Countries in Cantonese (2024)

FAQs

Countries in Cantonese? ›

If you're an English speaker, you might find Mandarin easier to learn than Cantonese. One reason is that Mandarin has only four tones, while Cantonese has six to nine tones. So listening to spoken Cantonese can be hard to differentiate individual words, making Mandarin's pronunciation easier and faster to grasp.

If you're an English speaker, you might find Mandarin easier to learn than Cantonese. One reason is that Mandarin has only four tones, while Cantonese has six to nine tones. So listening to spoken Cantonese can be hard to differentiate individual words, making Mandarin's pronunciation easier and faster to grasp.

The name Hong Kong is actually a phonetic translation of the city's Cantonese name 香港 (heung gong), which literally means “Fragrant Harbour”.

A large majority of the Taiwanese population is fluent in Mandarin, though many also speak a variety of Min Chinese known as Taiwanese Hokkien, commonly called Minnanyu (Chinese: 閩南語; pinyin: Mǐnnányǔ; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Bân-lâm-gú), Southern Min, or Hokkien.

Cantonese (or Yue 粵) is one of a number of language varieties (also referred to as dialects 方言) that make up the 'Chinese' or Sinitic branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family. Other Sinitic varieties include Mandarin, Xiang, Gan, Wu, Min, and Hakka.

So is it “nei” or “lei”? “Ngor” or “or”? The truth is, it's both. With the global spread of Cantonese, the truth is that the correct pronunciation of Cantonese is the one that everyone understands.