# Cantonese: I want to learn Chinese



## linguist786

I want to say in Cantonese: 
"I want to learn Chinese because i find China very interesting"

Is this right?:
"wo xiang xue zhong wen yin wei wo dui zhong gui you hing tui"
 
(please correct me if i'm wrong)
 
Can somebody write this in chinese characters please?

And also, i would really really appreciate it if somebody can attach a sound file and tell me how it is pronounced. (or maybe even point me to a speech synthesiser website)
 
Thanks for any help.


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## Tatzingo

Hello,

There's a post by a forero called Vince which explains lots of things to do with the chinese language and there were links to "learn chinese" websites too! I'll see if i can find it.

Tatz.

Ps. You say you want to learn cantonese but you've written your attempt in Mandarin pinyin.

Pps. If i were you, i'd think carefully before deciding to learn cantonese. It is more difficult than mandarin, it lacks a good "pinyin" system and most people speak Mandarin, meaning that for business purposes, mandarin might be more useful.


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## Tatzingo

Hello,

Found it.

http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=157638

Have fun, whatever you decide to learn!

Tatz.

Ps. I can't type chinese idiogrames on my keyboard so i'll leave it to someone who can to write it out for you.


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## linguist786

oh that's very nice of you! that's a nice thread.
I'll consider that.


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## vince

linguist786 said:
			
		

> I want to say in Cantonese:
> "I want to learn Chinese because i find China very interesting"
> 
> Is this right?:
> "wo xiang xue zhong wen yin wei wo dui zhong gui you hing tui"


You are mixing up Mandarin and Cantonese pronunciation, which is not the same. You see, although Cantonese and Mandarin both use Chinese characters, the use of the same Chinese character between the two languages only shows that the Cantonese word and the Mandarin word are RELATED, but (usually) not the same. That is, Chinese characters preserve etymology, not pronunciation. Contrast this with alphabets, which usually preserve pronunciation but not etymology. The Chinese character for "to learn" is the same in Mandarin and Cantonese. In Mandarin, it is pronounced "xue", in Cantonese, "hok". So written down using the Latin alphabet, these the Mandarin word and the Cantonese word look completely separate.

Here is the opposite scenario.

Look at the Spanish and French words for "leaf". Spanish = hoja, French = feuille. They look completely different in the Latin alphabet, so we think of them as completely separate. But since they both derive from the same ancient word "folla", if they were written in Chinese characters they would be represented by a SINGLE character due to coming from the same source word. This is one of the reasons why French and Spanish look so different in writing while Standard Chinese/Mandarin and Written Chinese look more similar than they really are, misleading people learning Chinese languages into thinking they're nearly the same.


As for your example sentence,
I think you want to say something like:
"Ngo soeng hok jongman yanwai ngo doei jonggwok yau hing tsoei"

where "ng" is the consonant in English "si*ng*"
and "oe" is the vowel in French "s*oe*ur"

I am not sure whether this is acceptable Cantonese, we'll have to wait for a Cantonese native-speaker to tell us.


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## MingRaymond

Hi,

I would say 'Ngo soeng hok jongman yanwai ngo gwokduk jonggwok ho yau tsoei'. (我想學中文因為我覺得中文好有趣。)

Mandarin 'wo xiang xue zhong wen yin wei wo dui zhong gui you hing tui' and Cantonese 'Ngo soeng hok jongman yanwai ngo doei jonggwok yau hing tsoei' means 'I want to learn Chinese because I am interested in China.'
 
Cheers,
Ming


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## vince

Can "doei jonggwok yau hing tseoi" be used in spoken Cantonese?
How about "我覺得中文好有趣", is that acceptable in Mandarin/ Standard Chinese?

Or is it just that the second option isn't as common in Mandarin?


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## MingRaymond

vince said:
			
		

> Can "doei jonggwok yau hing tseoi" be used in spoken Cantonese?


 
Yes.



			
				vince said:
			
		

> How about "我覺得中文好有趣", is that acceptable in Mandarin/ Standard Chinese?
> 
> Or is it just that the second option isn't as common in Mandarin?


 
Yes. But I think it is common to see 很有趣 in the written form.

Ming


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## Isabelle_Wang

我想学中文（I want to learn Chinese ）因为我觉得中国很有趣because i find China very interesting


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## linguist786

Thank you!! I've put it as my MSN screen name now


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## Isabelle_Wang

Really?
That's great.
i'm really glad that anybody wanna learn chinese or is interested in chinese culture.
If have any question in learning chinese or you want to know anything about chinese, don't hesitate to ask me


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## linguist786

MingRaymond said:
			
		

> Hi,
> 
> I would say 'Ngo soeng hok jongman yanwai ngo gwokduk jonggwok ho yau tsoei'. (我想學*中文*因為我覺得*中文*好有趣。)
> 
> Mandarin 'wo xiang xue zhong wen yin wei wo dui zhong gui you hing tui' and Cantonese 'Ngo soeng hok jongman yanwai ngo doei jonggwok yau hing tsoei' means 'I want to learn Chinese because I am interested in China.'
> 
> Cheers,
> Ming


If you look at the green and the red, aren't they the same word? (zhoung wen).. is it supposed to be like that?.. because the transcription doesn't seem to match it (not that i know anything about chinese !!)


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## Tatzingo

linguist786 said:
			
		

> ________________________________________________________________
> 
> 
> 
> MingRaymond said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *MingRaymond*
> Hi,
> 
> I would say 'Ngo soeng hok jongman yanwai ngo gwokduk jonggwok ho yau tsoei'. (我想學*中文*因為我覺得*中文*好有趣。)
> 
> Mandarin 'wo xiang xue zhong wen yin wei wo dui zhong gui you hing tui' and Cantonese 'Ngo soeng hok jongman yanwai ngo doei jonggwok yau hing tsoei' means 'I want to learn Chinese because I am interested in China.'
> 
> Cheers,
> Ming
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ________________________________________________________________
> 
> If you look at the green and the red, aren't they the same word? (zhoung wen).. is it supposed to be like that?.. because the transcription doesn't seem to match it (not that i know anything about chinese !!)
Click to expand...


Hi Linguist,

Sorry about the format, not quite sure how to capture a quotation within a quote. (EDIT - just worked it out)  Anyway, let me explain;

Ngo soeng hok jongman yanwai ngo gwokduk jonggwokMAN ho yau tsoei'. (我想學*中文*因為我覺得*中文*好有趣。)

You've identified it correctly in this case. The idiogrammes are exactly the same and in both parts of the sentence, *中文 *means Chinese. So this sentence means "I want to learn Chinese because i find Chinese very interesting. If you wanted to say "I want to learn Chinese because i find CHINA very interesting," then this would be; 我想学中文因为我觉得*中国*很有趣 as suggested by Isabella Wang above.

Incidentally, you might have noticed a difference in some of the other idiogrammes in that sentence (in orange). However, rest assured that they mean exactly the same thing. It's just the same character in Traditional/Simple Chinese respectively.

Hope it's clear... or less muddled.

Tatz.


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## linguist786

Thanks for the explanation!


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## linguist786

Does anybody know of a chinese speech synthesiser website?? I'd love it if someone pointed me to the right direction!

Thanks.


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## vince

Cantonese or Mandarin? You must always specify the Chinese language when referring to spoken Chinese. Asking for a "Chinese" speech synthesizer is like asking for an "Indian" speech synthesizer. WHICH Indian language?!?

There probably aren't any Cantonese ones, as I fail to see a reason why one would be necessary, since most Cantonese people rarely write in Cantonese. Unless of course the Cantonese one was used to read actual Cantonese text (as opposed to Standard Written Chinese). Though I guess it would help for visually-impaired Cantonese people who want to read a written text.

Here is a Mandarin one I found: http://www.bell-labs.com/project/tts/mandarin.html


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## linguist786

vince said:
			
		

> Cantonese or Mandarin? You must always specify the Chinese language when referring to spoken Chinese. Asking for a "Chinese" speech synthesizer is like asking for an "Indian" speech synthesizer. WHICH Indian language?!?
> 
> There probably aren't any Cantonese ones, as I fail to see a reason why one would be necessary, since most Cantonese people rarely write in Cantonese. Unless of course the Cantonese one was used to read actual Cantonese text (as opposed to Standard Written Chinese). Though I guess it would help for visually-impaired Cantonese people who want to read a written text.
> 
> Here is a Mandarin one I found: http://www.bell-labs.com/project/tts/mandarin.html


Thanks! It's funny, I tried that before too - but everytime I press "synthesise", it says "page cannot be displayed" - i can't do anything to make it work!! (Does the same happen for anyone else?)


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## vince

hmm it seems like it's down

you might have to try to find another one.


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## melop

Microsoft has a Mandarin Chinese TTS engine, which is installed with Chinese version of Office. But most TTS cannot correctly deal with tones or sound changes in a real speech. If possible, listen to a native speaker, lol.

It's great to see someone interested in Cantonese, because most people would choose Mandarin. But as you said, Cantonese is very interesting.hahaha


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## linguist786

Well to be honest, i haven't really "chosen" _anything_ as of yet! But the reason i am thinking of Cantonese rather than Mandarin is because they speak Cantonese in Hong Kong - and Hong Kong's a big city for trade etc..

And also, i have Cantonese doesn't have the tones (the four tones) that Mandarin has - is this true?


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## MingRaymond

linguist786 said:
			
		

> Well to be honest, i haven't really "chosen" _anything_ as of yet! But the reason i am thinking of Cantonese rather than Mandarin is because they speak Cantonese in Hong Kong - and Hong Kong's a big city for trade etc..
> 
> And also, i have Cantonese doesn't have the tones (the four tones) that Mandarin has - is this true?


 
Sorry, the truth is--- Cantonese have 9 tones!

Ming


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## Tatzingo

linguist786 said:
			
		

> Well to be honest, i haven't really "chosen" _anything_ as of yet! But the reason i am thinking of Cantonese rather than Mandarin is because they speak Cantonese in Hong Kong - and Hong Kong's a big city for trade etc..
> 
> And also, i have Cantonese doesn't have the tones (the four tones) that Mandarin has - is this true?



I agree with what Raymond has said. If you are avoiding Mandarin because of difficulty in distinguishing one tone from another, then don't even bother with cantonese. There can be up to nine tones per "character" and thus it is notoriously more difficult to pick up than mandarin. Additionally, reiterating what has already been stated implicitly, Mandarin is currently more "learner-friendly". My opinion of course... ultimately, choice is yours! ;-)

Tatz.


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## melop

Well, about the tones, you may be surprise to hear this: Cantonese doesn't have the 4 tones in Mandarin, but instead there're 9!(or 8?) 

And Cantonese has more "strange" vowels than Mandarin, and there're lots of grammar rules to be memorized. If you want to communicate with people from most part of China, mandarin is a good choice. It is said that Hongkong is also promoting Mandarin, so hopefully more people could understand and even speak good mandarin there some day.

And plus, you don't actually have to speak Cantonese in Hongkong, English will do because most Hongkong people can speak influent English or at least understand it.

Oh, and about the sentence, I would say:
我想学中文因为我对中国很感兴趣。
Mandarin Pinyin: Wo2 xiang3 xue2 zhong1 wen2 yin1 wei4 wo3 dui4 zhong1 guo2 hen3(change to 2 here) gan3 xing4 qu4.
Cantonese: .....(as given by others)... gno doei jonggwok hou gem hing tseoi"

To give exact pronunciation for Cantonese is very difficult, I don't know how either.


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## linguist786

Judging from the last three posts - Mandarin it is!

I have a question which baffles me though.. (I think i'll open a new thread for it though)


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## Gracely

linguist786

May be I can help you
but I can't post URLs 

so,I leave you Private Message 
enjoy~

If anyone need this,leave private message to me


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## nhk9

Tatzingo said:


> Hi Linguist,
> 
> 
> Ngo soeng hok jongman yanwai ngo gwokduk jonggwokMAN ho yau tsoei'. (我想學*中文*因為我覺得*中文*好有趣。)


 
Actually, it should be:

我想學中文因為我覺得中文好有趣
ngo seung hok chungman yanwai ngo gokdak chungman ho yauchui

Note that 覺 is gok, not gwok

The above romanization method is pretty much accepted nowadays by the HK government as a way for transliterating Cantonese.


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## Zulis

edit:
argh...old thread.


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