Friday, March 1, 2013
Topic #4: Which Language?
If you could be instantly fluent in another language , I would like to choose Cantonese, for 3 reasons. First, Mandarin and Cantonese are both belonging to Chinese; however, I can only speak and understand Mandarin not both as a Chinese. It is so uncomfortable for me to guess Cantonese dialogs. That language sounds like another foreign language for me that I totally cannot understand. For example, "hello" in Mandarin sounds like " nee how", but in Cantonese sounds like "lai(d) hole". Those are totally different right? Second, I like Hong Kong movies which are usually shown with Cantonese. If I cannot understand it by listening, it is too busy for me to staring are the subtitles. What is more, a lot of Chinese-American or American-Chinese speak Cantonese. They only know a little bit of Mandarin, so it is too weird for me to speak with a Asian look people in English. All in all, I prefer Cantonese better than any other languages.
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I had a feeling like you when I had been to Hong Kong four years ago, that cannot understand people's communication in China is unbelievable for foreign people. However, it was happen in Guangdong area, I wanna learn Cantonese too.
ReplyDeleteIt is so interesting reading this from a Chinese speaker! I knew that they were totally different, but I did not fully know how different they were. Thanks for sharing!
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