I want to speak Chinese. Any suggestions?

[Hecubus2000]

I want to learn the chinese laguage, but i've heard that the chinese have different dialects. What would be the most practical to learn. Any suggestions would be helpful thanks.

 

[Hecubus2000]

bump

 

[AmazonRasta]

All I know is "Pokeye!" and I don't even know how to spell or pronounce that properly .

 

[Anghang]

it would probably depend on where you are the what dialect the majority speaks...in my experience it's mostly been cantonese, mandarin and taiwanese...

 

[yasha]

Join the US Airforce and make flights off the coast of China

 

[ManSnake]

Learn mandarin, it is the official dialect of China, almost anyone should understand the dialect, cantonese, taiwanese, etc. are all regional dialects, so not too many people know them.

 

[Hecubus2000]

Thanks ManSnake

 

[lyric]

You should definitely learn mandarin. It's the easiest dialect out of all the other many dialects. I'm taking a course in mandarin right now at my high school. I'm already Chinese, but I speak Cantonese at home, so I thought it would be better to take the #1 most spoken language in the world. (English is actually not the most spoken language)

 

[Adul]

Rossete stone

Check out this program. They have an online demo.

 

[d0ofy]

Try Fukienese. It's really popular stuff. You'll be hip with all the Chinese around.

 

[StormRider]

Get a Chinese girlfriend -- then you'll have more incentive to learn Chinese.

 

[HKSturboKID]

Or....each one of us can teach u some.

Lay Ho Ma? = How are you?
Chil Mutt None? = What r u looking at?

 

[JaiKnight]

Yup, it really depends on where you are, but the main language is mandarin. I think I read somewhere that around 300+ million speak mandarin while around 87+ million speak cantonese.

Also, cantonese is a bit harder to learn, mandarin has little pronunciation symbols to help, and cantonese has a lot of phrases or slang that are hard to understand/use if you're just learning.

 

[StormRider]

Just remember one thing. If you meet a Cantonese girl that you want to know better, go up to her and say, "fong pai". It means I think you're beautiful.

 

[bonkers325]

learn mandarin

 

[Static911]

mandarin is the national language, so learn that one

static911

 

[PG]

I could be wrong, but I thought that mandarin was spoken by people in mainland China and Cantonese was used mostly in Hong Kong.
In the buisness world, Cantonese might be more important. Many companies that have a factory in China have offices in Hong Kong to coordinate shipments, etc. If you had to speak to someone, it would be the people in the offices in HK, not the factory.

 

[Looney]

<< All I know is &quot;Pokeye!&quot; and I don't even know how to spell or pronounce that properly >>



OMG! I haven't heard that like in 10 years! LOL

But i would actually suggest learning cantonese. Aside from mainland China, most of the rest of the world speaks cantonese, especially in north america. Mandarin is easier to learn though. And even once you learn cantonese, it's pretty easy to learn mandarin if you ever need it.

 

[StormRider]

I could be wrong, but I thought that mandarin was spoken by people in mainland China and Cantonese was used mostly in Hong Kong. In the buisness world, Cantonese might be more important.

I think you're correct. But my mom told me that China now requires that every school child be taught Mandarin. I think that in the near future everyone in China and Hong Kong will speak Mandarin.

I have mixed feelings about this since my family speaks Cantonese. I mean, the Cantonese speaking people are the real economic power in China so I kind of would like Cantonese be the &quot;official&quot; Chinese dialect. On the other hand, Mandarin does sound prettier to me and I feel it is important to have one common language to unite people.

 

[Hecubus2000]

Thanks for all the help everyone.

 

[cdan]

Depends on what you want to do with the language. If you want to speak to friends, learn Cantonese. But if you want to do business in China, Hong Kong or Taiwan learn Mandarin because it is the official dialect. Cantonese is used in Hong Kong and parts of Southern China when friends talk to each other. But classroom instruction and businesses use Mandarin. Cantonese is usually not taught in colleges and high schools. To learn it you need to go to a special school with 90 year old teachers who don't speak English. I hated it there because everyone spoke Chinese except for me.

 

[lyric]

If people know Cantonese, I'm pretty sure they'll understand Mandarin. I personally am more fluent at Cantonese, but I don't like it as much as Mandarin. Mandarin sounds more eloquent. People speaking Chinese/Vietnamese always sound like they're in some huge argument and stuff. There's too many pronounciation tones in Cantonese, where you have to curl your tongue and all this other stuff. I would rather speak Mandarin than Cantonese, but I'm not too fluent in it yet. I know how to keep a basic conversation going though.

 

[Hecubus2000]

How long did it take you to learn mandarin? Or at least be able to have a basic conversation.

 

[atom]

A basic, fluid conversation? Probably 4 months, but I live with my grandparents and parent who all spoke cantonese and mandarin so I had practice since I was born getting familiar with the sounds and speaking style. I didn't actually make an effort to learn cantonese until I was in high school............

Add to that another year/year and a half or so to get to the point where I don't really rely on translating cantonese in my mind back to english to understand what people are saying.

 

[jimmygates]

Cantonese is spoken in Hong Kong and Mandarin is spoken in Mainland China. After China took back Hong Kong in 97, they are trying to convert Hong Kong citizens to speak Mandarin. Mandarin is also spoken in Taiwan so I think Mandarin would be the most useful.



-jimbo