Chinese Pinyin - Learning Basic Cantonese from Mandarin -

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Learning Basic Cantonese from Mandarin
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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?



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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 -



Quote:

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 -



Quote:

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. /showth...Taylor+Meadows

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

http://books.google.com/books?vid=OC...guage&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.



Quote:

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?










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 -



Quote:

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?












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