What is the difference between Mandarin and Cantonese?

Mandarin is the dialect of the Chinese people, spoken in Beijing, China. Mandarin is said to be the “standard language”, being used in modern China.

What is the difference between Mandarin and Cantonese?

However, strictly speaking, Mandarin is a very popular dialect in China.

Besides, Cantonese is the language spoken mainly in the south of mainland China and Hong Kong and Macau, and it is also a kind of dialect. Especially in Hong Kong, Cantonese is spoken every day and is widely used in TV, magazines, movies and songs, etc.

Like Vietnamese, Mandarin and Cantonese have completely different pronunciations. Mandarin has 4 tones while Cantonese has 9 tones. Cantonese has its own intonation and rhythm.

Many Chinese people can speak Mandarin, but only a few people in certain regions can speak Cantonese.

“Simplified characters” are characters which were simplified by the writing reform of the 1960s, and now used in most areas of mainland China and Singapore.

Additional, “traditional characters” are close to “old Chinese characters” in Japanese, this is a type of kanji with many strokes, almost not being simplified.

Although the writing style is complicated, it preserves the traditional and balance beauty of Chinese characters. “Traditional characters” are used in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Macau.