Mandarin vs Cantonese: what is the difference?

People often ask whether "Chinese" is one language. It is really a family of them. The two most spoken are Mandarin and Cantonese, and the difference surprises most beginners.

Same writing, different sound

They largely share the same written characters. A speaker of one can often read the other. But spoken aloud they are as different as, say, Italian and Spanish — a Mandarin speaker and a Cantonese speaker usually cannot understand each other. The character 人 (person) is rén in Mandarin but jan4 in Cantonese.

Tones

Mandarin has four tones (plus a neutral one); Cantonese has six (some count nine). Tones carry meaning: change the pitch and you change the word. Both descend from Middle Chinese of ~1,400 years ago — Cantonese kept the older, richer tone system, Mandarin simplified it.

Who speaks what

Mandarin is the official language of mainland China and Taiwan and the most widely spoken language on Earth (~1 billion speakers). Cantonese (~85 million) is the language of Hong Kong, Macau, Guangdong, and much of the Chinese diaspora — including many Chinese families in Europe.

Which should you learn?

Learning Mandarin reaches the most people and the most study material. Learn Cantonese if it is your family's language or you have ties to Hong Kong. The good news: because the characters are shared, learning to read benefits both.

BeginChinese teaches every character in both Mandarin and Cantonese from the start — you hear each pronunciation and see the tones in colour.