CHARACTER
BUILDING
Traditional or simplified, which does your child
learn? Jo Allum investigates the difference and
the pros and cons between the two
M
y daughter is two-and-a-half.
She attends pre-nursery and
each week her language
of instruction consists
of three hours of Putonghua, three
hours of Cantonese, and nine hours of
English. Now, I am no tiger mother – it’s
really just a playgroup in the various
languages – but nevertheless, this is
going to be her grounding for language
learning, so I want to make sure I get it
right for her – which means homework
for me.
We have been in Hong Kong for
just over 13 years. At various points I
60
www.playtimes.com.hk
have taken Cantonese and Mandarin
classes (spoken only), but I am going
to have to up my game to keep up with
Holly’s. And that starts with what she
will be learning in terms of characters. I
am keen for her to become fully literate
– being able to read, write, speak and
listen – in all the languages if possible:
Cantonese because Hong Kong is our
home; Mandarin because of the impor-
tance of China; and of course I want her
to be a native English speaker.
I began by asking a colleague, who
is trilingual, to explain to me in basic
terms the difference between written and
spoken Cantonese and Mandarin. Hong
Kong people speak in Cantonese and
write with traditional Chinese characters;
Chinese speakers from Mainland China
generally speak Mandarin (as well as
many dialects!) and write with simplified
characters. In terms of the written
language, they are basically the same; it’s
just the physical look of the characters
that are different. However, the vocab-
ulary, tones and structure for the two as
they are spoken are very different. She
also told me that Cantonese is a local
dialect, with many fascinating slang
words and terms, while a lot of Mandarin
words are more formal and better in
the written form. In summary, the oral
languages (Cantonese and Mandarin) are
very different, but the written languages
(traditional Chinese and simplified
Chinese) are fundamentally the same.