Today we're going to look at the differences between Chinese and Chinese

今天我們要來聊聊中文和中文的差別 (啊？)

Well, what I mean is we'll be looking at two of the many Chinese languages, Mandarin and Cantonese

我指的是兩種中國的語言：中文和廣東話

As I mentioned in my video on Chinese, Chinese is not a single language.

如同我在介紹中文的影片提到，中國的語言不只有一種，

But rather a number of dialect groups that are united by a common writing system.

而是很多種方言，一起使用同樣的文字系統，

The spoken languages are different and generally mutually unintelligible.

口語方面則不盡相同，彼此間也不互通，

Which is definitely the case with Mandarin and Cantonese?

像是中文和廣東話？

Which are both Semitic languages or Chinese languages spoken in China.

它們都是閃語系，也是在中國裡被使用的語言

Mandarin is spoken by 960 million native speakers.

有大約 960萬人以中文為母語，

Mainly in the north of China, but is now used all over mainland China and Taiwan as the official language of government media and education,

主要分布在中國北方，不過現在中文是全中國與台灣的官方語言，

and it's one of the four official languages of Singapore as well.

也是新加坡四種官方語言的其中一種，

Cantonese on the other hand is spoken by 50 to 60 million native speakers in Hong Kong, Macau

另一方面，在香港、澳門、廣州和鄰近地區有大約五十到六十萬人以廣東話為母語

Guangzhou and some adjacent areas as well as in Chinese diaspora communities around the world.

也包括散居海外的中國人群體

It's part of the wider Yue branch of Chinese

廣東話是粵語的一個分支，

Before we get into the main differences between the two languages

在探究這兩種語言的差異之前，

it's important to point out that these days speakers of either language typically write in standard Chinese or

我必須要先指出現今不管是說中文還是廣東話，他們都是使用標準中文字，或稱華語，

Hua which is based on the Beijing dialect of Mandarin, but when Cantonese speakers read standard Chinese?

這是奠基於北京普通話，但是當說廣東話的人閱讀中文字時，

They say each word using Cantonese pronunciation

他們是用廣東話發音，

Which creates the misconception that Cantonese is exactly the same as Mandarin except for the pronunciation, but that's not the case. Spoken

這造成廣東話跟中文只有發音不同、其他方面都一樣的迷思，

Cantonese is also somewhat different in terms of grammar and vocabulary and there's also written

廣東話的口語在文法和單字方面也跟中文有些不同

vernacular, Cantonese

廣東話也有自己的文字─粵語白話文

Which reflects the spoken language and is used in some informal contexts. The differences we talk about in this video will be based on?

能對應廣東話的發音，使用在某些非正式的文章，

spoken, Cantonese

影片中提到廣東話與中文的不同是以廣東話口語

and its written equivalent, written vernacular Cantonese. By far the largest difference between Mandarin and Cantonese lies in pronunciation

和相對應的粵語白話文為基礎。目前中文和廣東話最大的不同是發音，

Both of these languages are tonal languages

這兩種語言都屬於聲調語言，

But they each have a different number of tones. Mandarin has four tones plus one neutral tone

但它們各自有不同的音調。中文有四種聲調，再加上一個輕聲

there's a high flat tone a rising tone a

分別是一聲、二聲、

Falling rising tone a falling tone, and the neutral tone, for example,

三聲、四聲、以及輕聲

bāo, báo, bǎo, bào.

例如「褒」、「雹」、「寶」、「抱」

The neutral tone is a short de-emphasized syllable which is said with no regard to tone

輕聲是一種短聲調、不強調重要性的音節，據說和聲調無關

Cantonese has six basic tones

廣東話有六種基本聲調：

There's a high flat tone

陰平聲、

a mid rising tone, a mid flat tone, a low falling tone, a low rising tone, and a low flat tone

陰上聲、陰去聲、陽平聲、陽上聲、和陽去聲

si

(廣東話)

si

(廣東話)

si

(廣東話)

Si, si si

(廣東話)

Some people count three additional tones for a total of nine. These are historical tones that were used for syllables ending in p, t, or k.

有些人會將三個額外的聲調算進去，總共九個聲調，這三個額外聲調是歷史上用來標示以p、t、或k結尾的音節

In standard Cantonese

在標準廣東話裡，

They've merged with other tones, so that the only remainder of these tones is the stop consonant at the end of the syllable

這三個聲調已經和其他聲調結合，所以唯一剩下來的是在音節結尾的塞音，

So if we compare the two sets of tones

所以如果我們比較兩種語言的音調，

You'll see that Mandarin has a tone that falls then Rises which is something that Cantonese doesn't have

可以看到中文有一個先下降再上揚的音調，這是廣東話沒有的

You'll also notice that Mandarin has a narrower range of tones

也可以注意到中文的音調範圍較小

Cantonese has a wider range of tones, with tones essentially in two ranges the mid to high range and the low range. this makes

廣東話的音調範圍大，有些音調會介於高音調和低音調的中間

Cantonese harder for English speakers to learn than Mandarin because instead of

這使得比起中文，廣東話對英語母語人士而言更難學，

distinguishing only the movement of a tone they also have to

因為除了要分辨音調的變化，他們也必須

Distinguish whether a tone is in the mid to high range or the low range. In both Mandarin and Cantonese,

分清楚某個音調是不是在高音調與低音調的中間。在中文、廣東話、

and all Chinese languages for that matter, each Chinese character or

和所有中國的語言，每個中文字─

Hànzì

或稱「漢字」─

Represents one morpheme. Either a word or a meaningful part of a word, which can't be further divided

代表一個語素。語素是指一個字或字裡面有意義的部分，並且不能再被拆開

But each character is pronounced differently in Mandarin and Cantonese. One example of this is the word for I in Mandarin. It's pronounced (Mandarin)

不過每個字在中文和廣東話的發音是不同的。其中一個例子是中文的「我」，發音為「ㄨㄛˇ」，音調是三聲、或稱「上聲」；

With the third tone or falling rising tone. While in Cantonese

而在廣東話，

It's pronounced "ngóh", with the fifth tone or low rising tone so the tone is different

這個字的音調是第五聲─也就是陽上聲─，所以音調是不一樣的

But also notice that the initial consonant sound is different as well

也可以看到開頭的子音也不同

Another example is this word which means China in Mandarin.

另一個例子是中文裡的「中國」，

It's pronounced "Zhōngguó", with a high flat tone and a rising tone, and in Cantonese

發音是「ㄓㄨㄥ ㄍㄨㄛˊ」，兩個字分別是一聲和二聲；

It's pronounced "jūnggwok", with a high flat tone and a mid flat tone

而在廣東話，音調是陰平聲和陰去聲，

The pronunciation of these two words might sound pretty close

這兩個字在中文和廣東話的發音也許聽起來很接近，

But the tones are partially different and remember that the meaning of words is partly determined by tones

但兩種語言的音調有些部分不同，並且請記住中文字的意義某種程度上是由音調決定的

Notice that the second character is

此外，第二個字 (國)

pronounced with a cup sound at the end in Cantonese, while in Mandarin it ends in a vowel sound. In Mandarin every syllable ends in

在廣東話的發音結尾有k的音，而在中文結尾是母音。中文裡的每個音節

A vowel or in a nasal sound in Cantonese however syllables can end in the stop consonants /p/, /t/, and /k/ as well

都是以母音或鼻音結尾；不過在廣東話音節的結尾也可以是 /p/、/t/ 或是 /k/ 的音，

Pronunciation differences between Mandarin and Cantonese are often consistent. This character that we just looked at is

中文和廣東話的發音差異通常是一致的。這個剛剛提到的字 (中)

Pronounced "Zhōng" in Mandarin, and so is this character and this one among many others. In Cantonese,

發音是「ㄓㄨㄥ」，這個字在廣東話

they're all pronounced "jūng". The difference here lies mainly in the initial consonant sound. The systems of

的「伀」、「忠」還有某些字發音都是「jūng」，兩個語言的發音差異主要是在開頭子音，

Romanization are different for Mandarin and Cantonese so the Roman characters might be a little misleading here

中文和廣東話的羅馬字拼音系統不同，因此這裡的羅馬拼音可能會誤導觀眾，

But the initial consonant in Mandarin is something like the English J sound,

中文裡「中」羅馬拼音的開頭母音有點像英文的"j"

but with your tongue curled back. The initial consonant in Cantonese is [tsʊŋ]

不過有捲舌；在廣東話，字首子音

like TS in English. Think of the end of the word cats

是類似英文的 "ts" 音，就像 cats (貓) 的結尾

Let's look at three more characters first in Mandarin "Jiàn"

來看看其他三個字：「建」、

"Jiàn", "Jiān"

「見」和「堅」

and in Cantonese, "gin",

廣東話的發音分別是 (廣東話)

"gin", "gīn".

(廣東話) ，

In this case. We can see that the consonants and vowels consistently correspond

在這個例子可以看出除了兩者的音調不一樣之外，

But that a different tone in Mandarin corresponds to a different tone in Cantonese

子音和母音能一致對應

But the sounds don't always correspond like this. There are also characters that have the same pronunciation in one language but different

不過中文和廣東話的發音差異不一定都是一致的，

pronunciations in the other

有些字在一個語言裡的發音一樣，但在另一個語言完全不同，

in Mandarin, there's "xiè",

例如中文的「謝」、

"xié",

「鞋」、

"xiě"

「寫」；

But in Cantonese they're pronounced /zeh/

在廣東話發音分別是 (廣東話)

/haàih/

(廣東話)

/sé/

(廣東話)

Here we can see that the Mandarin sounds don't consistently correspond with Cantonese sounds. In Mandarin

這裡我們可以看出中文和廣東話的發音未必有可以對應的模式，

They're pronounced the same except for the tones, but the three words are pronounced in three completely different waysi n Cantonese

在中文，這三個字的發音一樣，只是音調不同；不過在廣東話發音完全不同

Differences in grammar

文法差異

Both languages are fundamentally SVO

基本上兩種語言語法結構都是主詞─動詞─受詞

For example here's a sentence meaning "I read those books" First in Mandarin. (Mandarin). Next in Cantonese

例如這個句子意思是「我看了那些書」

(Cantonese)

(廣東話)

Word-for-word both sentences translate as I read those book, so you can see that both are SVO

若一個字一個字看，翻成英文都是「我─看了─那些─書」，句法結構都是SVO─

subject-verb-object

主詞─動詞─受詞

Even though the words are different, In both languages the verb consists of two parts, the verb itself followed by the perfective marker

雖然字不一樣，在這兩種語言裡，動作詞都由動詞本身和完成式標記組成，

which shows completion, and in both languages, the object includes two parts, a determiner followed by the noun.

表示一個動作的完成。受詞包含兩個部分─限定詞和名詞

A determiner is a word like an article or a demonstrative adjective, which tells us information about which now and we're talking about

限定詞是指像冠詞或指示形容詞，告訴我們現在在說的事物的相關資訊，

One difference can be noted in sentences that have a direct object. In basic sentences in mandarin, the indirect object

然而在直接受詞的句子裡仍然有個不同的地方。中文基本的句子中，直接受詞

Comes before the direct object, while in Cantonese it comes after

在間接受詞前；廣東話則是直接受詞是在間接受詞之後

For example here's a sentence in each language meaning "Give me a pen". In Mandarin

例如這個句子意思是「給我一枝筆」

We would say (Mandarin), and in Cantonese, (Cantonese)

中文我們會說「給我一枝筆」，廣東話發音是 (廣東話)

Notice that these are imperative sentences, commands or instructions

請注意這個句子是祈使句，表示命令與指示

Word-for-word the Mandarin sentence translates as give me a pen

逐字來看，中文的句子是「給─我─一枝─筆」；

The Cantonese sentence translates as give a pen me

廣東話是「給─一枝─筆─我」，

with the indirect object in the sentence final position after the direct object

間接受詞是在句子最後、直接受詞後面，

Notice that the word meaning. I and the phrase meaning "a pen" are reversed

請注意每個字的意思，「我」和「一枝筆」的順序對調了

Let's take a look at the phrase meaning a pen for a second. It consists of three parts first the word meaning one

我們來討論一下「一枝筆」，這個詞組包含三個部分：「一」、

Followed by a word that functions as a counter for long cylindrical objects, and then the word for pen

圓柱狀長條物體所用的量詞 (枝)、「筆」

In other cases the indirect object is in the same position as in Mandarin before the direct object

而在廣東話的其他句子，間接受詞和中文一樣，是在直接受詞之前，

Like in this sentence meaning "he sends me a book" in Mandarin

像是這個句子意思是「他送我一本書」

(Mandarin), and in Cantonese (Cantonese)

廣東話發音為 (廣東話)，

Notice right here that in both sentences the indirect object comes after the verb and before the direct object.

兩個句子的間接受詞都是在動詞之後、直接受詞之前，

In both languages the indirect object could go after the direct object, but another word functioning like a preposition meaning "to" would be necessary

兩種語言的間接受詞都可以在直接受詞之後，但要加上一個類似英文"to"的介係詞 (給)

Another difference is the way that comparisons are formed in Mandarin and Cantonese. Here's a sentence meaning, I'm bigger than you. In Mandarin

中文和廣東話另一個差異是比較級句子的結構。這個句子意思是「我比你大」，

you say (Mandarin), while in Cantonese you say (Cantonese).

中文發音是 (中文)，廣東話是 (廣東話)，

Word for word the Mandarin sentence is I compare you big or you could think of it as I

逐字來看，中文是「我─比─你─大」，或是

compared to you and big the Cantonese sentence translates as I

「我─跟你比─大」，廣東話是「我─大─過你」，

Big more than you, so you can see that in the Mandarin sentence the adjective comes at the end

可以看出中文句子中，形容詞出現在最後；

While in the Cantonese sentence it comes before the comparative word and the pronoun meaning you

廣東話的形容詞則是在比較級和代名詞「你」前面，

Notice that the comparative word is different in the two languages

因此中文和廣東話的比較級句法不同

differences in vocabulary. In Chinese languages words are represented by ideographic graphic characters called hanzou

字彙差異。中文的文字是以表意的圖像文字系統表示，稱為「漢字」，

sometimes Mandarin and Cantonese use different words

有時候中文和廣東話會使用不同的漢字，

Represented by different Chinese characters to represent the same concept, and in other cases the same Chinese character it might have a somewhat different

表達相同概念，而在某些情況，同樣的漢字在這兩種語言裡

meaning or usage in either language

所代表的意涵也會不同

The difference in vocabulary could be as high as 50%

字彙的差異可能高達百分之五十，

That's when comparing Mandarin to spoken Cantonese and written vernacular Cantonese. Here are some examples of different vocabulary

這是比較中文、廣東話口語、廣東話文字得出的結果。以下是關於不同字彙的例子

These words function as copula verbs like "is" in English. (Mandarin) is used in Mandarin. When read in Cantonese

這兩個字是聯繫動詞，類似的英文的Be動詞"is"，中文為「是」；

It's pronounced (Cantonese)

廣東話則是「係」，

But the typical Cantonese word is (Cantonese)

不過常見的廣東話發音是 (廣東話)，

This character is also used in Mandarin and is pronounced si, but it's used with the basic meaning of relation or connection

這個字也有在中文使用，發音是「ㄒㄧˋ」，不過是用來表達跟關聯和關係有關的意涵

These are negation words meaning no or not in Mandarin. In Mandarin it's (Mandarin)

這兩個字是否定字，中文的意思是「沒有」或是「不」，發音為「ㄅㄨˋ」，

This word is also used in Cantonese and pronounced (Cantonese)

「不」在廣東話發音是 (廣東話)，

but but it's used more often in standard writing than the colloquial Cantonese word (Cantonese). This word is not used in Mandarin.

但跟口語用字「唔」比起來，「不」較常使用在正式書寫。「唔」不會在中文使用

If we look at the word for teacher in both languages

我們來看看「老師」這個單字，

We'll see that Mandarin uses the word (Mandarin), while Cantonese uses the word (Cantonese)

中文是「老師」，廣東話則是用「先生」表示，

This word is also used in Cantonese with the pronunciation (Cantonese)

「老師」這個字在廣東話發音是 (廣東話)，

This word is also used in Mandarin with the pronunciation

中文也有「先生」這個詞，發音是

Say Shen, and means mister or husband actually in Cantonese it has both of those meanings as well as the meaning of teacher

「ㄒㄧㄢ ㄕㄥ」，是對男士的稱謂或是指丈夫，不過在廣東話，這個字除了老師也有跟中文同樣的意思

But from what I hear this word (Cantonese) is not used by younger people who use (Cantonese) instead for the meaning of teacher

不過就我所知，年輕人不太用廣東話的「先生」，而是用「老師」這個詞代表老師

These are the words for bus. In Mandarin is (Mandarin)

這些字代表公車。中文是「公共汽車」，

These four characters could be translated literally as something like public, shared, gas, car

這四個字照字面翻大概是「公共的─共有的─汽油─車」，

But normally these two characters form the word meaning public and these two form the word meaning car.

但通常這兩個字 (公共) 代表公用的；另外兩個字 (汽車) 代表車，

in Cantonese it's

在廣東話

(Cantonese), a word derived from the English word bus

則是「巴士」，是借用英文的「bus」，

two Chinese characters

並且以兩個發音類似「bus」的漢字

with sounds similar to those of the word bus were chosen to represent this English borrowing. This type of

代表這個外來語，

Borrowing from English is more common in Cantonese particularly in the Hong Kong variety because it was a dependent territory of the UK.

這種外來語借用在廣東話更為普遍，尤其是香港地區，因為那裡曾經是英國屬地

In Mandarin, to ask someone's name, you would say (Mandarin). In Cantonese you would say (Cantonese)

如果要詢問他人姓名，中文我們會說「你叫什麼名字」，廣東話是 (廣東話)，

Here you can see that the word order is the same, so the sentences are

可以看到字詞順序相同，

Translatable word for word. If we translate word for word, we get you call what name but some of the words are different

逐字翻譯為：「你─叫─什麼─名字」，但有些字還是不一樣，

The word for what is different and the word for name or first name is different. In Mandarin

中文和廣東話代表「什麼」、「姓」或「名字」的字不同，

It's a two character compound word and in Cantonese

中文是兩個字 (姓、名) 組成的複合詞，

It's a single character of course even the words that are the same are pronounced differently in either language

在廣東話則是用單一漢字代表 (名)，當然雖然都有「名」這個字，但發音還是不同的

This word meaning you is pronounced in Mandarin as (Mandarin) with a falling rising tone. In Cantonese

中文的「你」發音為「ㄋ一ˇ」，音調是第三聲

It's lay with a low rising tone. You may have noticed that the Cantonese audio recording sounded more like

廣東話是 (廣東話)，聲調是陽上聲。你可能注意到錄音聽起來像是

Lay with an initial L

以 L 為開頭的"Lay"，

Sound rather than (Cantonese) with an initial /n/ sound. the /n/ sound is considered proper Cantonese

而不是 N 當開頭，以 N 為開頭的發音是比較正統的廣東話；

while the L sound is considered casual or relaxed pronunciation

L 為開頭的是用在比較口語和非正式的場合

This word meaning call is pronounced in Mandarin as (Mandarin) with the falling tone. In Cantonese it's

「叫」這個字在中文發音是「ㄐㄧㄠˋ」，音調是第四聲，

(Cantonese) with a mid flat tone

在廣東話，這個字的音調是陰去聲

This word or word component meaning name is pronounced in Mandarin as (Mandarin) with a rising tone, and in Cantonese

「名」這個字或複合字在中文發音是二聲「ㄇ一ㄥˊ」，

It's (Cantonese) with a mid rising tone

廣東話是陰上聲

Note that throughout this video I've been using traditional Chinese characters for both Mandarin and Cantonese

在整部影片我都是用繁體字解釋中文和廣東話，

but in mainland China, Singapore and Malaysia

不過中國大陸、新加坡和馬來西亞

simplified Chinese characters are used for Mandarin while traditional characters are used in Taiwan. As for Cantonese, in Hong Kong and Macau,

都是使用簡體字；繁體字則在台灣使用，至於廣東話，香港和澳門地區使用繁體字；

Traditional characters are used. In Guangzhou and surrounding areas people normally use

廣州和鄰近地區大多使用簡體字

Simplified characters for Cantonese. Some people think that Mandarin is always written in simplified characters, and that Cantonese is always written in

有些人以為中文文字都是簡體字；廣東話都是寫繁體字，

Traditional characters, but it's not that simple

事實沒有那麼簡單

You may be asking yourself, which language is better to learn well

你可能會想問學哪個語言比較好，

there are definite benefits to learning either one if

學習兩者之一確實都會有益處，如果你學中文，

You learn Mandarin, you'll be understood all over mainland China as well as Taiwan, and also in Singapore and Malaysia

你可以與整個中國、台灣、與新加坡、馬來西亞的人溝通，

But they'll probably just speak English to you

不過他們可能只會跟你說英語；

and if you learn

而如果你學廣東話，

Cantonese, you'll be able to communicate with people in the southern part of mainland China as well as Hong Kong and Macau and you'll be

你可以與中國南方、香港和澳門的人互動、

able to enjoy all of those famous movies from Hong Kong

可以看懂那些著名的香港電影，

Either way if you have a deep cultural interest in either of these languages that will certainly make it easier to learn

無論如何，如果你對他們的文化感到興趣，一定能讓你學得更容易

the question of the day: For native speakers of either Mandarin or Cantonese to what extent can you understand the other language when it's spoken?

今日問題：中文和粵語的母語人士對話時，互相可以理解多少？

How about when it's written, and for learners of either language have you taken a look at the other language?

如果是文字方面呢？正在學習中文或廣東話的人們，你們有看過另外一種語言嗎？

What similarities and differences did you notice? Be sure to follow Langfocus on Facebook Twitter and Instagram

有注意到哪些相似點或不同？最後務必在臉書、推特、或I G 追蹤 Langfocus，

And I'm not sure if you can follow those in China, but please try and once again

我不確定你能不能在中國使用這些軟體，但還是請試試看

I would like to say thank you to all of my wonderful patreon supporters, especially these ones right here on the screen

我想再次感謝所有的 Patreon 支持者，你們都很棒，尤其是螢幕上的這些人，

They are my top tier patreon supporters, so many thanks to them. Thank you for watching and have a nice day

他們是在 Patreon 最支持我的人，非常感謝他們。感謝觀看我的影片，祝你有美好的一天