A Question about the languages

[Randy W]

Jiaying says she speaks Yulin-hua as a separate dialect from Cantonese (she also speaks Mandarin).

 

For a dictionary, check out Pleco-dist for the PDA. It includes the Oxford and several other dictionary options, including a character dictionary which shows the Mandarin, Cantonese, and Japanese pronunciations and meaning of each character. And excellent character recognition for anyone who can do the stroke ordering.

 

Cantonese has high, low, mid, mid-to-low falling, high-to-mid falling, various rising tones - about 7 to 16 in all.

[Dennis143]

For those who haven't visited this site:

 

http://www.wku.edu/~yuanh/AudioChinese/greeting.html

 

Chinese audio

[RLS]

Pushbrk (Mike) is right. My SO is from Guangxi Province. I'm thinking that she might speak "Pinghua" as Tonado suggests. I should really know this, but, I asked several times and couldn't get a straight answer. I do know that it is Cantonese related. I've tried vocalizing some Cantonese words to her and she says the equivalent to "huh?" LOL. If anyone can hammer the language, I can. But, I keep trying which makes her laugh a lot.

Edited May 17, 2006 by RLS (see edit history)

[Randy W]

You know you're close when they can correct the pronunciation for you.

 

unfortunately, when I try the corrected pronunciation, they usually have no clue what I'm saying.

[Jeikun]

i'd be willing to bet (and probably lose)

that like english to spanish there are alot of similarities

both latin root, mandarin to cantonese you'd think would be close...

 

the more i think about it, im probably way off since chinese is so backwards to my simple minded way of thinking.

 

if you go to Jamaica they still speak english....

but you cant understand 1 word because its broken english.

 

IRIE MAN

NICE ME NICE

215055[/snapback]

Actually, it's more like Spanish compared to French, I'd think. English is too dissimilar from the Romance languages, as it's root is German - not Latin. But then again, Korean and Japanese share the same Ural-Altaic roots, and yet with the exception of certain borrowed Chinese words sound completely different even though they share the same syntax and grammar patterns.

[ameriken]

Pinyin, Mandarin, Shanghai-hua, Cantonese, its all Greek to me

[ameriken]

But seriously, I think if one wants to learn the language and they learn Mandarin, most people in most places will understand. In most of the cities, while they may have their own dialect, I believe they are all taught proper putong hau, and are able to speak their own dialect, as well as proper mandarin.

[izus]

as french speakers can understand alot of spanish and portuguese.

Portuguese can understand italian, spanish french and real latin.

Spanish can understand alot of portuguese and italian and even some french...

English has bits and pieces of all 3 of those languages.

 

after practicing mandarin

spanish is cake...

 

languages are awesome