No, it just lacks standard romanization system.

Therefore its one of the hardest to sound out in english.

Not having a standard romanization system does not make a language the "hardest to sound out in English".

Prior to the invetion of Hanyu Pinyin during the 1950's, Mandarin had two main romanization systems, namely Yale and Wades-Gile, neither were accurate but that doesn't make Mandarin "the hardest to sound in English."

Whatever dude. I think I have more practice with Cantonese than you. By "sounding out in English" I meant as in to convey it from Canto-> English. Essentially we are discussing the same thing. As you know since you're the omniscent of all things Chinese, Cantonese is basically a dialect derived from Pu tong hua. Its loaded with idioms and slang that have no traditional hanzi but have characters made up. The unstructured nature of the language as opposed to pu tong hua makes 'romanization' or 'sounding out in English' that much more difficult.

But whatever, you're just as stubborn as I am. This will get no where.

And dont rearrange my words to make it seem I said something that I didnt. I said "one of the hardest..." I like you omit the "one of.." and only quote it so that I sound ignorant and make uneducated claims.

Cantonese isn't an "off-shoot" of Mandarin as you proposed. Cantonese actually contains more elements that reflect classical Chinese than Mandarin does. Modern form of Mandarin is actually quite new.

Having idioms and slangs does not affect whether a language is easy or hard to "sound out in English"...

With a standard romanization system for Cantonese, it would be as easy to "sound it out in English" as it would with Mandarin.

haha actually he has a point. It would sound like "meh-ar" kinda thing i guess, but that would be kinda slangish, no?

and yes it does lack a romanization system and makes it kinda confusing at times. lol

yuw mo yun ming bak ngo gong gung mut yeh ar? ngo di ping yum hai mai ho dza ar?

aha and to doan; mo yun gong dai wah ar...

Speaking of Cantonese romanization systems... there are quite a few but none are really standard.

Here are some information:

http://www.chinalanguage.com/CCDICT/Support/jyutpin.php

http://www.essentialresults.com/article/Cantonese_Pinyin

http://www.chinawestexchange.com/Cantonese...gyam/sounds.htm

I personally think Jyutping is the best.

Ehm, yes...

Did I say some Chinese were not from China?

dim mo KoRn?

chau hay ley tseung ngo di dim cho ar?

"catonese" sounds funny

Because it's Cantonese, not Catonese...

Miao miao?

miao miao?
hahaha what a stupid @$$.

Now now, be nice...

I'm sure Doan Du was joking at the fact that Byron spelled Cantonese as "Catonese"...

oh i see hahah..
go on please.

miao miao?

Catonese, get it? Cat?

Miao?
Miao?

A sense of humor is the best way to judge cognitive capability... :genius:

sorry? haha sorry i didn't catch that.

Err... wow, didn't know so many Taishanese participated in forums like this... glad to see my kin...

To the first topic: I believe that the Cantonese are people from Guang Zhou. Thus, the Taishanese are people from Taishan, so on and so forth.

It is not that I'm trying to separate us, or create some rift between the Guang Zhou-ers and the natives of other parts of Guang Dong, but I think it would be much easier for us to differentiate between the two if we said it that way. Because when I try to learn the Guang Zhou/Hong Kong Cantonese with my grandmother, and Taishanese with my father, I used to get really confused by just saying "What is *insert word here* in Cantonese?" and having them wonder "Toi saan Cantonese or Hong Kong Cantonese?"

I decided to just say Taishanese for that, and Cantonese for the Guang Zhou/Hong Kong variety.

So I was thinking, if someone asks us what we are, we just say "I'm Taishanese." Instead of saying "I'm Cantonese, from Taishan."

Personally, I'd find that easier...


Now to the thing about Northerners discriminating the Cantonese (yes, it was long ago, but I need to say this... forgive me): I haven't even been to China twice (I reside in the Philippines) but I already felt that a lot of the Pekinese were hostile towards me merely because they heard my grandma speak Cantonese (she speaks Mandarin like a Beijinger too... zhen ke xi). So yes, a lot of Beijingers make it clear that they find Cantonese quite primitive and worthless.

I find it stupid though. There is no reason to hate us just because we speak another language. It's like saying you hate the French because they speak French.

P.S. Is there a learn Taishanese website on the net?