Skip to main content
European Commission logo
Speech Repository

The Cantonese Language

18/11/2022

Today we are going to talk about another Chinese language: Cantonese!

Below are some fun facts about Cantonese but are they true or false? The answers are at the end of the article.

  1. Cantonese and Mandarin characters may look the same but are pronounced differently.
  2. There are about 1 million Cantonese speakers in Vietnam.
  3. Mandarin and Cantonese both have four tones.
  4. If you speak Mandarin, you can easily understand Cantonese.
  5. 70% of the vocabulary is similar in Mandarin and Cantonese but the pronunciation is different.
  6. Cantonese is the native language of about 80 million people.
  7. Learning Cantonese will open the door to a vast collection of Hong Kong movies only available in Cantonese.
  8. Mandarin is more commonly spoken abroad compared to Cantonese.
  9. Cantonese is mainly spoken in China, Macau and Hong Kong
  10. You now want to learn Cantonese

 

We have 23 speeches in Cantonese on the Speech Repository. Check them out!

If you are interested in Chinese languages, read our new article on the Mandarin language.

 

Enjoy!

The Speech Repository Team

 

Answers:

  1. True
  2. True
  3. False: Cantonese has 6 tones while Mandarin has 4
  4. False, Cantonese and Mandarin are not mutually intelligible
  5. False, about 50%
  6. True
  7. True
  8. False: Cantonese is more commonly spoken abroad than Mandarin, especially in the USA and Europe
  9. True
  10. True

 

Give feedback on this page

mandatory field