Would you want to learn Mandarin or Cantonese?
The Chinese language has few takers due to the sheer difficulty in mastering the tonal variations in pronunciation. Add to it the confusion of choosing Mandarin or Cantonese, each very competent in its own right.
Mandarin is spoken in and along the major parts of mainland China. It is also the official language of the Republic of China and many countries like Taiwan, Singapore and the United States.
Being the preferred Chinese dialect for education and media activities, Mandarin course materials in the form of MP3s and audio/video cassettes are made available to many Chinese schools in London. This makes learning Mandarin far more easy as compared to Cantonese.
Though a close contender of Mandarin with close to 65 million speakers, Cantonese offers serious challenges to a beginner. Cantonese has up to nine tonal differences as compared to the humble four intonations in Mandarin.
Owing its popularity to Hong Kong and its culture, a speaker of Cantonese is well understood in Hong Kong and the Chinese cities of Guangzhou and Guangdong.
From a language-learning point of view, one should always start with Mandarin due to its widespread popularity and easy interface.
An interesting fact about these dialects is that though Mandarin and Cantonese remain mutually unintelligible, they share the same script, which can be used for basic communication between the two dialects.
Cactus works with a range of schools in London to offer Mandarin and Cantonese courses at a variety of levels throughout the year. Please visit the Cactus website for Chinese course listings and to test your language level.
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