Mandarin and Cantonese are essentially two different languages that happen to share the same characters. Someone from Honduras would be able to understand 99.9% of what a Spaniard says. If you only speak Mandarin you wouldn’t be able to understand Cantonese at all.
In contrast though, I’m close to native in German, yet have a hard time with Austro-Bavarian dialects and can’t understand Schwiizerdütsch at all. The amount of times I have to say “Hochdeutsch, bitte…”
At some point, when you’re involving teaching a language to a class, you need a systematic way of doing so.
Typically, that means going with dictionaries and that in turn is likely to be the most formal version of a language’s pronunciation. And, with grammar, you start with the simplest but also most standardized, codified version because that’s what the books are going to use.
You don’t worry about idiom and dialect until you’ve got a fairly good grasp of the formal. Since Castilian Spanish is more or less the oldest formal Spanish, we end up learning that first.
Like, I suck at learning languages. But I tried several. One of those was Spanish. School Spanish is kinda like school English, it’s taught in strict way. Vocabulary with pronunciation, grammar rules, verb conjugation. Conversationsal Spanish just isn’t what most schools are going to start with. One could argue whether or not that’s the best place to start or not, but it is the way most languages get taught.
I dated a girl from Mexico City during that time, and she said the books were essentially the same there at least.
Having learned a language where dialect often means you can barely understand each other if at all, I’m more inclined to consider Mexican vs Castilian an accent much the same way as English’s American vs Australian/british/etc…
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Mandarin and Cantonese are essentially two different languages that happen to share the same characters. Someone from Honduras would be able to understand 99.9% of what a Spaniard says. If you only speak Mandarin you wouldn’t be able to understand Cantonese at all.
It’s wild when you look into how many different languages are “Chinese”. It’s like if someone were to say that someone from Germany spoke “European”.
In contrast though, I’m close to native in German, yet have a hard time with Austro-Bavarian dialects and can’t understand Schwiizerdütsch at all. The amount of times I have to say “Hochdeutsch, bitte…”
Oida
Can confirm, I am learning Mandarin but every time I hear Cantonese I can barely make heads or tails of it.
But why?
I’d think in all of those cases it should be the variant that has the greatest population or proximity.
Formality and standardized grammar.
At some point, when you’re involving teaching a language to a class, you need a systematic way of doing so.
Typically, that means going with dictionaries and that in turn is likely to be the most formal version of a language’s pronunciation. And, with grammar, you start with the simplest but also most standardized, codified version because that’s what the books are going to use.
You don’t worry about idiom and dialect until you’ve got a fairly good grasp of the formal. Since Castilian Spanish is more or less the oldest formal Spanish, we end up learning that first.
Like, I suck at learning languages. But I tried several. One of those was Spanish. School Spanish is kinda like school English, it’s taught in strict way. Vocabulary with pronunciation, grammar rules, verb conjugation. Conversationsal Spanish just isn’t what most schools are going to start with. One could argue whether or not that’s the best place to start or not, but it is the way most languages get taught.
I dated a girl from Mexico City during that time, and she said the books were essentially the same there at least.
a couple reasons I can think of:
Having learned a language where dialect often means you can barely understand each other if at all, I’m more inclined to consider Mexican vs Castilian an accent much the same way as English’s American vs Australian/british/etc…