Are there similarities between Cantonese and Mandarin?

The Main Similarity Between Cantonese And Mandarin: The Writing System. So, though Cantonese and Mandarin are different when spoken, they share the same base writing system: Chinese characters. This means that a Mandarin speaker and a Cantonese speaker won’t understand much (if any) of what the other person is saying.

How is Cantonese different from English?

Cantonese is a tonal language. This means it uses rising and falling tones to express word meaning. English is different in that changes in intonation‏‎ produce changes in emotion or to show question/statement. You will need to use diagrams to explain how intonation in English works and then, of course, practice.

What are the main differences between Chinese written language and English?

The most obvious difference is the written language. Chinese is a language made up of characters or symbols. Each character or word has an individual meaning. English, on the other hand, is made up of 26 alphabet letters.

Are Mandarin and Cantonese different languages?

Yes – they are as different as English and German (EAG). Just as EAG have different sounds (for example the umlaut), Mandarin and Cantonese have different tones (mandarin has just four while Cantonese has 8, hence it often sounds like a person is wailing while actually he /she is not at all unhappy!)

What is the difference between Shanghainese and Mandarin?

1 Mandarin has 4 tones (plus a neutral 5th), Cantonese has 6 tones (or indeed 9 tones if you include the checked tones) 2 Mandarin has over 1.2 billion speakers worldwide 3 Cantonese has over 60 million speakers worldwide 4 Shanghainese has over 10 million speakers worldwide 5 The Chinese language has over 50,000 characters.

Should I learn Mandarin or Cantonese in Macau?

The advice above is largely true in Macau as well, although locals there are a little less sensitive to speaking Mandarin. Both the Mandarin and Cantonese dialects are tonal languages where one word has many meanings depending on the pronunciation and intonation. Cantonese has six tones, whereas Mandarin has just four.

What is the difference between traditional Chinese and simplified Chinese?

Mainland China uses Simplified Chinese, as does Singapore, where Mandarin is one of four official languages spoken. See below the main difference between the two is the number of strokes. Simplified, funnily enough, appears much more simple to read and write, whereas Traditional comes across much more complex at first glance.