Learning Chinese, and Tang poetry in different dialects (split thread)

[popculturepooka]

CBC - Yeah I'm very serious, China is on the rise...I don't intend to be left behind. Plus it's always a good mental exercise to learn new languages.
I was thinking about Mandarin, but, - the thing is - I always wanted to go to Hong Kong and since I've heard (from these board memebers and others) that it's mainly a Cantonese speaking society I really don't want to be left in the dark. I hate when I'm not able to understand people talking around me in a language, that's what motivates me to learn.
But I figured Mandarin would be more universally usuable...

akane - Yea, okay I feel you, it's alot different for men.

[CBC guy]

CBC - Yeah I'm very serious, China is on the rise...I don't intend to be left behind. Plus it's always a good mental exercise to learn new languages.
I was thinking about Mandarin, but, - the thing is - I always wanted to go to Hong Kong and since I've heard (from these board memebers and others) that it's mainly a Cantonese speaking society I really don't want to be left in the dark. I hate when I'm not able to understand people talking around me in a language, that's what motivates me to learn.
But I figured Mandarin would be more universally usuable...

akane - Yea, okay I feel you, it's alot different for men.

You want to learn Cantonese? Hong Kong and Guangzhou are like the only places in China that speak Cantonese, really, where Mandarin is used in basically all of China.

Without a doubt Mandarin is more universally usable, probably easier to learn too. If you understand Cantonese, though, I think a LOT more funny things come out in Cantonese than Mandarin, and Stephen Chow alone is going to make your day.

Here's a website for learning Cantonese, main drawback is that you don't get any characters (Kanji, in other words) so you can't "fix" pronounciations to characters: http://www.cantonese.ca/

Here's a more thorough site: http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/

If you really want to learn Cantonese, the best way is just to visit Hong Kong and attend a course.

Mandarin (ie, "Standard Chinese") has a LOT more resources on the web, I'm sure SunWuKong has some, just google it LOL.

[grimfan]

Cantonese is extremely hard on the ears.

[CBC guy]

Cantonese is extremely hard on the ears.

ai ya, hoe sum lay umm moe gam lah, ou day gwong dong yan dou hai hoe yan lay gah. :wink:

Oh dear God please don't get into this Rosie O'Donnell thing again... Kinozashi here is actually trying to learn, its his prerogative. (although personally I think Mandarin is more practical)

Hey, I didn't say "Korean sounds like people are angry all the time" did I? :wink:

here's one for ya: (the "ching-chong" connection)

chan chung cheung hai goe ching chiu yan. (Chen Zhong-Chang is a person from the Qing Dynasty.) :biggrin:

P.S. Note the Chinese words in the brackets are in Mandarin, not Cantonese.)

[popculturepooka]

Thankyou for the links,CBC guy. If not to become fluent, then at least to be able to hold and comprehend an everyday convesation. I'm so bent on going to Hong Kong one of these days.
But, I think I'll learn Mandarin first, since my city in California has a fair amount of Chinese Mandarin speaking people here. I can practice with them.
I'm not stupid enough to try to learn both at one time.
......I tried that once with Spanish and French. Didn't work.

[SunWuKong]

ai ya, hoe sum lay umm moe gam lah, ou day gwong dong yan dou hai hoe yan lay gah. :wink:

oh god. either type out the Chinese or learn Yale Cantonese romanisation la.

[deez nuts]

why do people type out chinese anyways or use complete sentences in pingyin when it's predominantly abc's on this forum and maybe 2-3 people tops knows how to read it or understand it?

[Banana]

Elitism.

[CBC guy]

oh god. either type out the Chinese or learn Yale Cantonese romanisation la.

Sorry la :wink:

孫悟空阿Sir:

其实我個意恩係, 我地廣東人不是那么差的! 呢個韓國 lang 仔 話廣東話好鬼难听, 你話啦, 真係有冇搞錯啊! 嗰個人真係對我地美妙的廣東話有D矇查查. 係 ummm 係啦?

There I typed out in Cantonese. (mind you I have had no Cantonese "training" I picked up Cantonese from my family and spending time in Hong Kong.)

[CBC guy]

BTW Sorry Deez nuts and Banana, I don't know Yale Cantonese Romanization so I just typed my message up in Chinese characters.

Wow this thread is no longer about "Interracial Marriage" is it?

I don't mind interracial marriages and I don't see why if they really love each other they should not marry. Ok carry on.

[AngryABCGirl]

Sorry la :wink:

孫悟空阿Sir:

其实我個意恩係, 我地廣東人不是那么差的! 呢個韓國 lang 仔 話廣東話好鬼难听, 你話啦, 真係有冇搞錯啊! 嗰個人真係對我地美妙的廣東話有D矇查查. 係 ummm 係啦?

There I typed out in Cantonese. (mind you I have had no Cantonese "training" I picked up Cantonese from my family and spending time in Hong Kong.)

How did you randomly get some simplified characters in there? And out of curiousity, how do you input Cantonese characters anyway?

[CBC guy]

How did you randomly get some simplified characters in there? And out of curiousity, how do you input Cantonese characters anyway?

I have this little baby: http://www.cgcmall.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=S00PPHJ

Its awesome, I can simply write Chinese characters and they appear on the screen! :biggrin: It recognizes Traditional, simplified, and certain common Cantonese characters. It can even recognize Japanese Hiragana and Katakana. Quite a useful tool.

Can you understand written Cantonese? LOL:biggrin: It felt weird writing it (more used to writing "normal" Chinese) but its fun.

As for the simplified characters thing... I was lazy and I wrote the simplified version. That's all.

[SunWuKong]

Sorry la :wink:

孫悟空阿Sir:

其实我個意恩係, 我地廣東人不是那么差的! 呢個韓國 lang 仔 話廣東話好鬼难听, 你話啦, 真係有冇搞錯啊! 嗰個人真係對我地美妙的廣東話有D矇查查. 係 ummm 係啦?

eh. it's not a big deal. why should we give a damn how people who don't understand Cantonese or even Chinese think of the language anyway?

but i think vernacular Cantonese, or Cantonese as we speak it, can sound pretty ghetto. "proper" Cantonese can sound good though, and Cantonese flows well with Tang/Song poetry.

[CBC guy]

eh. it's not a big deal. why should we give a damn how people who don't understand Cantonese or even Chinese think of the language anyway?

but i think vernacular Cantonese, or Cantonese as we speak it, can sound pretty ghetto. "proper" Cantonese can sound good though, and Cantonese flows well with Tang/Song poetry.

Isn't Cantonese descended from whatever dialect the Ancient Tang/Song era Chinese people spoke? That is why it flows a lot better with Chinese poetry than Mandarin. (rhyme, metre, pronounciation, etc)

Well the Cantonese in the news broadcasts in HK sound quite prim and proper to me. Sometimes I don't understand the "proper" Cantonese terms for certain things, and I only know the "ghetto" version. :biggrin:
This probably has to do with the fact that for me Cantonese was almost exclusively a verbal dialect, (My only schooling in HK was in preschool and Kindergarten, and I just spoke Cantonese at home, never learned to "write" it until recently.) full of life and humour. Growing up for me Cantonese was always a language you joked in, not so much expressed lofty political ideals in. (although Sun Yat-Sen was a Cantonese, though not from HK/Guangzhou)

I love ghetto Cantonese though... its awesome! :biggrin: As epitomized by Sam Hui's old songs and also by Stephen Chow's movies. I'm pretty proud of the Cantonese tongue overall. :wink: :cool:

[deez nuts]

BTW Sorry Deez nuts and Banana, I don't know Yale Cantonese Romanization so I just typed my message up in Chinese characters.



i can read chinese. i just think it's funny.

[Banana]

ching chong dong dong ding ping

[AngryABCGirl]

I have this little baby: http://www.cgcmall.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=S00PPHJ

Its awesome, I can simply write Chinese characters and they appear on the screen! :biggrin: It recognizes Traditional, simplified, and certain common Cantonese characters. It can even recognize Japanese Hiragana and Katakana. Quite a useful tool.

Can you understand written Cantonese? LOL:biggrin: It felt weird writing it (more used to writing "normal" Chinese) but its fun.

As for the simplified characters thing... I was lazy and I wrote the simplified version. That's all.

Learned it from all the 壹週刊 and other HK gossip magazines my old roommates had lying around at home. I'd have to say it might be one of my most all-time most useless skills after.

I really like the way Cantonese sounds, it reminds me of close friends. I think I'm gonna fall in love of the first random HK guy that falls from the sky at this point.

Oh yes, interracial marriage. Well people are adults I suppose, it'd be a fallacy to say image and conditioning don't influence people's marriage choices though. I think I've reached a sufficient level of maturity not to judge every interracial relationship off the bat.

[SunWuKong]

Isn't Cantonese descended from whatever dialect the Ancient Tang/Song era Chinese people spoke? That is why it flows a lot better with Chinese poetry than Mandarin. (rhyme, metre, pronounciation, etc)

that's what people say. but Hokkien speakers and Hakka speakers also say the same thing about their own dialects.

[CBC guy]

ching chong dong dong ding ping

清疮當當丁平 was what you said dude. :wink: Doesn't mean jack at all.

[CBC guy]

Learned it from all the 壹週刊 and other HK gossip magazines my old roommates had lying around at home. I'd have to say it might be one of my most all-time most useless skills after.

I really like the way Cantonese sounds, it reminds me of close friends. I think I'm gonna fall in love of the first random HK guy that falls from the sky at this point.

Oh yes, interracial marriage. Well people are adults I suppose, it'd be a fallacy to say image and conditioning don't influence people's marriage choices though. I think I've reached a sufficient level of maturity not to judge every interracial relationship off the bat.

HK gossip magazines? I remember going through my older sister's batch when I was younger, trying to look for "soft" pictures of HK girls in bikinis. :biggrin:

Do you want only full-HK, or is any fluent Cantonese speaker good enough? Cause if so I'm right here. :wink:

[AngryABCGirl]

that's what people say. but Hokkien speakers and Hakka speakers also say the same thing about their own dialects.

I think the Chinese of the Tang/Song area was closer to Southern dialects than Northern Chiese ones, ie Mandarin. They do flow better in Taiwanese too. But any Southern language would do the same I think.

[didu]

I think the Chinese of the Tang/Song area was closer to Southern dialects than Northern Chiese ones, ie Mandarin. They do flow better in Taiwanese too. But any Southern language would do the same I think.


Where the hell do people get these misinformation from? The first Emperor of the Tang dynasty came from Gansu province -- that's in north west China if you don't already know, he was the governor of Tai Yuan before he rebelled against the Sui dynasty and became the Emperor himself. Tai Yuan is now the capital of Shan Xi province -- also in the north west of China.

The first Emperor of the Song dynasty came from a little town in today's He Bei province -- a province bordering Bei Jing. Before he became the Emperor, he was the general in a town in today's He Nan province which is also far far away from the South.

The Emperor's dialect was the official language of his country -- with the exception of the Manchurian Emperors who had to learn Mandarin. Since the royal families/powerbases of Tang and Song dynasties both came from north/northwest provinces of China and spoke vastly different dialects from Cantonese or whatever southern Chinese dialect that the southerners speak, I don't see how the poems composed during Tang and Song dynasties could have flown better with the southern dialects. In fact, Cantonese was known literally as the bird's language during Song dynasty -- one would've had to be a self-hating poet to write poems to match the southern dialects.

You cannot even name a single famous poet in the Tang and Song dynasties from Canton or any of the Pearl River Delta region.

The bloody southerners should stop stealing the glories from the northerners. :biggrin:

[AngryABCGirl]

Where the hell do people get these misinformation from? The first Emperor of the Tang dynasty came from Gansu province -- that's in north west China if you don't already know, he was the governor of Tai Yuan before he rebelled against the Sui dynasty and became the Emperor himself. Tai Yuan is now the capital of Shan Xi province -- also in the north west of China.

The first Emperor of the Song dynasty came from a little town in today's He Bei province -- a province bordering Bei Jing. Before he became the Emperor, he was the general in a town in today's He Nan province which is also far far away from the South.

The Emperor's dialect was the official language of his country -- with the exception of the Manchurian Emperors who had to learn Mandarin. Since the royal families/powerbases of Tang and Song dynasties both came from north/northwest provinces of China and spoke vastly different dialects from Cantonese or whatever southern Chinese dialect that the southerners speak, I don't see how the poems composed during Tang and Song dynasties could have flown better with the southern dialects. In fact, Cantonese was known literally as the bird's language during Song dynasty -- one would've had to be a self-hating poet to write poems to match the southern dialects.

You cannot even name a single famous poet in the Tang and Song dynasties from Canton or any of the Pearl River Delta region.

The bloody southerners should stop stealing the glories from the northerners. :biggrin:

Just read a piece of poetry from the Tang era in Mandarin and then switch to Hakka, Cantonese, Hokkien, etc., the difference is so obvious to even a non-Chinese speaker even if the writer wasn't from the South. It's really cool you know all this history and all, but Mandarin (along with other Chinese dialects) as the form and use as we know it today didn't exist back then, it's a question of linguistics and phonology rather than history and politics.

[didu]

Just read a piece of poetry from the Tang era in Mandarin and then switch to Hakka, Cantonese, Hokkien, etc., the difference is so obvious to even a non-Chinese speaker even if the writer wasn't from the South.

What exactly is your point? Hakka and Hokkien have very different pronunciations from Mandarin, of course they would sound different to people. What does that have anything to do with Tang era poetry?

"Sounds nice" is not a proper argument, I find Spanish songs to sound pretty nice, but would I be reasonable to claim a connection between Mandarin and Spanish?

It's really cool you know all this history and all, but Mandarin (along with other Chinese dialects) as the form and use as we know it today didn't exist back then, it's a question of linguistics and phonology rather than history and politics.

You know what? It would be really cool if you could back up your claims with proper facts, instead of just your feelings and instincts. I consider myself as a semi-linguist and I'd love to see some proper arguments for the "southern connection" of the Tang and Song Chinese poetry.

Oh, Mandarin as it is today did not exist in Tang and Song dynasties, but it was not invented by some lunatic overnight either. Mandarin is a northern Chinese dialect that came about from other older northern Chinese dialects. The mos prominent ancestor of Mandarin is the Beijing/He Bei dialect.

Canton and Hokkien did not rise to prominence until late Ming dynasty or maybe even late Qing dynasty, as a result they did not produce a great number of famous poets in the Tang/Song eras.

[AngryABCGirl]

Just read off the poetry in Hokkien, Cantonese, or Hakka and compare it to Mandarin you'll see the point I'm making. I'm not saying it just sounds nice, it actually rhythms more and the meter makes more sense than Mandarin, I wasn't trying to be hostile. In other words you can really hear the beat of the poetry. But the sound alone points that the sounds in the languages they spoke are more clearly preserved by Southern languages.

I didn't pull this out of my ass either, I heard Taiwanese and Cantonese read the same poems by 李白 (yes I'm aware he wasn't Cantonese, not that Cantonese people as we know it existed back then) in a Chinese linguistics lecture and this was explained by various Chinese professors. You can take my word for it or you can't, I'm not linguistic expert by any means but I know this bit, you can go argue it out with a Chinese linguistics professor, I'm not willing to look up loads of info for this argument, I'll battle it out on the hip hop thread instead again, maybe.

I'm not trying to prove some Southerner thing either, I'm a Mandarin speaker myself (i only speak some rudimentary Cantonese because of friends and even more rudimentary Taiwanese because of current locale and a few relatives) and Northern Chinese by blood ancestry, so that wouldn't make make much sense, and I don't really care about making some association with an ancient poet to my ancestry. Sorry if I came off that way. I'm not making any claims Cantonese people ruled the Tang dynasty either- it's not as today's Chinese sub-group groupings or make-up have any relevance to that anyway. I never said Tang era Chinese came from Cantonese or Taiwanese or Toishan or whatever either, in fact it's probably the other way around.

Anyway, anyone who listens to old Tang poetry can hear the difference. 中古漢語/Middle Chinese of the Tang and Song more closely resembles the Southern dialects developmentally because the Southern languages are older and probably had its origins in the Middle Chinese spoken then. Signs of the language we know as Mandarin today and its phonology wasn't recorded in old texts until the later Yuan dynasties. I trust wiki and previous knowledge for this info, again you can take my word or not, but here's some more:

Anyway there's a bit here taking about how some of Hakka's sounds resemble older Chinese:
http://club.ntu.edu.tw/~hakka/haknews/hakintro.htm
Someone explaining today's HK Cantonese and how the sounds are closer to older dialects:
http://hk.knowledge.yahoo.com/question/?qid=7006021900256
Cantonese linguistics, there's a part in the middle that talks about how Cantonese preserves sounds from Middle Chinese:
http://wikipedia.qwika.com/wiki/Cantonese_Pinyin#Cantonese_and_Mandarin

[didu]

...

Sent you a couple of pms. :smile:

[SunWuKong]

this thread was split apart from this:
http://forums.yellowworld.org/showthread.php?t=32686

anyway, i have heard and read that linguists think that Cantonese is closer to Middle Chinese (which is not spoken anymore), and that Tang poetry rhymes better in Cantonese than in Mandarin. i'm not a linguists so i don't know how true that is. but consider that just because the first Tang emperor did not come from the South, it does not mean that Tang people did not speak something that resembles Cantonese more than it does Mandarin. even today, if you go to rural China, oftentimes, people can speak a family dialect in addition to the school-taught Mandarin. also another important factor to consider is that Song dynasty was a period of southern movement, which means that Cantonese could have originated from more northern regions or were at least influenced by northern dialects. in fact, the last battle that signified the end of the Song dynasty was near my ancestral village in Guangdong.

[CBC guy]

Wasn;t Cantonese an offshoot of the dialect that people spoke in China when they moved south of the Yangzi River to escape the Mongols and such?

[huangalex]

Some Tang-era Chinese is preserved in the Hakka dialect as well as others scattered around the south. Hakka is the original northern dialect that moved south when the Jin invaded.

In Japanese they also preserve some ancient and archaic Tang sayings and still use them in everyday conversation.