I live in Toronto, which has a big Chinese population, but most of them speak Cantonese.
>>Cantonese is easier for a Westerner to learn, as Mandarin is a tonal language where every syllable has four possible completely unrelated meanings depending on inflection, and inflected / tonal langauges are the most difficult for a Westerner to learn.
Sorry for necro-necroposting, but is it safe to assume that you know little-to-nothing about Cantonese? Cantonese has a significantly more complicated tone system than Mandarin. Mandarin has four tones, but Cantonese has at least six--traditionally seven, but the high falling and high level tones are conflating in most places. So although not all syllables are meaningful in all seven tones, a single syllable can have as many as seven meanings depending on inflection.
CANTONESE...I think they made a huge mistake making Mandarin an official language...I think Cantonese is easier to learn and also more fun to learn as you can watch (while learning) HK dramas and listen to Cantopop. There are a lot of "entertainment" stuff in Cantonese - HK movies, HK TV dramas, most good Chinese songs are in Cantonese - Cantopop has way more songs than Mandopop because of the monster-size entertainment industry of Hong Kong. Basically, everything fun can be enjoyed in Cantonese - people in the U.S., Canada, etc - most speak Cantonese. Sure, most people in China speak Mandarin but - they are still not yet developed and most you probably not interested in talking to. Learn Cantonese first, then Mandarin.
i am a chinese in singapore,
They learn Mandarin in school. Most speak Mandarin in addition to any provincial/hometown languages. So if you want to maximise the number of people you can communicate with (including most Cantonese speakers), Mandarin makes more sense.
Cantonese on the other hand is somewhat easier to learn. Although it's more complex in some ways, the pronunciation tends to be more familiar to an English ear. More tones, yes, but tones aren't as big a challenge as most people seem to think. Speaking Cantonese will earn you massive kudos and the north sucks anyway, fuck those guys.
If anyone has a decision to make like the OP had, talk to one of your friendly locals and see what they think. Picking the language you can practice most conveniently is probably the best choice. Really, as long as whatever you decide matches you current needs, it's not such a big deal since learning one as a speaker of the other if you choose to do so later is a lot easier than learning chinese will be the first time around.
>>16
No, it's just that Hong Kong is cantonese, and HK still uses traditional characters. Mainland cantonese use simplified.
I agree with >>20.
If you want to learn one of them as a practical skill, then Mandarin is the way to go. Don't listen to >>21's bs about mainlanders being "not yet developed", and not as many people outside China speaking Mandarin. Freaking 1billion+ people speak Mandarin, and even the Hong Kong-ers are having to adapt to speaking Mandarin for the purpose of trade. I speak Cantonese myself, and can understand Mandarin, but I find that Canto (although cooler imo), is kind of limiting. Personally, I think it is a dying language.
> most good Chinese songs are in Cantonese
> everything fun can be enjoyed in Cantonese
Oh please. Most Cantonese songs are sung by overrated Hong Kong actors turned singers who can't even sing. I love Hong Kong, but I don't like how you so ignorantly justify the learning of a language on "entertainment stuff" and then diss China, the next super economic power of the world.
The Cantonese tones are definitely alot harder to master. Westerners are harder to understand when speaking Cantonese than Mandarin. With Mandarin, the tones are more, shall we say, straight?
of course Mandarin.
corrections to 10:
yes, 70% of Chinese speak Mandarin, and it's mandatory for almost all the students in China and teachers, officials and media as well.
only about 5% speak cantonese in the south. cantonese is way complicated to most Chinese, it sounds like a foreign langugage, difficult to understand.
while mandarin has four tones, cantonese have eight tones.
Speaking of good Chinese songs, what are some good Mandarian Rock songs?
Ade Irma - Bang Toyib
I learnt to speak both and personally i believe that cantonese sounds like dogs barking and ducks quacking when you hear ppl speak at the normal rate in hk or canton. but mandarin sounds much to formal when spoken, like ur expressing ur views on darwins theory of evolution or something.
Mandarin FTW, it is the official and the real Chinese.
Thread has been started!
Nederlands: unkempt.
If you actually learned these languages, no generalizations would apply.
>>14 It's called Dutch, and the majority of speakers are not in the Netherlands.
>>15
It's called Nederlands in Nederlands (or Dutch, if you wish to be vulgar), and the majority of its speakers do indeed reside in the Netherlands. I am simply following the lead of >>1-san, who wrote language names as the (romanized if necessary) identifying name of speakers of the language. Also you are quite wrong about languages not possessing intrinsic qualities.
Ithkuil: Someone vomiting.
Ithkuil has so much different possible sounds that when someones vomits it may end up as a sentence, like "As you see, I disagree with Nietzsche's nihilist philosophy," or something like that :p
Mandarin Chinese : Sneeze.
Russian - Blet kurva nachui.
Lithuanian - Pseudo russian.
Latvian - Pseudo lithuanian.
Russian: everything is perfectly predictable, so long as you have a working knowledge of the history of the language since the dawn of time.
I would personally choose cantonese, I think it sounds better. To me, there's too much "shi qian shur shur" noises in it.
If there are too many then why do you think it sounds better?
Woops, I forgot to mention mandarin has too much "shi qian shur shur" noises in it. Not cantonese, sorry.
I learnt to speak both and personally i believe that cantonese sounds like dogs barking and ducks quacking when you hear ppl speak at the normal rate in hk or canton. but mandarin sounds much to formal when spoken, like ur expressing ur views on darwins theory of evolution or something.
mandarin is more useful. a lot of places in china that used to speak Cantonese are switching over to mandarin.
Well, it's February and eventhough my cat thread was a failure, I was wondering: How do you write 'I love you' in your language?
English: I love you
Malay: Saya cintakan awak
Schwzyerteutsch (swiss german) :„Ich hat gäern für du...”
pronounce as: „Eeh haa GaiRn fooR doo” and to trill the "R".
literally translates as: "I have liking/fondness for you."
I LOVE YOU !! =
AKU SUKA KAMU, COOOK!!
All letters are pronounced as 'short' unless there are two same letters connected ie. fish -> fiish. Pronouncing is also quite 'sharp'. English is soft, French is soft, German is hardish, but Finnish is like raping the cat.
M as M in Michelin
I as I in Sit
N as N in Night
Ä as A in Dad [in finnish 'dad' would be written as 'däd' whilst 'fuck' would be written as 'fak' and 'now' would be 'nau']
R is 'hard' unlike it's english brother. One of Kylie Minogue's songs has a part where she does the kitten "purrrrr". That's pretty much it. Also [German] Dritte Reich does the trick.
A as U in Fuck or O in Now
K as K in Fuck or K in Skoda
Jeg elsker dig ~ Danish :D erm... it's pronounced ...
Jeg = try swallowing your tounge ...it sounds kinda like that xD
elsker = punch your face while saying elephant
dig = diij kinda O___O
Jag älskar dig (<- pronounced Jag älskar dej)
j --- as "y" in Eng. "yes" (NEVER as in "jam")
a --- like a in Eng. "bar"
g --- as "g" in Eng. "get"
ä --- long: like "ai" in Eng. "fair"
l --- as in English (almost) [a bit clearer]
s --- like "s" in Eng. "summer"
k --- before a consonant or a hard vowel (a, o, u, å): as "k" in Eng. "keep", but more explosive
a --- like a in Eng. "bar"
r --- "rolled" like in Spanish, but not quite as forcefully
d --- like "d" in English, but less aspirated
e --- like the first "e" in "Elephant"
My mistake, English does have the finnish Y in it's pronounsing: NEW, written in Finnish would be NYY. So EW in NEW equals to double Y.
I have a new car
Ai häv ö nyy khaa
Harlem: Yo, Bitch, make me a sammich and then gobble on my dick
Dutch: Ik hou van je
I as in b[i]t
k as in [k]ick
h as in [h]at
ou as in b[ow]
v as in [v]an
a as in d[a]rn
n as in [n]ut
j as in [y]ou
e as in th[e]
I want to improve my french. Wondering if anybody had any good Nouveau Manga suggestions, or any other french comics, bandes dessinee, aside from Tintin and Asterix.
For example, 'La Complainte Des Landes Perdues' looks pretty cool.
Si tu veux une bonne BD française, il y a les Thorgal qui sont vraiment bons. C'est une grande série qui a dépassé les 30 volumes, et qui est toujours en production.
----
If you want a good French comic, there is the Thorgal serie, which is very good. It has more than 30 volumes, and new ones are still coming.
Lanfeust de Troy and XIII
Cela dépent du genre de BD que tu aimes.
Parce que Tintin et Asterix ne sont pas dans le même genre.
So who here actually goes/went to university for linguistics?
I go to Concordia University in Montreal. Also, for those of you who have graduated, what did you do about jobs (lol)?
Linguistics was one of my majors. It did not have anything to do with my eventual full-time job (I write for a living), but I like to think it helps when I do my side job as a translator.
Well i am still working on my degree but I am going to teach english as an ESL.
Salvete! Hinc in lingva latina in scriptione exercitare possvmvs. Alteri loci svnt, sed qvi incolvnt insani svnt.
Mea vocabvlaria terribilis est orz
Carmina Catvlli mihi placent. Qvid legis?
Harrius Potter et Philosophi Lapis:
"Dominus et Domina Dursley, qui vivebant in aedibus Gestationis Ligustrorum numero quattuor signatis, none sine superbia dicebant se ratione ordinaria vivendi uti neque se paenitere illus raionis."
Obfirmo Absentis Sententia, Imperium mens...
um... ah...
Cogito ergo sum!
I think therefore I am?
Age quod agis
ad mari usque ad mare
NON LICET
Tu Fui Ergo Etis
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7705922.stm
Now get out.
DE OMNIBUS DUBITANDUM
Does it pay well? And what kind of demand is there for it?
Specifically German and maybe Japanese are what I'm wondering about.
Maybe working as an interpreter in business/political relations, or just translating movies and shit. What's it pay?
if money is the most important thing in your life you fail
>>1
I've been paid to translate on a number of occasions. It can pay pretty well, but it's hard to make a full-time living at it.
The biggest challenge is that almost all professional translators are freelancers--it's virtually impossible to get a full-time, salaried job as a translator. So you've got to be ready to hustle to keep your pipeline full and the income coming in. If you're not comfortable networking and selling yourself (figuratively), expect to struggle, particularly if you're working with languages as common as Japanese or German. There's a shitload of competition in those.
Google "translation house" and send your resume and some samples to every company that comes up--you can be added to their freelance roster and they'll send you occasional gigs. There are also a number of online forums, including proz.com, that cater to the needs of freelance language specialists.
Interpreting is a very different skill set, and one that's easier to get full-time work in--legal interpreting is particularly valuable and well paid (in courtrooms, etc.). But those gigs are very hard to get if you're not a native bilingual. If you're not completely, native-level fluent in the language you're translating from, you're virtually out of luck.
I heard that at least in Germany, translating one page of German text into Japanese, Chinese or Korean pays the same for a freelancer as translating it into English. I find this highly unfair.
>>I heard that at least in Germany, translating one page of German text into Japanese, Chinese or Korean pays the same for a freelancer as translating it into English. I find this highly unfair.
Because German and English are similar, while German and JCK languages are not, or because you consider Japanese, Chinese, and Korean more difficult?
I think it makes sense--the best translators are almost always native speakers of target languages, so the relative difficulty of each translation task (translating from a language you've learned into your native language, in almost all cases) should be similar. I do know that in the States, people who translate less common languages sometimes charge a little more. But all the languages you've mentioned, with the possible exception of Korean, are fairly commonly studied, so it's not as if any of the languages are especially rare.
Does anyone know any simple, "everyday" phases that will be useful for me when I move to New Zealand in the next month-or-so? I already know "kia ora". Any others that I can use without looking/sounding like a tool?
yes. "Speak english motherfucker".
goodbye
Anybody?
"Leck mich im Arsch"?
ITT WE LEARN HOW TO USE FUCKING GOOGLE
Was wollen Sie genau? Wir sind nicht Ihre persöliche Übersetzer.
>>2
War das nicht ein Lied von Wolfgang A. ?
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