Mandarin & Cantonese – The difference

Mandarin and Cantonese are not the only two spoken dialects of Chinese that exist, but they are certainly the most common. Mandarin is the more widely used dialect and covers most people in mainland China, Singapore, and Taiwan. Cantonese is limited to several cities in the Guangdong province and the special administrative regions Macau and Hong Kong.

Many native speakers have found that it is easy to pick up Mandarin after knowing Cantonese and much harder the other way around. This may suggest that Cantonese overall is a harder language to learn. Fortunately, people who speak only either language can still communicate because the written language is the same.

Mandarin is a more standard and structured language, whereas standard Cantonese contains a lot of different colloquial expressions (with their written counterparts) that have become indistinguishable from the mainstream language. The pronunciation of the two are very different since Mandarin is limited to only four tones and Cantonese has many more, another reason many claim Cantonese is harder.

Because Mandarin is more widely spoken than Cantonese, attempting to learn Cantonese can also be more difficult because there are simply less training materials available. More learning materials such as podcasts, books, and classes are available in Mandarin. It is also safer to learn Mandarin rather than Cantonese because many Cantonese speakers will also know Mandarin, while the converse will not be true.

Chinese in general is a tonal language, which means that in order to convey the correct meaning, the words must be spoken at the right pitch with the accent and emphasis placed on the correct part of the word. Both Mandarin and Cantonese have a Romanization system to help English speakers understand and pronounce the sounds of Chinese characters. However, the two systems are different and practically unrelated.

While the Mandarin system, called Pinyin, is accepted internationally as the standard, Cantonese still has a variety of systems that are being developed. The most prevalent is the Yale Cantonese Romanization, but this system does not yet have recognition as the official standard.

Why even learn Cantonese at all then if Mandarin is more common and more resources and support are available for it? There are many reasons. Cantonese is still more preferred in places such as Guangzhou, Hong Kong, and Macau. These are more westernized places in China that are popular for sight-seeing, jobs, or even potential relocation. Cantonese also tends to be the preferred language for business in southeastern China.

In addition, Cantonese is very commonly spoken in many Chinese communities outside of China. Namely, large Cantonese communities have formed in New York City, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and other cities in the United States, as well as in Toronto and Vancouver in Canada. Cantonese communities also number various places in Australia and the United Kingdom. And most any other Asian country such as Malaysia or Singapore will have many Cantonese speakers.

The advantages of learning either Mandarin or Cantonese or both are numerous. Deciding which one to learn will depend on what you are hoping to do with the language and where you are going. Mandarin will probably be the safer and easier bet, since to this day there has not been any Rosetta Stone software for Cantonese.