Learning Basic Cantonese from Mandarin

[tlevine]

My mom's from Shanghai, but grew up in Hong Kong, so she can speak Shanghainese, Cantonese, Mandarin and English.

I live in the US, so I speak English, and I've been studying Mandarin for about two years. When I began studying Mandarin, she started talking to me in Mandarin, and I realized then that her accent was weird. After studying in Beijing for a month, I absolutely hate her accent.

So, I want her to speak to me in Cantonese so I can learn Cantonese. I think something like a Cantonese-Mandarin vocabulary list about 500 words long (preferably in an audio recording rather than a book) and some information about the differences in grammar would be enough that I could sort of understand her. Does anyone know of anything like this?

[wai ming]

I really recommend this site: http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk

[Pravit]

Agree that the southern accent is really annoying, especially when they inform you that you are pronouncing words wrong and that the "sh" sound does not exist. Some of my relatives' southern accents are so extreme that they pronounce all z's as j's("jaijian!"). I'm pretty Beijingofascist when it comes to Chinese.

[Quest]

especially when they inform you that you are pronouncing words wrong and that the "sh" sound does not exist.

Maybe you really are. I wouldn't see them telling a CCTV host "sh" doesn't exist.

[wushijiao]

Some of my relatives' southern accents are so extreme that they pronounce all z's as j's("jaijian!"). I'm pretty Beijingofascist when it comes to Chinese.

I am also somewhat Beijing-centric when it comes to pronunciation.

However, I long ago developed a theory that we laowai’s are much more sensitive to changes in pinyin when a person is pronouncing a word. So, when a person says sisisi 四十四, or haotse 好吃, or zitsi 支持…etc, it causes us to get confused. And, likewise, when speaking to a southerner who doesn’t understand us (even though pinyin-wise we might be pronouncing words 100% correctly), the southerner may still not understand. The problem comes down to tones. I realized a few years back that two Mandarin speakers can understand each other, even when it sounds like they are speaking a seemingly incomprehensible mishmash of ts’s, s’s, and short vowels, because native speakers are much more sensitive to tones than they are to the correct pinyinized pronunciation.

I thought I was fairly original for developing this theory. However, this theory about the importance of tones (compared to correct pronunciation) was developed way before my time in 1847. Gato provided a link to an interesting book here:

http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/12-horse-horse-tiger-tiger-slang-and-idioms883&highlight=Thomas+Taylor+Meadows

The author, Thomas Taylor Meadows, says the same thing:

http://books.google.com/books?vid=OCLC02099210&id=WiZFUA4UqbMC&pg=PA66&dq=chinese+language&as_brr=1

So my point is that southern accents really aren't all that bad. It probably doesn't sound as "wrong" to a native speaker as it does to learners of Chinese.

[Mugi]

wushijiao, I think you've hit the nail square on the head. I had also come to the same conclusion when living in China years ago.

[Pravit]

I don't have any more problems understanding the Southern accent than the Northern one, but I dislike the way it sounds. Agree that tones are very important.

Maybe you really are. I wouldn't see them telling a CCTV host "sh" doesn't exist.

Maybe. I've noticed many foreign learners taking Pinyin too literally, e.g. pronouncing "z" as an English "z" or "zh" as the "j" in "bonjour." I recorded a sound file with me speaking some phrases with this "sh" noise. What do you think?

sh-sound.mp3

[tlevine]

Well this is getting off the original topic...anyway, my mom does a lot of the stuff that's already been mentioned, but I don't think this stuff has:

Pronouncing "c" as "ch"

Pronouncing "r" as "l"

I can certainly understand her and practice Mandarin with her, but I'd rather practice Cantonese as I would learn a lot more (at least at first) and would not pick up her non-standard Mandarin accent.

[Quest]

I recorded a sound file with me speaking some phrases with this "sh" noise. What do you think?

I have difficulties understanding the first and the last sentences. I understand why your relatives were correcting your pronunciation though.

[flameproof]

Just wondering, does Cantonese has "Sh" sounds, as in "shine"? I think they have only sharp S sounds. As example water is pronounced "Sui".

I would not give too much imporatance on your own accent. After all 500 mio Chinese speak bad Mandarin. Give more or less depending on how one is defining "bad".

However as a learner I would also prefer a BJ, or at least a BeiFang speaker.

For Cantonese I suggest to start with the Pimsleur Canto Course. Can be found in the WWW. It's 100% audio. It's not very deep, only maybe 300 or so words. However, it helps to catch the sound of the language in the beginning.

PS: I wonder how you can learn Cantonese from Mandarin?

[atitarev]

Pimsleur, IMHO, is a big waste of money - too expensive, many hours of listening for a small result. You can buy a book - 1) Colloquial Cantonese or 2) Teach Yourself Cantonese with CD's. It would take a bit more thinking and analysing but it is much cheaper and better value. All texts have romanisation and the second one also has Chinese characters. How many hours of a private tutor can you get for the price of Pimsleur?

[flameproof]

Pimsleur, IMHO, is a big waste of money - too expensive,

Who said "buying"?

[atitarev]

I know what you mean, flameproof

Still, you have to invest a lot of time. I was lucky to get a ... copy of Pimsleur Mandarin at about beginning stages. I got bored pretty early and switched to other resources I had. I just don't approve their methods - listening for hours and hours just to learn a few words? Why not spend this time listening over and over to a more meaningful and vocabulary richer text (going through the understanding of it first). If we talk about Mandarin, (New) Practical Chinese Reader, Integrated Chinese, other textbooks with audio are by far better investment, not just money-wise but time-wise as well.

Please don't think I am challenging you with my answer, just expressing my opinion about methods. I don't like, in general audios with lots of bilingual speech but that's me. Pimsleur has just too much of English in it.

--

On the topic Cantonese through Mandarin - it is just because of diglossia - you don't have to learn one if you want to learn the other but in Cantonese speaking areas Mandarin is the official WRITTEN language, i. e. they speak Cantonese but write in Mandarin and you get a mismatch between words/characters used, their numbers, even word order and number of words. Just my observation, native speakers will describe this better, of course.

[flameproof]

I am not saying Pimsleur is excellent. But cantonese is a language you really have to listen to. I would say it's impossible to learn from a book.

It's not that Pimsleur is perfect, but there is not to much other material out there which is usefull.

Now, I told the ChinesePod people to start a site for Cantonese. I hope they will look into it one day. They do excellent stuff for Mandarin.

I don't like, in general audios with lots of bilingual speech but that's me. Pimsleur has just too much of English in it.

well, it's hard to start with 100% outlandish. Again, I find the ChinesePod method good. In the early stages they have lots of English, but in the intermediate and upper levels very little, up to no English.

I hope they branch out to other languages!

[atitarev]

Pimsleur or ChinesePod is really good if you spend a lot of time commuting by car and have no time to sit down and read together with the audio.

[tlevine]

I already have Pimsleur Cantonese, and it seemed pretty boring. It seems that there isn't the type of thing that I want though, so I guess I'll just use that.