If you are confused about the language selection, then this article will help you to choose between Cantonese, Mandarin, and Japanese language
Chinese is spoken by 1.2 billion native speakers, which makes it is the most widely language in the world. “Chinese language” actually refers to a family of languages, of which the most widely spoken are “Mandarin” and “Cantonese”. Japanese is spoken primarily in Japan by more than 120 million people around the world. Keep reading to discover the main differences between these three languages so you can choose which one to learn.
Check out these factors before learning which language should you select either Cantonese, Mandarin, or Japanese
Pronunciation
Someone who only speaks Mandarin will not be able to understand the Cantonese language and vice versa, which has different dialects. While they are both tonal languages, Mandarin has only four tones per sound, while Cantonese has at least six up to nine.
Japanese speakers find it difficult to pronounce foreign words as it has 100 “sounds” and the entire repertoire of a Japanese speaker’s tongue is covered within the English language. Moreover, the language is flat so you won’t find struggling with different intonations as you might with Mandarin or Cantonese.
Native speakers around the world
Mandarin has spread across all parts of China and the Cantonese language is spoken largely in Hong Kong, in Macau, and the Guangdong province, including the industrial city of Guangzhou.
More than 90% of the Japanese speakers are Japanese people living in Japan. Curiously, the Japanese do not have official status in Japan, but it is obviously the only national language in Japan.
Opportunities
Fluency in Japanese allows people to improve communication and a higher understanding of Japan as a nation and as a culture that also prepares you for a better future and, more opportunities for work would be available.
Cantonese is a fine dialect, more useful in LA, so there’s that safeguard if you can speak Mandarin. Cantonese is always a cultural language, and, Mandarin is more important.
Grammar
The grammar is almost identical between Mandarin and Cantonese, however, Mandarin changes the sentence structure based on the subject of the sentence. Cantonese, follows a more logical pattern where more idiomatic expressions are used which requires an advanced level of linguistic expertise.
With three writing scripts, Japanese grammar is not actually that complicated. the reason Japanese grammar is often said to be hard is simply that it is so different from English. Plurals don’t exist and you don’t have to spend time learning them.
At first, before selecting the language you might have been fearing, but these factors will have you decide the language to learn
Learning any language is difficult, but if you are motivated and passionate about language learning, you will reach your fluency level sooner than expected and it does not make any difference, anyway. There are also many platforms that you can find online to learn Cantonese, Mandarin, or Japanese, and to learn the language with the best platform choose Multibhashi, and improve your language easily. All the best!!!