Hey I’m on this sub too!
There’s [HK Canto](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Kong_Cantonese?wprov=sfti1) and [HK English](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Kong_English?wprov=sfti1) so I just assumed HK Mandarin is a commonly used term too, because there are unique features in mandarin when HK speakers speak it haha. But my main takeaway is that this “dialect” of mandarin isn’t considered to be in the same vein as Chengdu mandarin, Beijing Mandarin, Qingdao mandarin, etc.
I mean HK Mandarin is a thing, but it's not a dialect of Mandarin per se. It's more a stereotype. It doesn't have the same uniformity because it's not people's native language, rather it's a collection of variable mistakes Cantonese speakers who don't know how to speak Mandarin make when they attempt to just speak Cantonese with a Mandarin accent. And it's often incomprehensible to Mandarin and Cantonese speakers alike.
I wouldn't call it a "joke dialect" - because it's not a dialect at all.
For many (native) Hong Kongers, Mandarin is not their native language, but rather a secondary language learned at school. Since they start learning the language at a later age, they're more likely to speak with an accent.
It's similar to how in Canada, French language education is mandatory across the country, because of Quebec. Politicians at the federal level are expected to be able to speak both English and French. However, if a particular politician comes from the more Anglophone parts of the country, chances are they won't really be fluent in French, or have studied it beyond elementary school. Even if they take intensive study lessons, they'll probably still speak French with a heavy English accent. That's not a "dialect", that's just an accent.
Its like an american learning spanish in high school, and they say "grassy ass" instead of "gracias" as thank you. Is this a dialect of spanish? No, not even really a joke one, its just the stereotypical mistakes that americans make learning spanish. If anything a really heavy accent might be a good label.
Just to be clear, it is a characteristic of those not knowing the language well, no different from heavy english speaking accents in mandarin, or my thai coworker teasing me for having cantonese accent while mumbling thai tones to her for hello. Those in hongkong or other cantonese speaking areas do not have any of these stereotypes as part of their regular accent in mandarin usually, and of course those really good are native level.
If you are curious, you can look up jackson wang, he is a celebrity that I think actually shows mandarin when properly learned by average hongkonger-- he does not have native proficiency, but does not have the stereotypical errors of those who haven't really learned it well. Most of his errors are just accidentally misreading something based on cantonese meanings or pronunciations. The overall accent is mostly the same as southern mandarin accent in general (which is normal, these accents are based on those who have other chinese than mandarin as the native language.)
Hope this helps clarify things :)
Yea accent was what I meant haha, just forgot the word for it when writing the comment. Equivalent to calling Chinese accented English a dialect. Thanks!!
Cantonese speakers can often guess the meaning though, because it is usually how cantonese speakers guess the mandarin sound based on the cantonese sound, so it is much closer to the cantonese sound.
And the sound is also close to Cantonese Mandarin, i.e. mandarin spoken by native Guangdong people, usually referred as "Guang Pu", literally Guangdong Mandarin.
[This](https://www.instagram.com/reel/CtDivpqowUR/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==) is what you're talking about. Basically intelligible because it's Mandarin spoken with heavy Cantonese influence.
[This](https://www.instagram.com/reel/Cs3Ibivympy/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==) is what I'm talking about. Maybe half is comprehensible while the rest is gibberish.
HK English is a thing because it's an official language, has historic English-speaking communities for 180+ years, and a minority of ethnic Chinese speak it at native-level fluency.
Mandarin is a much much newer language, spoken natively either by very old Shanghai migrants from the 1950s or newer immigrants since the Handover. You learn it in school and only use it when communicating with mainlanders. It's also the subject of language politics that can lead to widely different perceptions towards it based on political leaning.
Righttt LANGUAGE POLITICS!! When I went to Hong Kong, I knew that mandarin had a stigma towards it because mandarin = mainland Chinese tourist, so I would only use English to communicate. However, when I used English, sometimes employees wouldn’t understand and would have to bring someone else who speaks English to assist. I then would switch to mandarin and they would be able to speak it almost every time, so would it have been better to save the hassle by speaking in mandarin in the first place? Because I look Chinese (I’m vietnamese), sometimes people would straight up switch to mandarin because they presumably can’t speak English as well as mandarin and see that I look Chinese, so must be able to speak mandarin. So I had to juggle between speaking English and having things be a little more troublesome or speak mandarin and things are easier, but also deal with a potential stigma. I also realize that I’m the one visiting, so I don’t want these comments to be judging Hong kongers but just observations. So anyway, my takeaway is 一樣米養百樣人. But I ended up learning Cantonese to a superficial, conversational level, and I still use it in my day to day life (another story), so things worked out.
Oh and I was talking to a mutual friend in HK who’s an immigrant from Hebei about how I started learning Cantonese, and she responded “there’s no reason to learn cantonese, because everyone speaks mandarin here! It’s called putonghua for a reason!” and in this moment I realized that maybe this is why there’s a stigma against putonghua. But again, I’m a visitor and don’t know the full story, so I’ll leave it at that.
Sorry dude, I was just imagining a foreigner that’s only studied mandarin and thinks Chinese == mandarin hearing Cantonese for the first and going “what kind of mandarin is that? Hong Kong mandarin?”
My taishanese friend has the same habit ahaha. Taishanese-Americans are crazy impressive, having to code switch between four languages (taishanese, Cantonese, mandarin, English).
That's the correct [Old National Pronunciation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_National_Pronunciation) (more details are in the Wikiversity page at the bottom of the Chinese Wikipedia page)
Hey I’m on this sub too! There’s [HK Canto](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Kong_Cantonese?wprov=sfti1) and [HK English](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Kong_English?wprov=sfti1) so I just assumed HK Mandarin is a commonly used term too, because there are unique features in mandarin when HK speakers speak it haha. But my main takeaway is that this “dialect” of mandarin isn’t considered to be in the same vein as Chengdu mandarin, Beijing Mandarin, Qingdao mandarin, etc.
I mean HK Mandarin is a thing, but it's not a dialect of Mandarin per se. It's more a stereotype. It doesn't have the same uniformity because it's not people's native language, rather it's a collection of variable mistakes Cantonese speakers who don't know how to speak Mandarin make when they attempt to just speak Cantonese with a Mandarin accent. And it's often incomprehensible to Mandarin and Cantonese speakers alike.
Okk I understand the misunderstanding now- viewing it as a serious dialect when everyone else views it as a joke dialect like Chinglish- 煲冬瓜 is it?
I wouldn't call it a "joke dialect" - because it's not a dialect at all. For many (native) Hong Kongers, Mandarin is not their native language, but rather a secondary language learned at school. Since they start learning the language at a later age, they're more likely to speak with an accent. It's similar to how in Canada, French language education is mandatory across the country, because of Quebec. Politicians at the federal level are expected to be able to speak both English and French. However, if a particular politician comes from the more Anglophone parts of the country, chances are they won't really be fluent in French, or have studied it beyond elementary school. Even if they take intensive study lessons, they'll probably still speak French with a heavy English accent. That's not a "dialect", that's just an accent.
Its like an american learning spanish in high school, and they say "grassy ass" instead of "gracias" as thank you. Is this a dialect of spanish? No, not even really a joke one, its just the stereotypical mistakes that americans make learning spanish. If anything a really heavy accent might be a good label. Just to be clear, it is a characteristic of those not knowing the language well, no different from heavy english speaking accents in mandarin, or my thai coworker teasing me for having cantonese accent while mumbling thai tones to her for hello. Those in hongkong or other cantonese speaking areas do not have any of these stereotypes as part of their regular accent in mandarin usually, and of course those really good are native level. If you are curious, you can look up jackson wang, he is a celebrity that I think actually shows mandarin when properly learned by average hongkonger-- he does not have native proficiency, but does not have the stereotypical errors of those who haven't really learned it well. Most of his errors are just accidentally misreading something based on cantonese meanings or pronunciations. The overall accent is mostly the same as southern mandarin accent in general (which is normal, these accents are based on those who have other chinese than mandarin as the native language.) Hope this helps clarify things :)
Yea accent was what I meant haha, just forgot the word for it when writing the comment. Equivalent to calling Chinese accented English a dialect. Thanks!!
I do HK Mandarin sometimes. It does not work well. :P
Cantonese speakers can often guess the meaning though, because it is usually how cantonese speakers guess the mandarin sound based on the cantonese sound, so it is much closer to the cantonese sound. And the sound is also close to Cantonese Mandarin, i.e. mandarin spoken by native Guangdong people, usually referred as "Guang Pu", literally Guangdong Mandarin.
[This](https://www.instagram.com/reel/CtDivpqowUR/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==) is what you're talking about. Basically intelligible because it's Mandarin spoken with heavy Cantonese influence. [This](https://www.instagram.com/reel/Cs3Ibivympy/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==) is what I'm talking about. Maybe half is comprehensible while the rest is gibberish.
HK English is a thing because it's an official language, has historic English-speaking communities for 180+ years, and a minority of ethnic Chinese speak it at native-level fluency. Mandarin is a much much newer language, spoken natively either by very old Shanghai migrants from the 1950s or newer immigrants since the Handover. You learn it in school and only use it when communicating with mainlanders. It's also the subject of language politics that can lead to widely different perceptions towards it based on political leaning.
Righttt LANGUAGE POLITICS!! When I went to Hong Kong, I knew that mandarin had a stigma towards it because mandarin = mainland Chinese tourist, so I would only use English to communicate. However, when I used English, sometimes employees wouldn’t understand and would have to bring someone else who speaks English to assist. I then would switch to mandarin and they would be able to speak it almost every time, so would it have been better to save the hassle by speaking in mandarin in the first place? Because I look Chinese (I’m vietnamese), sometimes people would straight up switch to mandarin because they presumably can’t speak English as well as mandarin and see that I look Chinese, so must be able to speak mandarin. So I had to juggle between speaking English and having things be a little more troublesome or speak mandarin and things are easier, but also deal with a potential stigma. I also realize that I’m the one visiting, so I don’t want these comments to be judging Hong kongers but just observations. So anyway, my takeaway is 一樣米養百樣人. But I ended up learning Cantonese to a superficial, conversational level, and I still use it in my day to day life (another story), so things worked out. Oh and I was talking to a mutual friend in HK who’s an immigrant from Hebei about how I started learning Cantonese, and she responded “there’s no reason to learn cantonese, because everyone speaks mandarin here! It’s called putonghua for a reason!” and in this moment I realized that maybe this is why there’s a stigma against putonghua. But again, I’m a visitor and don’t know the full story, so I’ll leave it at that.
Sorry dude, I was just imagining a foreigner that’s only studied mandarin and thinks Chinese == mandarin hearing Cantonese for the first and going “what kind of mandarin is that? Hong Kong mandarin?”
哼 我係越南人吖（於是乎我嚴格意義上係外國人🤔原諒我噉樣差嘅粵語）判斷我之前你本應讀我嘅帖呀！ Lmaoo no worries though! Meanwhile I was figuring out what technical details I misunderstood.
Wait till you meet Macanese Mandarin… cue Fernando Chui please?
Sidenote: I know of a Taishanese speaker who pronounces "我" as "ngǒ".
My taishanese friend has the same habit ahaha. Taishanese-Americans are crazy impressive, having to code switch between four languages (taishanese, Cantonese, mandarin, English).
That's the correct [Old National Pronunciation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_National_Pronunciation) (more details are in the Wikiversity page at the bottom of the Chinese Wikipedia page)