_ngo5 bei2 bun2 syu1 nei5_
Literally: I give book you - Mandarin: 我给{你}一本\<书>
_Wo3 gei3 ni3 yi1 ben3 shu1_
Literally: I give you book As a final example, the passive voice works differently in Mandarin and Cantonese. First, let's look at a couple English sentences to explain some terminology: - English passive voice without agent: _It was stolen_. - English passive voice with agent: _It was stolen by someone_. Mandarin, like English, can choose to whether or not to include an agent in its passive sentences: - ✅ Mandarin: 它被偷了
_ta1 bei4 tou1 le5_
It was stolen. - ✅ Mandarin: 它被某個人偷了
_ta1 bei4 mou3 ge5 ren2 tou1 le5_
It was stolen by someone. By contrast, Cantonese requires that you include 人 (jan4, "person") in the sentence as a passive agent: - ❌ Cantonese: 佢畀偷咗。
_keoi5 bei2 tau1 zo2_
{not proper Cantonese} - ✅ Cantonese: 佢畀人偷咗。
_keoi5 bei2 jan4 tau1 zo2_
Literally: "It by someone stole was" ### Mandarin writing vs Cantonese writing This one, again, requires some nuance. Many Cantonese speakers are bilingual in Cantonese and Mandarin, and they're taught to write Standard Written Cantonese in school—which is basically (but not quite) Mandarin. The result is that formal pieces of writing, such as the Cantonese you see in newspapers, government articles, and academic papers, will be largely intelligible to Mandarin speakers. - Standard Written Cantonese: 我和他一起來
"Normal" Cantonese: 我同佢一齊嚟
English: I come with him - Standard Written Cantonese: 那個是什麼？
"Normal" Cantonese: 嗰個係乜？
English: What is this? It's OK if you can't make any sense of the Chinese examples. Just notice how different Standard Written Cantonese is from the Cantonese that people use in everyday life. _(As an aside, a Taiwanese friend confirmed that the above "Standard Written Cantonese" is not only perfectly understandable to her, but exactly how she would write the sentences herself—though she'd say 跟 instead of 和.)_ The thing is, ordinary people don't use Standard Written Cantonese in their normal everyday life. If we take a more colloquial sentence and write it out as it would be spoken by Cantonese speakers, the result is something that's pretty much unintelligible to Mandarin speakers: - Cantonese: 我哋好想返屋企嚟唞下。
—Alessandro Valignano, _Historia del Principio y Progresso de la Compañia de Jesus en las Indias Orientales (1542–1564)_ Unfortunately, in modern times, Chinese is often conflated with Mandarin. Just go look at Google Translate—there's no option to translate into _Mandarin_, just _Chinese (simplified)_ and _Chinese (traditional)_. Another compounding factor is that most Chinese lects have no written form. Instead, they're spoken one way, but written in [Standard Chinese](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Chinese). The result is that, to an outsider—and even to speakers of Chinese languages—Mandarin and Cantonese look very similar on paper. Lastly, as we touched on earlier, there is political benefit to promoting unity and the idea of a shared language—not just within China but in general. As the saying goes: "A language is a dialect with an army and a navy." This doesn't really tell the whole story, but it underscores how important official institutional backing can be in shaping the perception of what people consider to be a language or not. --- ## On the off chance you're just trying to figure out how to learn Cantonese... This question is much easier to answer! Migaku is an app for learning Cantonese—but rather than _teach_ you Cantonese with some outdated textbook, we instead help you learn naturally by capitalizing on learning opportunities you come across in the wild. For example, you can just boot up any Cantonese YouTube video on your phone—such as this one from [Comprehensible Cantonese](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xmCZIO8qdU&list=PLhLwhcA8IAmk0O8VrU9rbfR6eOXVOm4k8)—and then click on words to see explanations of what they mean.
If you come across a useful word, you can turn it into a flashcard by clicking on that orange button in the top-right corner there. Doing so will automatically take a screenshot of the video, a a snippet of its audio, plus the word you've selected and the sentence it came from.
The result is a flashcard like this—the whole process takes about two seconds. Once you've made a flashcard, we'll periodically nudge you to review it, ensuring that you eventually remember it. (This is called [spaced repetition](/blog/language-fun/spaced-repetition-language-learning).)
> The best way to learn Cantonese is by _interacting_ with it. If you consume Cantonese media, and you understand at least part of it, you'll make progress. _Period._