresa Teng's Cantonese songs to hear how Cantonese sounds in her own voice.

Maybe I sounded a little over reacting (and I know it's not the first time as we had similar topics in the past), but have you ever spoken Mandarin in front of your American friends, and they would ask "what language were you speaking?" and you said "Chinese", and they replied "no that didn't sound Chinese." and you have to explain to them how China has so many dialects.. I feel the same when people mix up Taishanese with Cantonese.

I live in Boston, I would say 80+% of the people here who claim to be speaking Cantonese are actually speaking Taishanese, or Cantonese with heavy Taishanese accent. The way they sound in Cantonese is exactly the way they would sound in Taishanese, preserving all the characteristics and ending particles of Taishanese. In fact, if you ask them to speak Mandarin, they would still sound like they are speaking Taishanese. If you see what I mean.