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Japanese
Japanese

Cantonese
Cantonese



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Japanese vs Cantonese

Countries

Countries

Japan
Hong Kong, Macau

Total No. Of Countries

12
0 46
👆🏻

National Language

Japan
China, Guangdong

Second Language

Not spoken in any of the countries
Not spoken in any of the countries

Speaking Continents

Asia, Pacific
Asia

Minority Language

Palau
Hawaii

Regulated By

Agency for Cultural Affairs (文化庁) at the Ministry of Education
Civil Service Bureau, Government of Hong Kong, Official Language Division

Interesting Facts

  • In Japanese Language, there are 4 different ways to address people: kun, chan, san and sama.
  • There are many words in Japanese language which end with vowel letter, which determines the structure and rhythm of Japanese.
  • 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.

Similar To

Korean Language
Chinese Language

Derived From

-
-

Alphabets

Alphabets in

Alphabets

9928
18 247
👆🏻

Phonology

How Many Vowels

58
0 32
👆🏻

How Many Consonants

1420
9 60
👆🏻

Scripts

Kana
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

510
2 12
👆🏻

Time Taken to Learn

88 weeks88 weeks
3 88
👆🏻

Greetings

Hello

こんにちは (Kon'nichiwa)
您好

Thank You

ありがとう (Arigatō)
谢谢

How Are You?

お元気ですか (O genki desu ka?)
你好吗?

Good Night

おやすみなさい (Oyasuminasai)
晚安

Good Evening

こんばんは (Konbanwa)
晚上好

Good Afternoon

こんにちは (Konnichiwa!)
下午好

Good Morning

おはよう (Ohayō)
早上好

Please

お願いします (Onegaishimasu)

Sorry

ごめんなさい (Gomen'nasai)
遗憾

Bye

さようなら (Sayōnara)
再见

I Love You

愛しています (Aishiteimasu)
我爱你

Excuse Me

すみません (Sumimasen)
原谅我

Dialects

Dialect 1

Sanuki
Guangzhou

Where They Speak

Kagawa
outside mainland China

How Many People Speak

1,000,000.0071,000,000.00
1.5 960000000
👆🏻

Dialect 2

Hakata
Xiguan

Where They Speak

Fukuoka
Hong Kong

How Many People Speak

127,000,000.0071,000,000.00
700 274000000
👆🏻

Dialect 3

Kansai
Hong Kong

Where They Speak

kansai
Hong Kong

How Many People Speak

127,000,000.0070,000,000.00
2 230000000
👆🏻

Total No. Of Dialects

313
0 188
👆🏻

How Many People Speak

How Many People Speak?

128.00 million60.00 million
0 1200
👆🏻

Speaking Population

1.90 %16.00 %
0 89
👆🏻

Native Speakers

128.00 million52.00 million
0 873
👆🏻

Second Language Speakers

3.00 million71.00 million
0.01 400
👆🏻

Native Name

日本語
Kwang Tung Wa

Alternative Names

Nihongo
Guangfu, Metropolitan Cantonese

French Name

japonais
cantonais

German Name

Japanisch
Kantonesisch

Pronunciation

/nihoɴɡo/: [nihõŋɡo], [nihõŋŋo]
[kʰɐn˧˥tʰœːn˧˥sɨ˧˥]

Ethnicity

Japanese (Yamato)
Han Chinese

History

Origin

1185
17th century

Language Family

Japonic Family
Sino-Tibetan Family

Subgroup

-
-

Branch

-
-

Language Forms

Early Forms

Old Japanese, Early Middle Japanese, Late Middle Japanese and Early Modern Japanese
No early forms

Standard Forms

Japanese
Standard Cantonese

Language Position

81
1 120
👆🏻

Signed Forms

Signed Japanese
Signed Cantonese

Scope

Individual
-

Code

ISO 639 1

ja
No data available

ISO 639 2

ISO 639 2/T

jpn
yue

ISO 639 2/B

jpn
yue

ISO 639 3

jpn
No data available

ISO 639 6

jpn
yue

Glottocode

nucl1643
cant1236

Linguasphere

45-CAA-a
No data available

Types of Language

Language Type

Living
-

Language Linguistic Typology

Subject-Object-Verb
-

Language Morphological Typology

Agglutinative, Synthetic
-

Japanese vs Cantonese Speaking Countries

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

  • Japanese is spoken as a national language in: Japan.
  • Cantonese is spoken as a national language in: China, Guangdong.

You will also get to know the continents where Japanese and Cantonese speaking countries lie. Based on the number of people that speak these languages, the position of Japanese language is 8 and position of Cantonese language is 1. Find all the information about these languages on Japanese and Cantonese.

Japanese and Cantonese Language History

Comparison of Japanese vs Cantonese language history gives us differences between origin of Japanese and Cantonese language. History of Japanese language states that this language originated in 1185 whereas history of Cantonese language states that this language originated in 17th century. 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 Japanese and Cantonese Language History.

Japanese and Cantonese 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 Japanese and Cantonese greetings helps you to understand basic phrases in Japanese and Cantonese language. Japanese word for "Hello" is こんにちは (Kon'nichiwa) or Cantonese word for "Thank You" is 谢谢. Find more of such common Japanese Greetings and Cantonese Greetings. These greetings will help you to be more confident when conversing with natives that speak these languages.

Japanese vs Cantonese Difficulty

The Japanese vs Cantonese difficulty level basically depends on the number of Japanese Alphabets and Cantonese 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 Japanese and Cantonese are the origin, speaking countries, language family, different greetings, speaking population of these languages. Want to know in Japanese and Cantonese, which language is harder to learn? Time required to learn Japanese is 88 weeks while to learn Cantonese time required is 88 weeks.