Cantonese vs Chinese
Countries
Hong Kong, Macau
China, Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore, Taiwan
National Language
China, Guangdong
China, Taiwan
Second Language
Not spoken in any of the countries
Republic of Brazil
Speaking Continents
Asia
Asia
Minority Language
Hawaii
Indonesia, Malaysia
Regulated By
Civil Service Bureau, Government of Hong Kong, Official Language Division
Chinese Language Standardization Council, National Commission on Language and Script Work, Promote Mandarin Council
Interesting Facts
- Cantonese have lot of slangs, many of them include words that do not make sense at all and some also have English in them.
- Even though Cantonese and Mandarin are dialects of Chinese, Cantonese has 8 tones instead of Mandarin's 4.
- Chinese language is tonal, since meaning of a word changes according to its tone.
- In Chinese language, there is no grammatical distinction between singular or plural, no declination of verbs according to tense, mood and aspect.
Similar To
Chinese Language
Not Available
Derived From
Not Available
Not Available
Alphabets in
Cantonese-Alphabets.jpg#200
Chinese.jpg#200
Scripts
Chinese Characters and derivatives
Chinese Characters and derivatives
Writing Direction
Left-To-Right, Horizontal, Top-To-Bottom
Left-To-Right, Horizontal, Top-To-Bottom
How Are You?
你好吗？
你好吗？ (Nǐ hǎo ma?)
Good Night
晚安
晚安 (Wǎn'ān)
Good Evening
晚上好
晚上好 (Wǎnshàng hǎo)
Good Afternoon
下午好
下午好 (Xiàwǔ hǎo)
Good Morning
早上好
早安 (Zǎo ān)
I Love You
我爱你
我爱你 (Wǒ ài nǐ)
Excuse Me
原谅我
劳驾 (Láojià)
Dialect 1
Guangzhou
Mandarin
Where They Speak
outside mainland China
China, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan
How Many People Speak
Not Available
Where They Speak
Hong Kong
China, United States of America
How Many People Speak
Not Available
Where They Speak
Hong Kong
China, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam
How Many People Speak
Not Available
Second Language Speakers
Not Available
Native Name
Kwang Tung Wa
中文 (zhōngwén)
Alternative Names
Guangfu, Metropolitan Cantonese
Not Available
French Name
Not Available
chinois
German Name
Not Available
Chinesisch
Pronunciation
Not Available
Not Available
Ethnicity
Not Available
Han
Origin
17th century
1250 BC
Language Family
Sino-Tibetan Family
Sino-Tibetan Family
Subgroup
Not Available
Not Available
Branch
Not Available
Not Available
Early Forms
No early forms
No early forms
Standard Forms
Standard Cantonese
Standard Chinese
Language Position
Not Available
Signed Forms
Not Available
Wenfa Shouyu 文法手語 ("Grammatical Sign Language", Signed Mandarin (Taiwan))
Scope
Not Available
Individual
ISO 639 1
No data available
zh
ISO 639 2/T
Not Available
zho
ISO 639 2/B
Not Available
chi
ISO 639 3
No data available
zho
ISO 639 6
Not Available
Not Available
Glottocode
cant1236
sini1245
Linguasphere
No data available
79-AAA
Language Type
Not Available
Living
Language Linguistic Typology
Not Available
Subject-Verb-Object
Language Morphological Typology
Not Available
Analytic, Isolating
Cantonese and Chinese Language History
Comparison of Cantonese vs Chinese language history gives us differences between origin of Cantonese and Chinese language. History of Cantonese language states that this language originated in 17th century whereas history of Chinese language states that this language originated in 1250 BC. Family of the language also forms a part of history of that language. More on language families of these languages can be found out on Cantonese and Chinese Language History.
Cantonese and Chinese Greetings
People around the world use different languages to interact with each other. Even if we cannot communicate fluently in any language, it will always be beneficial to know about some of the common greetings or phrases from that language. This is where Cantonese and Chinese greetings helps you to understand basic phrases in Cantonese and Chinese language. Cantonese word for "Hello" is 您好 or Chinese word for "Thank You" is 谢谢 (Xièxiè). Find more of such common Cantonese Greetings and Chinese Greetings. These greetings will help you to be more confident when conversing with natives that speak these languages.
Cantonese vs Chinese Difficulty
The Cantonese vs Chinese difficulty level basically depends on the number of Cantonese Alphabets and Chinese Alphabets. Also the number of vowels and consonants in the language plays an important role in deciding the difficulty level of that language. The important points to be considered when we compare Cantonese and Chinese are the origin, speaking countries, language family, different greetings, speaking population of these languages. Want to know in Cantonese and Chinese, which language is harder to learn? Time required to learn Cantonese is 88 weeks while to learn Chinese time required is 88 weeks.