Omniglot forum • View topic

Dan_ad_nauseam · Joined:Sat 18 Apr 2009 5:25 am Posts:203

VROOR wrote:

. . . .

. . . All Chinese can speak the Standard Chinese. . . .

Explain to me why I have had clients who had to receive interpretation from Mandarin to Cantonese in order to understand conversations with my Mandarin-speaking colleague from Shanghai.l

VROOR · **Posted:** Sat 12 Dec 2009 8:05 pm

Dan_ad_nauseam wrote:

Explain to me why I have had clients who had to receive interpretation from Mandarin to Cantonese in order to understand conversations with my Mandarin-speaking colleague from Shanghai.l

I have long since requested this topic to be continued in the Chinese Thread within the LOTE section; however, since you presented the inquiry here, I will then address it here. As per you challenged, and thus, I riposte: May I ask how educated in the chinese language are those clients of yours?

You see, even a cantonese teenager such as kaenif can communicate in Standard Chinese with fluency. The only answer that can explain the issue you presented is, those clients of yours are not educated enough in the chinese language. I believe I have made my point clear in this response, shall it not be clear, please continue the inquiry in the thread I have stated above.

kaenif · **Posted:** Sun 13 Dec 2009 10:54 am

VROOR wrote:

Dan_ad_nauseam wrote:

Explain to me why I have had clients who had to receive interpretation from Mandarin to Cantonese in order to understand conversations with my Mandarin-speaking colleague from Shanghai.l

I have long since requested this topic to be continued in the Chinese Thread within the LOTE section; however, since you presented the inquiry here, I will then address it here. As per you challenged, and thus, I riposte: May I ask how educated in the chinese language are those clients of yours?

You see, even a cantonese teenager such as kaenif can communicate in Standard Chinese with fluency. The only answer that can explain the issue you presented is, those clients of yours are not educated enough in the chinese language. I believe I have made my point clear in this response, shall it not be clear, please continue the inquiry in the thread I have stated above.

I think most Cantonese (or Hong Kong people) can handle written Standard Chinese, but speaking is a different thing. We know all the words, but many do not know how to pronounce them, and in the other way round, interpret the sounds. The subject "Putonghua" has just existed for a few years in schools. It is insignificant compared to other subjects, and only basics are taught in the lessons.

However, there are more and more people learning it as the economic links with Mainland is increasing.

quytelda · Joined:Thu 13 Aug 2009 11:18 am Posts:6

ErzsebetGilbert wrote:

...I do have a question for you - you say one of your favorite spoken languages is Finnish. Do you speak Finnish? I ask because I have relocated to Hungary and am learning Magyarul (I'm a native English speaker, too). And the two tongues are related; my mother-in-law has said that listening to Finnish is nearly like listening to a nonsense version of Magyarul... what do you like about Finnish best?

In answer to this question, I should say, no, I do not speak Finnish though I know a few miscellaneous words. I just really enjoy the way it sounds when spoken. It really does flow, and when written, it looks good too, but I would represent /j/ with a y instead of actually a j. I love words like ja, kirja, ovat, kielet etc... They just flow so well with all the sonorants.

Sobekhotep · **Posted:** Mon 14 Dec 2009 1:53 am

Geiwin wrote:

I would represent /j/ with a y instead of actually a j.

What would you use for /y/ then?

Talib · Joined:Sun 19 Apr 2009 8:22 am Posts:768 Location: Canada

I guess <ü>, like Estonian and Hungarian. But I don't see the point in using <y> when <j> is the standard way of representing the sound in most languages of Europe. <Y> is an oddity in English - I suppose we only use it because of French influence.

desmond · **Posted:** Mon 05 Apr 2010 8:57 am

Quote:

The Standard Chinese Language does not have borrowings from dialects, it is the other way around. All native speakers of the chinese language speak the Standard Chinese Language with their own dialectal influences (be it vocabularies or pronunciation, or even both).

The Standard Chinese language has borrowed words from other Chinese languages like Cantonese, Hokkien and Shanghainese. For example, Mandarin 买单 /mǎi dān/ is borrowed from Cantonese 埋單 /mai4 dan1/. Another example would be 搞定 /gǎo dìng/, which is a word borrowed from Cantonese 搞掂 /gao2 dim6/. There's nothing wrong for Mandarin to borrow words from other Chinese languages to enrich its vocabulary.