Cantonese Language Puns

So I’ve been learning Mandarin for years and have always been SUPER interested in learning another dialect as well. As far as I can tell, Cantonese is the one with the most language learner support besides Mandarin. However….How on Earth do you learn a language that isn’t read the way it’s spoken?

For example:

WRITTEN 現在 jin6 zoi6

SPOKEN 而家 ji4 gaa1

Doesn’t this mean you’d effectively be learning TWO vocab words for anything you want to learn how to say? Why cant 現在 just be pronounced as ji4 gaa1 so we can do away with the first written form? I never understood the reasoning behind this.

On top of that, it seems you can’t begin to enjoy movies or simply podcasts effectively, because you’ll never be able to read along with it.

For those of you who ONLY learn Cantonese and completely skipped Mandarin- Are you pretty much just not able to practice grammar and sentence structure through writing, since Cantonese writing is just Mandarin with traditional characters and doesn’t really use Canto sentence structure/grammar?

I won’t really go on longer because you can already see where I’m going with this- I’m so interested in Cantonese but I’m extremely confused about where to start, and how to actually learn without the speaking and writing being synced up like in Mandarin. Any help would be much appreciated!

EDIT: A big question I forgot to include- When you learn to write Cantonese and are building vocabulary, are you supposed to just ignore spoken characters and only learn, for example, 現在 rather than 而家?

In colloquial/casual Cantonese, the hour is often divided into twelfths, or five minutes (one twelfth is 一個字). So a duration of eight minutes can be approximated as two twelfths/兩個字, and 3:15 is 三點三 (dropping the quantifier of 個字) and a common metonym for afternoon tea.

Since the practice likely stemmed from counting time using the numbers on a clock face, and the clock was a western invention, I was wondering if there were any other languages that had the same subdivision for counting/telling time.

Hi All,

I am trying to find good resources to help me learn Cantonese as my girlfriends family are native Cantonese speakers and I would like to be able to converse with them in their native tongue instead of relying on them to speak English with me all the time. The problem I am running into is all of the traditional language learning sites that I know of (Duolingo/Rosetta Stone being the main two) do not seem to offer Cantonese and it seems incredibly strange to me! I am coming here in the hopes that someone knows of some resources available online that can help me get a decent grasp on Cantonese outside of just the basics I might learn from some YouTube videos here or there. Thanks in advance for any help!

Edit: Thank you all so much for the help, tons of resources recommended to help me learn this language what a great community !

https://github.com/StepfenShawn/Cantonese

Hi everyone, I make videos comparing Sino-xenic pronunciations of Chinese Characters in Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese. I've also included Cantonese, Hokkien and Mandarin due to its similarity as well.

In my most recent video, i've put together a list of Hospital Related Words, such as 入院, 診斷, 治療 ... etc

Below is an example to show how similar the words are in various languages in the East Asia Cultural Sphere! Check out how similar the pronunciations are:

Blood Pressure

Cantonese: 血壓 hyut3 aat3

Vietnamese: huyết áp 血壓

Mandarin: 血压 / 血壓 xuè yā

Hokkien: 血壓 huih-ap / hoeh-ap

Japanese: 血圧 けつあつ (ketsu atsu)

Korean: 혈압 血壓 (hyeol ab)

*You can see from the list above that the word for "Blood Pressure" are based on the Chinese Characters: 血压 / 血壓

Check out the video for the pronunciation and for to see other similar words! :

https://youtu.be/Th7q6xfKznI

I'm surprised it's not Japanese.

This may be somewhat of a long post, I'll try to tl;dr it

**tl;dr**: Making a Fallout game in Hong Kong, Cantonese and English

=========================================

A few words about my background, for reference, I guess...

I'm Caucasian living in Guangzhou as a legal long-term resident. I don't work here. Not important how and why. I speak English and I learned some basic Cantonese, casually chatting with the locals, as I live in an older district with majority Cantonese speakers. I don't speak any Mandarin, I don't particularly seem to need it, even in official situations I can find some Cantonese speakers, e.g. police registration, visa renewal, etc. Also modern technology is ubiquitous and very helpful ( a cell phone :) ).

Note that I am not political at all, I understand if this sub-reddit community will give me an earful, but I'm hoping for the best

anyways, as I happen to be biased toward Cantonese, I'd like to do my part, somehow, to popularize it around the world. I am familiar somewhat with Bethesda's Fallout 4 engine. I'm also a bit of an amateur programmer, and I can find my way around code pretty easily

so **Fallout in Hong Kong is one way to popularize Cantonese. This way we can tell a story, *any story*, using Cantonese as the primary language.**

I created a new account on reddit to make this thread, I understand that I don't have any credibility with the lack of reddit history

Ideally, the replies (if any) would be in the vein of *yes, we can*, rather than scientific explanations of why *no, we can't*

If you are a programmer, artist, VO actor (Cantonese and/or English), other useful capacity (e.g. project manager), let's give it a shot (à la Pascal's wager)...

They all use characters typical Chinese language but what’s the difference between the three? Is it like different dialects were you know there’s a different type of the UK English compared to American English, etc?

I want to watch this movie, but I am not sure which language is the original/intended audio.

I love watching martial arts/foreign action movies, but the intended language can be confusing.

Some Jackie Chan movies have a mixture of different languages, while others give me a billion options.

I just don’t want to ruin a movie with a dub. Movies should be enjoyed in their original format.

The question remains, should I watch Master Z: Ip Man Legacy in Cantonese or Mandarin?

Hi everyone, I make videos comparing Sino-xenic pronunciations of Chinese Characters in Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese. I've also included Cantonese, Hokkien and Mandarin due to its similarity as well.

In my most recent video, i've put together a list of School Related Words, such as 學生, 大學, 學校 ... etc

Below is an example to show how similar the words are in various languages in the East Asia Cultural Sphere! Check out how similar the pronunciations are:

School Semester

Cantonese: 學期 hok6 kei4

Vietnamese: học kỳ 學期

Mandarin: 学期 / 學期 xué qī

Hokkien: 學期 ha̍k-kî

Japanese: 学期 がっき (gak ki)

Korean: 학기 學期 (hak gi)

*You can see from the list above that the word for "School Semester" are based on the Chinese Characters: 学期 / 學期

Check out the video for the pronunciation and for to see other similar words! :

https://youtu.be/YsEHIqL8d4A

Hi everyone, I make videos comparing Sino-xenic pronunciations of Chinese Characters in Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese. I've also included Cantonese, Hokkien and Mandarin due to its similarity as well.

In my most recent video, i've put together a list of Country related words. such as 祖國 zou2 gwok3, 主權 zyu2 kyun4, 政府 zing3 fu2 etc and compared them with other languages in the Sinosphere.

Check out how similar the pronunciations are:

Government

Cantonese: 政府 zing3 fu2

Vietnamese: chính phủ

Mandarin: 政府 zhǔ quán zhèng fǔ

Hokkien: 政府 chèng-hú

Korean: 정부 (jeong bu)

Japanese: 政府 せいふ (sei fu)

*You can see from the list above that the word for "Government" are based on the Chinese Characters 政府

Check out the video for the pronunciation and for to see other similar words! :

https://youtu.be/ILc0AJYgxSE

Hi everyone, I make videos comparing Sino-xenic pronunciations of Chinese Characters in Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese. I've also included Cantonese, Hokkien and Mandarin due to its similarity as well.

In my most recent video, i've put together the names of planets and the solar system, such as 太陽系 taai3 joeng4 hai6, 水星 seoi2 sing1, 金星 gam1 sing1 ... etc

Below is an example to show how similar the words are in various languages in the East Asia Cultural Sphere! Check out how similar the pronunciations are:

Neptune (literally: Sea + King + Star)

Cantonese: 海王星 hoi2 wong4 sing1

Vietnamese: Hải vương tinh 海王星 (more common: Sao Hải Vương)

Mandarin: 海王星 Hǎi wáng xīng

Hokkien: 海王星 Hái-ông-tshinn

Japanese: 海王星 かいおうせい (kai ou sei)

Korean: 해왕성 海王星 (hae wang seong)

*You can see from the list above that the word for "Neptune" are based on the Chinese Characters: 海王星

Check out the video for the pronunciation and for to see other similar words! :

https://youtu.be/AehAWIg5AiI

Hi everyone, I make videos comparing Sino-xenic pronunciations of Chinese Characters in Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese. I've also included Cantonese, Hokkien and Mandarin due to its similarity as well.

In my most recent video, i've put together a list of Space Related Words, such as 宇宙, 軌道, 銀河 ... etc

Below is an example to show how similar the words are in various languages in the East Asia Cultural Sphere! Check out how similar the pronunciations are:

Satellite

Cantonese: 衛星 wai6 sing1

Vietnamese: vệ tinh 衛星

Mandarin: 卫星 / 衛星 / 衞星 wèi xīng

Hokkien: 衛星 uē-sing / uē-tshinn

Japanese: 衛星 えいせい (ei sei)

Korean: 위성 衛星 (wi seong)

*You can see from the list above that the word for "Satellite" are based on the Chinese Characters: 卫星 / 衛星 / 衞星

Check out the video for the pronunciation and for to see other similar words! :

https://youtu.be/ipOyZmjKlcw

Hi everyone, I make videos comparing Sino-xenic pronunciations of Chinese Characters in Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese. I've also included cantonese, hokkien and mandarin due to its similarity as well.

In my most recent video, i've put together a list of Music related words. such as 樂音, 旋律, 隔音 etc and compared them with other languages in the Sinosphere.

Check out how similar the pronunciations are:

Soundproof

Cantonese: 隔音 gaak3 jam1

Vietnamese: cách âm

Mandarin: 隔音 gé yīn

Hokkien: 隔音 keh-im

Korean: 막음 隔音 (mak eum)

*You can see from the list above that the word for "Soundproof" are based on the Chinese Characters 隔音

Check out the video for the pronunciation and for to see other similar words! :

https://youtu.be/QjPrEYly5Mc

Hi everyone, I make videos comparing Sino-xenic pronunciations of Chinese Characters in Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese. I've also included cantonese and mandarin due to its similarity as well.

In my most recent video, i've put together a list of Animal related words. such as 河馬, 駝鳥, 冷血動物 etc and compared them with other languages in the Sinosphere.

Check out how similar the pronunciations are:

Camel

Cantonese: 駱駝 lok3 to4

Mandarin: 駱駝 - luò tuo

Vietnamese: lạc đà

Japanese: 駱駝 (らくだ) - rakuda

Korean: 낙타 (nak ta)

*You can see from the list above that the word for "Camel" are based on the Chinese Characters 駱駝

Check out the video for the pronunciation and for to see other similar words! :

https://youtu.be/_sHx50tMZ2M

Hi everyone, I make videos comparing Sino-xenic pronunciations of Chinese Characters in Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese. I've also included cantonese and mandarin due to its similarity as well.

In my most recent video, i've put together a list of Art related words. You can see how similar the pronunciations are from the following example:

Drawing / Picture

Vietnamese: hội hoạ

Cantonese: 繪畫 kui2 waa2

Mandarin: 绘画 huì huà

Japanese: 絵画 (かいが) - kaiga

Korean: 회화 (hoi hwa)

*You can see from the list above that the word for "Drawing or Picture" are based on the Chinese Characters 绘画 or 繪畫

Check out the video for the pronunciation and for to see other similar words! :

https://youtu.be/F8zDGZGuRek

Hi everyone, I make videos comparing Sino-xenic pronunciations of Chinese Characters in Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese. I've also included cantonese and mandarin due to its similarity as well.

In my most recent video, i've put together a list of Art related words. You can see how similar the pronunciations are from the following example:

Drawing / Picture

Vietnamese: hội hoạ

Cantonese: 繪畫 kui2 waa2

Mandarin: 绘画 huì huà

Japanese: 絵画 (かいが) - kaiga

Korean: 회화 (hoi hwa)

*You can see from the list above that the word for "Drawing or Picture" are based on the Chinese Characters 绘画 or 繪畫

Check out the video for the pronunciation and for to see other similar words! :

https://youtu.be/F8zDGZGuRek

Hi everyone, I make videos comparing Sino-xenic pronunciations of Chinese Characters in Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese. I've also included cantonese and mandarin due to its similarity as well.

In my most recent video, i've put together a list of Covid 19 related words. You can see how similar the pronunciations are from the following example:

Isolate

Mandarin: 隔离 / 隔離 -gé lí

Vietnamese: cách ly

Japanese: 隔離 (かくり) - kakuri

Korean: 격리 (geok ri)

Cantonese: 隔離 gaak3 lei4

*You can see from the list above that the word for "Isolate" are based on the Chinese Characters 隔離

Check out the video for the pronunciation and for to see other similar words! : https://youtu.be/yW9tgFyryHs