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Cantonese or Mandarin?
Jul 14, 2005 13:47
  • KYLE
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China,

A major super power in the midst of becoming the most powerful country in the world. Business, Import-export, and mining are all leaders in money making in China.
Coming to China i'm faced with an important question. Which do I learn? Which langauge will be more important for the future? To learn a langauge is a challenge, and to become fluent enough in one that business can be conducted is very difficult. In your opinion, on a business aspect, which is the one to learn?

Thanks
Kyle
Jul 14, 2005 13:52
#1  
  • RITA
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Mandarin(Putonghua), definitely, absolutely.
Jul 14, 2005 13:59
#2  
  • KYLE
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Thanks for the reply?

Why do you feel so strongly about that?
Jul 14, 2005 15:28
#3  
because cantonese is useless if you are in Beijing or Shanghai. Or in other cities not in Guangdong Province.
Jul 14, 2005 15:32
#4  
  • RITA
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1, Cantonese is the major language of Guangdong Province, cover the population of about 5% of the whole country. Among this 5%, most understand and speak Mandarin, but people in other parts of the country seldom speak or understand Cantonese.

2, There are four tones in Mandarin, compares with only rising and falling tones in English, while there are 9 tones in Cantonese, which is much harder to learn than Mandarin. I have never met a foreigner master the four tones of Chinese (here I mean Mandarin), whatever level his or her in Chinese, but never very good in tones.




Jul 14, 2005 17:05
#5  
  • YOYO2005
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Hi, I can see you chose guangzhou as your destination for this topic. I think it all depends on people you are doing business with. As you can see, if people from HK or Guangdong (Canton)Province or Cantonese is easy to communicate and establish rapport. But if you are dealing with people from mainland of China, you will see Mandarin is a common way to deal with. As Mandarin is official language in China, you can start with Mandarin and learn Cantonese later as it is dialect language and easy to learn.

Good luck
Jul 14, 2005 18:23
#6  
  • CONNY129
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Mandarin,without doubt!
Jul 16, 2005 23:06
#7  
  • GAZ07
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Mandarin for sure.... that's what you'll hear in most of China, worldwide chinatowns, andShenzhen is in the Cantonese speaking area (guangdong) but still they speak mandarin for business.
Jul 17, 2005 11:36
#8  
  • BACKPACKER
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I agree with all the above guids said. Mandarin is a must if you are going to learn.
Jul 24, 2005 05:20
#9  
  • JEFFREYMAO
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it must be mandarin.
if you live in guangdong, you can still live with mandarin, because everybody can understand your mandarin
if you live in hong kong, everybody will tell you:you should learn mandarin. because over ten years or more, most hong kong will understand mandarin.
and you don't need to learn cantonese at all . because you can live with english in hong kong.every body speaks enough english to communicate.
Sep 23, 2005 23:49
#10  
  • HKMASTER
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english since this is your mother tongue
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