Chris asks: "How should I start learning Cantonese, given that I already speak Mandarin?"

Episode Summary:

• Cantonese is to Mandarin what Cockney is to English
• It's a highly developed, unique language that is considered a spoken language
• When Cantonese speakers write things down, they normally use standard Chinese

So what does this mean for a Mandarin speaker who wants to learn Cantonese?

• At the risk of oversimplifying, your major task is to learn a large amount of Cantonese-specific vocabulary, including the different pronunciation and more tones
• While there is more to it than that (different grammar structures, sentence particles etc), the two languages are close enough that your existing knowledge of Mandarin will transfer very well, help you notice any differences and slowly adjust
• You won't have many new linguistic concepts to learn, it's more a question of getting use to the specific w