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Cantonese: Languages
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A Worldwide Language Cantonese-Chinese is the main language spoken in major Chinese communities around the world from the United States and Canada. In fact, Cantonese is the [N]umber three language spoken in the Canadian city of Toronto after English and French! You will ... hear Cantonese in Latin American and Carribean countries such as Venezuela, Columbia, Guatemala, Peru, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, and Ecuador. Don't forget Europe and Southeast Asian countries such as Vietnam, Malaysia, and Singapore too.
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Your Cantonese instructor will help you develop the habits which you will need to communicate in Cantonese with ease and effectiveness. You will learn new language items one at a time, in meaningful contexts, and in an easy and understandable way. You will develop key language skills through enjoyable activities and stimulating role-plays. With just 50 hours of private instruction, you can make significant progress in Cantonese.
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The term Cantonese comes from the name of the place called Canton, now known as Guangzhou, the port city in southeast China and capital of Guangdong province. However, recent studies (China Encyclopedia Publishers 1988) reveal that Cantonese is exclusively used in less than half of the areas in the province. It is the only or major language in forty counties and cities of the province. It is ... spoken in sixteen other counties, co-existing with other variants of Chinese. In the neighboring province of Guangxi, it is used in twenty three counties, usually together with other varieties of Chinese.
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In the Song Dynasty, the differences between central Chinese and Cantonese became more significant, and the languages became more independent of one another. During the Yuan and Ming dynasties, Cantonese evolved still further, developing its own characteristics.
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Cantonese shares most of the same vocabulary as the other Chinese dialects, but is of course pronounced differently. Some words, particularly the most common ones, are specific to Cantonese (e.g. "keui5" (he/she/it), "hai6" (to be), "jung1 yi3" (to like), "m4" (not), and many others.) There are virtually no cognates with western languages, except for a small number of mainly English loan words, such as "baai1 baai3" (goodbye), "bo1" (ball), etc. Although there are many single character words in Cantonese, the majority of vocabulary is made up by combining 2 or more characters. Learning vocabulary becomes easier once you have learned a decent number of characters since they can be combined to form many more words.
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Given all the dialects that exist within Cantonese, the language is sometimes referred to as a group of Cantonese dialects, and not just Cantonese. Oral communication is virtually impossible among speakers of some Cantonese dialects. For instance, there is as much of a difference between the dialects of Taishan and Nanning as there is between Italian and French.
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