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Cantonese
Cantonese

Chinese
Chinese



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Cantonese
X
Chinese

Cantonese vs Chinese

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Countries

Countries

Hong Kong, Macau
China, Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore, Taiwan

Total No. Of Countries

25
0 46
👆🏻

National Language

China, Guangdong
China, Taiwan

Second Language

Not spoken in any of the countries
Republic of Brazil

Speaking Continents

Asia
Asia

Minority Language

Hawaii
Indonesia, Malaysia

Regulated By

Civil Service Bureau, Government of Hong Kong, Official Language Division
Chinese Language Standardization Council, National Commission on Language and Script Work, Promote Mandarin Council

Interesting Facts

  • Cantonese have lot of slangs, many of them include words that do not make sense at all and some also have English in them.
  • Even though Cantonese and Mandarin are dialects of Chinese, Cantonese has 8 tones instead of Mandarin's 4.
  • Chinese language is tonal, since meaning of a word changes according to its tone.
  • In Chinese language, there is no grammatical distinction between singular or plural, no declination of verbs according to tense, mood and aspect.

Similar To

Chinese Language
Japanese and Korean Languages

Derived From

-
-

Alphabets

Alphabets in

Alphabets

2826
18 247
👆🏻

Phonology

How Many Vowels

824
0 32
👆🏻

How Many Consonants

2023
9 60
👆🏻

Scripts

Chinese Characters and derivatives
Chinese Characters and derivatives

Writing Direction

Left-To-Right, Horizontal, Top-To-Bottom
Left-To-Right, Horizontal, Top-To-Bottom

Hard to Learn

Language Levels

106
2 12
👆🏻

Time Taken to Learn

88 weeks88 weeks
3 88
👆🏻

Greetings

Hello

您好
您好 (Nín hǎo)

Thank You

谢谢
谢谢 (Xièxiè)

How Are You?

你好吗?
你好吗? (Nǐ hǎo ma?)

Good Night

晚安
晚安 (Wǎn'ān)

Good Evening

晚上好
晚上好 (Wǎnshàng hǎo)

Good Afternoon

下午好
下午好 (Xiàwǔ hǎo)

Good Morning

早上好
早安 (Zǎo ān)

Please

请 (Qǐng)

Sorry

遗憾
遗憾 (Yíhàn)

Bye

再见
再见 (Zàijiàn)

I Love You

我爱你
我爱你 (Wǒ ài nǐ)

Excuse Me

原谅我
劳驾 (Láojià)

Dialects

Dialect 1

Guangzhou
Mandarin

Where They Speak

outside mainland China
China, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan

How Many People Speak

71,000,000.00960,000,000.00
1.5 960000000
👆🏻

Dialect 2

Xiguan
Wu

Where They Speak

Hong Kong
China, United States of America

How Many People Speak

71,000,000.0080,000,000.00
700 274000000
👆🏻

Dialect 3

Hong Kong
Yue

Where They Speak

Hong Kong
China, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam

How Many People Speak

70,000,000.0060,000,000.00
2 230000000
👆🏻

Total No. Of Dialects

310
0 188
👆🏻

How Many People Speak

How Many People Speak?

60.00 million1,051.00 million
0 1200
👆🏻

Speaking Population

16.00 %16.00 %
0 89
👆🏻

Native Speakers

52.00 million873.00 million
0 873
👆🏻

Second Language Speakers

71.00 million178.00 million
0.01 400
👆🏻

Native Name

Kwang Tung Wa
中文 (zhōngwén)

Alternative Names

Guangfu, Metropolitan Cantonese
Zhongwen, Hanyu

French Name

cantonais
chinois

German Name

Kantonesisch
Chinesisch

Pronunciation

[kʰɐn˧˥tʰœːn˧˥sɨ˧˥]
[ʈʂʰíŋ] [huà]

Ethnicity

Han Chinese
Han

History

Origin

17th century
1250 BC

Language Family

Sino-Tibetan Family
Sino-Tibetan Family

Subgroup

-
-

Branch

-
-

Language Forms

Early Forms

No early forms
No early forms

Standard Forms

Standard Cantonese
Standard Chinese

Language Position

11
1 120
👆🏻

Signed Forms

Signed Cantonese
Wenfa Shouyu 文法手語 ("Grammatical Sign Language", Signed Mandarin (Taiwan))

Scope

-
Individual

Code

ISO 639 1

No data available
zh

ISO 639 2

ISO 639 2/T

yue
zho

ISO 639 2/B

yue
chi

ISO 639 3

No data available
zho

ISO 639 6

yue
zho

Glottocode

cant1236
sini1245

Linguasphere

No data available
79-AAA

Types of Language

Language Type

-
Living

Language Linguistic Typology

-
Subject-Verb-Object

Language Morphological Typology

-
Analytic, Isolating

Cantonese vs Chinese Speaking Countries

There are plenty of languages spoken around the world. Every country has its own official language. Compare Cantonese vs Chinese speaking countries, so that you will have total count of countries that speak Cantonese or Chinese language.

  • Cantonese is spoken as a national language in: China, Guangdong.
  • Chinese is spoken as a national language in: China, Taiwan.

You will also get to know the continents where Cantonese and Chinese speaking countries lie. Based on the number of people that speak these languages, the position of Cantonese language is 1 and position of Chinese language is 1. Find all the information about these languages on Cantonese and Chinese.

Cantonese and Chinese Language History

Comparison of Cantonese vs Chinese language history gives us differences between origin of Cantonese and Chinese language. History of Cantonese language states that this language originated in 17th century whereas history of Chinese language states that this language originated in 1250 BC. Family of the language also forms a part of history of that language. More on language families of these languages can be found out on Cantonese and Chinese Language History.

Cantonese and Chinese Greetings

People around the world use different languages to interact with each other. Even if we cannot communicate fluently in any language, it will always be beneficial to know about some of the common greetings or phrases from that language. This is where Cantonese and Chinese greetings helps you to understand basic phrases in Cantonese and Chinese language. Cantonese word for "Hello" is 您好 or Chinese word for "Thank You" is 谢谢 (Xièxiè). Find more of such common Cantonese Greetings and Chinese Greetings. These greetings will help you to be more confident when conversing with natives that speak these languages.

Cantonese vs Chinese Difficulty

The Cantonese vs Chinese difficulty level basically depends on the number of Cantonese Alphabets and Chinese Alphabets. Also the number of vowels and consonants in the language plays an important role in deciding the difficulty level of that language. The important points to be considered when we compare Cantonese and Chinese are the origin, speaking countries, language family, different greetings, speaking population of these languages. Want to know in Cantonese and Chinese, which language is harder to learn? Time required to learn Cantonese is 88 weeks while to learn Chinese time required is 88 weeks.