Poll: How many of you speak Chinese or Cantonese?

[snut]

i do, really poorly tho

 

[Aquaman]

I speak 'Toisan' (roughly translated........ chinese farmer)

I do understand Cantonese though, thank to many hours of watching chinese tv with my parents.

Cheers,
Aquaman

 

[lupohki]

"lay day gong meah ah?"

 

[Mday]

what?

cantonese is a dialect (by chinese linguists, despite the lack of mutual intelligibility) of chinese (languages spoken in china)

either way, i speak neither. i can understand both though.

 

[goophie]

i speak mandarin, since my parents speak it

i'm learn some cantonese from my friends to learn the more important phrases..

like:
Where's the bathroom?
i'm hungry
Let's sleep together.

Cantonese and Mandarin are actually the same language, just different pronunciation. Of course there's differences, but the basic set of words/characters are same in both languages.

 

[Unsickle]

Mandarin. Can listen and speak,but illiterate.

 

[Imported]

My mom is Chinese, knows like 20+ languages from Vietnamese to Japanese to almost all the Chinese dialects.. I used to be able to speak Mandarin really well when I was like 3, but I wasn't put in a Chinese school and therefore forgot most of it because I went to a public english school. I can understand a bit now, speak a tiny bit, but can't read it.

 

[Gibson486]

I hate to braeak teh bubble, but if you speak Cantonese, then you speak Chinese. Anyways, i speak very simple Cantonese.

 

[Balt]

I speak neither, but I have a friend who speaks both. I believe Cantonese and Chinese are written identically, but are spoken somewhat differently.

 

[jonnyjack]

i only understand cantonese, better at listening than speaking but i can when i need to...cannot read or write it except numbers 1 to 3

 

[freedexter]

yes. 'nuff said.

 

[The Wildcard]

Chinese or Cantonese. I guess you mean Mandarin or Cantonese, hehe. Mandarin here, although i can understand some Cantonese and i am trying to learn it.

 

[prodigy]

toi san

 

[Static911]

cantonese sounds too much like vietnamese....

Static911

 

[damocles]

I wish i could speak some Chinese, but it is such a DAMN hard language to learn (I know English is too). Basically i just get blown away by the tones. I speak a little Thai and hope to pick up some Korean when i move there soon.

 

[starlitt]

Isn't Cantonese like Lao or Thai? I remember I met a Cantanese girl she said a few words and I understood her...hummmm

 

[erub]

I ate chinese buffet for dinner. Does that count?

 

[SSP]

gregshin, I'll as one of my male buddies first. Sorry... I ain't that stupid.

 

[BiggieN]

The reason cantonese "sounds" like vietnamese/Loasian/cambodian/etc is because alot of cantonese people reside in that area and the languages have been intermingled, kinda like how us jook sings speak Chinglish.

 

[dcdomain]

My brother and I speak Cantonese... hehehe more like Chinglish. My little sister speaks Cantonese and Mandarin (my aunt took care of her when she was younger, and she only spoke Mandarin).

My mother speaks Mandarin, Taiwanese, Malaysian and English... and some other lesser known dialects. My dad speaks Mandarin, and Toi San... both my mother and father also learned Cantonese when they got to the states.

So my brother and I speak like second hand Cantonese... my brother and I can also understand Mandarin and speak a little of it...

The poll states: Chinese and Cantonese for the first one, shouldn't it be Mandarin and Cantonese? Or are you saying since Mandarin is the accepted dialect of China, that it is now called Chinese?

 

[JeremyJoe]

na ho ma

 

[AndyHui]

I speak fluent Cantonese, Mandarin a little slowly, and understand some TeoChew, Hokkien, ToiSan and a few others too. I also read and write as well.

Other languages I know are French and Latin (and with those comes a rudimentary understanding of Spanish, Italian and a few others) and Japanese.

 

[phatcow]

Fluent Cantonese here....

 

[nippyjun]

nope

 

[ETLA]

Mandrain...me taiwanese