Mandarin vs. Cantonese Grammer Differences?

[david]

Mandarin vs. Cantonese Grammer Differences?


Are there difference in grammar for Mandarin vs. Cantonese?

It appears to me there are some. For example if I say:

Wo gei ni mai shu.

That means I buy a book for you.

However, in cantonese if i said that, that would mean,

I allow you to buy a book.

Am I mistaken here?

I thought that since the chinese characters are the same that reading text would be no problem. However, if there are differences in grammar, then wouldn't it be confusing for a Mandarin speaker to read Cantonese speaker's writing? Such as in the example above.


Thank you for your help,
David

[david]

no replies?? No one knows both mandarin and cantonese grammar?

[hsdeng]

yes,it is different when we say this sentence with mandarin and cantonese,but maybe you know,the pronunciation is different too!

[samual]

hello! dear david
I think you dont understand yet.Cantonese is just a dialect of China,There are more than 10 dialects in China,they have not their characters.They have just their pronunciations only.You can understand like this.Cantonese just one kind of spoken Chinese only.

[david]

samual,

What are you talking about? Cantonese is not just 'spoken chinese'. I was born in Hong Kong and I speak cantonese. I am asking about grammar differences between cantonese speakers and mandarin speakers in terms of writing.


The replies I received here are all wrong. The correct answer to my question is at:
http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/phorum ... 87&t=16387

Feel free to read and learn something! I know I did!

[Eng Wai]

Hi David,

I have seen your link and the "answers". I am a Hokkien speaker and I hope I could help a bit here.

There are slight sentence structure differences in Cantonese, Hokkien and Mandarin. But they are not big deals.

In Hokkien, if we mean I buy book for you, we say

wa bei cet ho lu
(Wo3 mai3 ce4 gei3 ni3)
(I buy book for you)

If we mean I allow you to buy book, we say

Wa ho lu bei cet
(wo3 gei3 ni3 mai3 shu1)
(I give(let) you buy book)

I read that South East Chinese languages, Hokkien and Cantonese preserve quite a lot of middle Chinese characteristics. Thus it might be highly likely that the usage of gei3 in Middle Chinese is more to Cantonese, Hokkien rather to Mandarin.

I want to hear from people speaking Wu (Shang Hai). But I try with on success. Any idea?

[Godspeed]

In general, I should say, there are not so much different places between Mandatin & Cantonese, I have been to both mainland and Hong Kong, but since Hong Kong was apart from mainland for a long time, there are many local colloquial parlances, and there is also difference between Cantonese in Hong Kong and Guangzhou, Other dialect in mainland is much closer to the Mandarin than Cantonese. Don't worry, it is not a big problem!

[%sig%]