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Around Lunar New Year, Chinatown banners from San Francisco to London say Gung Hay Fat Choy. In a Beijing mall, people are saying gong xi fa cai.
It’s the same greeting, congratulations and may you prosper. The first is how it sounds in Cantonese, the second in Mandarin, and on paper, it’s the same four characters. And that one phrase sums up how the two relate: the same words on the page, very different sounds out loud.
Mandarin and Cantonese are both Chinese, and they mostly share the same written characters, but they sound so different that speakers usually can’t understand each other in conversation. Spoken by more than a billion people, Mandarin is the national standard in mainland China and the most widely used language in Taiwan.
According to Britannica, Cantonese is spoken by more than 55 million people in southern China, including Hong Kong and Macau, and by some 20 million more around the world.
Chinese vs Mandarin vs Cantonese
Chinese is the umbrella. Under it sit several major varieties, and Mandarin and Cantonese are two of the biggest.
Mandarin is the standard. In mainland China it’s called putonghua (普通话, common speech), and it’s the language of schools, national TV, and government. In Taiwan it’s called guoyu (國語), and in Singapore huayu (华语), one of the country’s four official languages. It’s also what most learn-Chinese courses teach.
Cantonese is called yueyu (粤语) or guangdonghua (广东话, Guangdong speech). It’s the everyday language of Hong Kong and Guangzhou, and for a long time it was the main Chinese language in many Chinatowns around the world.
In Chinese, varieties like Cantonese are often called fangyan (方言, regional speech). Many linguists treat them as separate languages, since the gap in sound is often compared to the one between different European languages. Other big varieties include Hokkien, Shanghainese, and Hakka.
Where Is Mandarin vs Cantonese Spoken?
| Mandarin | Cantonese |
|---|---|
| Nationwide in mainland China, as the national standard | Much of Guangdong, including Guangzhou and the Pearl River Delta |
| Taiwan | Parts of Guangxi |
| Singapore | Hong Kong |
| Chinese schools and media worldwide | Macau |
| Many long-established Chinese communities abroad, from the US and UK to Australia and Malaysia |
The two overlap more than a map suggests. By official figures, about 80% of people in mainland China could speak Mandarin by 2020, and that includes plenty of Cantonese speakers in Guangdong. Many people in Hong Kong speak Mandarin too, alongside Cantonese and English.
What About Taiwanese?
In Taiwan, Mandarin is the most widely used language, alongside Taiwanese Hokkien, Hakka, and Indigenous languages. Taiwanese usually refers to Taiwanese Hokkien, which is closely related to the Southern Min spoken across the strait in Fujian. Cantonese isn’t widely spoken in Taiwan, so if you’re heading there, Mandarin is the one to learn.
How Different Do Mandarin and Cantonese Sound?
Very. If you’ve learned some Mandarin, Cantonese will sound familiar in rhythm but mostly unrecognizable in words.
Tones. Mandarin has four main tones, plus a light neutral one. Cantonese is usually described as having six, and traditional counts reach nine by listing the short, clipped tones on syllables ending in p, t, or k separately. Those extra tones mean syllables that otherwise sound alike can mean different words.
Endings. Cantonese keeps sharp endings that Mandarin lost long ago. Ten is shi in Mandarin but sap in Cantonese. Six is liu in Mandarin but luk in Cantonese. Those final p, t, and k sounds give Cantonese its punchy, staccato feel.
Everyday words. Some are close cousins. Others are completely different. The Mandarin examples use simplified characters and the Cantonese ones traditional, the way you’d usually see them on the mainland and in Hong Kong.
| English | Mandarin | Cantonese (Jyutping) |
|---|---|---|
| Hello | 你好 nǐ hǎo | 你好 nei5 hou2 |
| Thank you (for a gift) | 谢谢 xièxie | 多謝 do1 ze6 |
| Thank you (for a service) | 谢谢 xièxie | 唔該 m4 goi1 |
| Ten | 十 shí | 十 sap6 |
| Eat | 吃 chī | 食 sik6 |
| He, she | 他, 她 tā | 佢 keoi5 |
| Not | 不 bù | 唔 m4 |
| To be, is | 是 shì | 係 hai6 |
That thank-you pair is a lovely Cantonese detail. Say do ze when someone gives you a present, and m goi when someone passes the soy sauce or holds a door. Mandarin mostly uses xiexie for both, though it has plenty of other ways to say thank you too.
Jyutping, a romanization system with tone numbers, is one of the most widely used for Cantonese, much as pinyin is for Mandarin.
Is Written Cantonese Different From Mandarin?
For formal writing, mostly no. Newspapers, books, and official documents in Hong Kong generally use standard written Chinese, so a Mandarin-speaking reader who reads Chinese can usually understand them.
The script can differ, though. A menu in Hong Kong will usually use traditional characters, while one in Guangzhou usually uses simplified characters, even when they list the same dish. It’s the classic traditional vs simplified Chinese divide, running right through Cantonese-speaking China.
Casual written Cantonese is where things get interesting. In text messages, comics, ads, and online comments, people in Hong Kong often write the way they speak, using characters you won’t normally see in standard written Chinese:
- 嘅 (ge3): the possessive, like Mandarin’s 的
- 咗 (zo2): marks something already done, like Mandarin’s 了
- 佢 (keoi5): he, she, or it
- 冇 (mou5): don’t have, or there isn’t
A Mandarin reader can often guess the topic of a colloquial Cantonese post but may miss a lot of the meaning.
Which Is Older, Mandarin or Cantonese?
Neither, in any simple sense. Both have changed enormously over centuries. Cantonese does preserve some features of Middle Chinese that Mandarin has lost, including final p, t, and k sounds and words ending in m. But Cantonese has changed too, so it isn’t simply an older version of Chinese.
Those preserved sounds are one reason some Tang dynasty poems still rhyme more neatly when read in Cantonese than in modern Mandarin.
Which Is Harder to Learn, Mandarin or Cantonese?
For many English speakers, Cantonese is the harder one to start. It has more tones, fewer mainstream learning resources, and a casual written form that differs from the standard. Mandarin has pinyin, the HSK exams, and an ocean of learning material.
Harder doesn’t mean worse, though. If your family speaks Cantonese, you love Hong Kong films and Cantopop, or you’re moving to Hong Kong or Guangzhou, Cantonese is the one that will open doors. For mainland China, Taiwan, business, or travel around the country, Mandarin gives you the most reach. There are good reasons to learn Chinese either way.
Cantonese Words You Already Know
Several English food words came from Cantonese, through centuries of trade and the Cantonese-speaking communities that settled in North America, Britain, and Australia.
| English word | Cantonese | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| dim sum | 點心 dim2 sam1 | small dishes, often glossed as touch the heart |
| yum cha | 飲茶 jam2 caa4 | drink tea, the dim sum meal itself |
| wonton | 雲吞 wan4 tan1 | dumplings, written with the characters for cloud and swallow |
| char siu | 叉燒 caa1 siu1 | fork-roasted barbecue pork |
| bok choy | 白菜 baak6 coi3 | white vegetable |
| kumquat | 金橘 gam1 gwat1 | golden orange |
So when a menu offers a Cantonese brunch of dim sum, you’re already using a little Cantonese without realizing it. And that Chinatown banner, Gung Hay Fat Choy, is the Cantonese way of wishing you a prosperous Chinese New Year.
Still deciding? Watch ten minutes of a Mandarin-language historical drama, then ten minutes of a TVB drama in the original Cantonese. Forget the textbooks for a moment — which one makes you want to keep listening? Start there.
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