Learning To Converse In Chinese: You Have To Know If It Is Mandarin Or Cantonese You Want To Learn



Learning to speak Chinese is no easy job, but it is especially interesting to study such a special tongue. There is a variety of Chinese language software programs, you could attend a course, or even make your way to Hong Kong or China to study!

Of course, there are numerous benefits to speaking the Chinese language even if it is at a basic level:

You open doors by just having a try at speaking Chinese, even if you pronounce words badly and get the tones wrong. Given that few Westerners even try, you get noticed.

There are many jobs, in global commerce and additional fields, where knowing how to speak Chinese is mandatory. For some jobs, knowing how to read may be compulsory. Reading Chinese is at a much higher level of difficulty than speaking it, but without doubt far more jobs are available if you can read as well as speak. By the way, there are two kinds of written Chinese: characters and pinyin, which makes use of the characters of our alphabet.

There are also many forms of the Chinese language. Most recognized and most widely spoken is Mandarin, while Cantonese is next most popular. Over a billion people speak some form of Chinese, and the preponderance of them speak Mandarin.

Most Westerners learn Mandarin. I once determined to study Mandarin but in error I really took lessons in Cantonese for a time. This was before the internet. I don't think this mistake would occur now. Here is how it came about: one spring I was in Paris, studying French as a university student. My father, who spoke Mandarin, had things to do that would take him to Hong Kong. He informed me that I could meet him there, and that he would pay for me to begin learning to speak Mandarin while I was still in France.

I thought that sounded pretty good so I found my way to one of the main language schools in Paris. They introduced me to an aged Chinese gentleman, and I studied with him for a few weeks. I had a hard time with the tones especially.

But when I arrived in Hong Kong and met my father, I greeted him in what I thought was good Mandarin. My father looked blank. So I began counting to ten, figuring that would prove I was speaking Mandarin. "That is Cantonese," my father said in astonishment. It turned out that everything I had studied was Cantonese.

But all was not lost. It turned out that the process of learning tones did help me to speak Mandarin much better.

Now, with the internet, you have a vast resource for learning Chinese. I am resuming the study of Mandarin again, with a program called Rocket Chinese. However you choose to learn Chinese, you won't learn Chinese fast in the sense of becoming fluent amazingly quickly, but you can pick up enough to have a lot of fun, or maybe even get a better job.

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