Learn about the top five reasons to learn Cantonese
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| Matt: Hello everyone, I’m Matt, your friendly neighborhood non-Cantonese guide to everything Cantonese… |
| Nicole: 大家好 (daai6 gaa1 hou2). I’m Nicole! Here in this lesson to bare a part of my Cantonese soul with you! |
| Matt: So Nicole, people have argued that Cantonese is not a real language on its own, but a dialect of Chinese. |
| Nicole: Well it's true and it's not true. |
| Matt: You are being ambiguous here, Nicole. |
| Nicole: No I mean seriously, the term dialect is so unfair. It's a political term, not a linguistic term. |
| Matt: So what you’re saying is that, politically it's a dialect of Chinese, however, linguisticlally speaking, it's a language on its own. |
| Nicole: Exactly. Because China is a huge country that has many many different languages. Since the official language of China is Mandarin, also known as Chinese, the rest of the languages have to be called dialects. And among them, Cantonese is the most popular one. |
| Matt: That’s right, over 130 million people all over the world, speak Cantonese. |
| Nicole: That makes a lot of good conversations. |
| Matt: Speaking of this, I know there was a conference in 1940s. Where a bunch of linguistic scholars and politicians held their votes to decide the national language of China, and Cantonese lost by only 1 vote. |
| Nicole: True. Only 1 vote. Cantonese was this close to be the official Chinese language. But never mind, Cantonese is still everywhere! |
| Matt: Tell me Nicole, where have you spoken Cantonese in your life, other than China? |
| Nicole: Everywhere I’ve ever been. I mean I can hear Cantonese in any country. I have an American friend who wants to practice his Mandarin in a Chinatown but failed, because they speak Cantonese in Chinatown. |
| Matt: That sounds a little bit like me practising Cantonese in Beijing. |
| Nicole: Yeah, Cantonese is not spoken in Beijing. Cantonese is mainly spoken in Guangdong, a province in South China thats neighbouring Hong Kong. Actually thats where the name came from. |
| Matt: Yeah sounds a bit similar. Guangdong and Canton. |
| Nicole: Yeah, exactly. And it's also spoken in Hong Kong, Macau and some neighbouring areas around the eastern part of Guangxi province in China. |
| Matt: It is the official language in Hong Kong and Macau as well, and historically is the most popular form of Chinese spoken outside of mainland China. |
| Nicole: Yeah, Cantonese immigrants are everywhere in the world. It’s a language you don’t even need to travel to use. |
| Matt: That’s right, in fact, in Chinatowns, everywhere there are stores that have signs only in Cantonese! |
| Nicole: That’s right, another thing that we Cantonese are really proud of is our written language. |
| Matt: That’s right, it looks a little more like art! |
| Nicole: Exactly! Traditional Cantonese characters are pictures and drawings. When you see them you can guess the meanings of them. |
| Matt: That’s true. |
| Nicole: But you know that China is the only country in the world whose literature has been written in one language for more than 3,000 consecutive years. |
| Matt: Woah… when does that take us back to? |
| Nicole: About 1,200 BC. |
| Matt: So here is what is so amazing about this. If you were at a restaurant 3000 years ago, you’d know what they were serving just by the characters. And you’d probably be able to order what you wanted to eat. |
| Nicole: Yes, exactly. In the past, many people would communicate with written language, as the regional dialects were so distinct and people couldn’t understand one another. |
| Matt: Wow, no wonder there are like tens of thousands of characters. That’s a lot to write about. |
| Nicole: but don’t let that scare you off… some exciting news is that Cantonese is one of the oldest dialects in China and shares the most similarity to the ancient spoken language. |
| Matt: So that means I would be able to talk to a ancient Chinese wait staff and order dim sum even though I was Cantonese illiterate? |
| Nicole: That’s correct, and you could have as much as dim sum you want. Though there are so many Cantonese characters, when you learn the language you will find that there are only about 600 syllables, or individual word sounds in Cantonese. Only 600, I mean it could be worse. |
| Matt: Yes, and they are used in combination to form all those thousands of words. Plus on top of that each word can be any one of the 6 tones of the language. |
| Nicole: Right, now there are two different forms of Cantonese writing as well. In Hong Kong, the traditional form of written Chinese characters is used, as opposed to the simplified form adopted in Mainland China. Traditional Chinese characters are used in Taiwan as well. |
| Matt: Plus, a lot of words used in Hong Kong for different things are different than the term used on the mainland. In Hong Kong, with the passage of time, the language has evolved in its own way over the last 50 years. Over the same period of time, Guangdong very often would cling to preserving the ‘pure’ Cantonese form. |
| Nicole: That’s right, and there are a lot of new words too, since the internet and stuff. |
| Matt: Yes a lot of those words have only been invented in the past decade or so… |
| Nicole: Yeah. |
| Matt: Alright, now it’s time for our top 5 list! |
| Nicole: Yay! Top 5 reasons to learn the lovely language Cantonese!!! |
| Matt: OK number 5: Speakers of Cantonese are spread throughout the globe. There are Cantonese people EVERYwhere. |
| Nicole: You speak really fast! And also when you learn Cantonese, you get to understand what Jacky Chan is actually saying in his movies. |
| Matt: And number 4: Unlike most languages, Cantonese has a unique writing system, which provides visual comprehensibility and is considered by some to be… an art form! |
| Nicole: That’s right, and number 3: Cantonese grammar is easy! You don’t have to conjugate verbs! |
| Matt: Right! |
| Nicole: That’s the top reason for some people. |
| Matt: That’s right! And number 2: When you learn Cantonese you also learn how the Chinese think… logically, pragmatic. |
| Nicole: That’s right, I’m a logical and pragmatic person as well, I’m not emotional at all! |
| Matt: That’s right, you are learning so much more than just a language. Plus there’s all that dim sum and cool Taiqi and Buddhist Zen stuff. |
| Nicole: And Cantonese is one of the oldest dialects that preserves a lot of ancient Chinese culture and linguistics features. You learn the language, and you get to know more about China. |
| Matt: and the number one reason you should learn Cantonese |
| (drum roll sound effect) |
| Nicole: You can get rich!! |
| Matt: Hong Kong and the whole China currently boast the fastest growing economy in the world and is widely regarded as the largest global market in the twenty-first century. Proficient speakers of Cantonese will find jobs in various fields such as business, government, international relations, information technology, tourism, education, translation and much, much more. |
| Nicole: Wow! That’s a lot. |
| Matt: Yes, it is. OK everybody, you know what to do now. Get your made in China pen and notebook, and your made in China ipod, and your made in China computer, and suit up with CantoneseClass101.com |
| Nicole: That’s right! That just about does it today. |
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