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Learning Hong Kong Cantonese?
Hi, I'm interested in learning Cantonese.
I've taken three college semesters of Mandarin and I think I'm okay at it. I grew up in a household that spoke Taishanese (rural variant of Cantonese, I've been told) -- I could never speak it, but I understand quite a bit of it. After taking Mandarian, I noticed many, many similarities in the vocabulary -- it's really helped that way even if the tones are way different. I could never understand those guys from Hong Kong though and I have an interest in learning Cantonese (for the sake of culture) -- what kind of advantages do you think I would have given my background?
1 Answer
- longliveabcdefgLv 710 years agoFavorite Answer
Having already known 2 dialects, or 1-1/2, means you have great advantage, especially when your family spoke Taishanese, which is in fact a variant of Cantonese. Pronunciation between Cantonese and Taishanese is much closer than with Mandarin. After you go through the initial stage of learning the basics, you should be able to improve on it very easily. I have seen so many Mandarin speakers learning Cantonese on their own.
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