writing system is ~99% the same
persons ONLY able to speak cantonese vs mandarin can understand 99% of each other's newspaper and speeches and agreement drafts
louisiana 'french', caribbean 'english', australian outback 'whatever', and etc etc are all legacy dialects, heritage tones, and cultural issues, but not suited to be recommended as the ONLY functional communication medium of young minds, especially those young calling a resource-free peninsula home.
iow, the coconut and the fat jack MUST NOT operate in cantonese and can dispense w/ even learning the dialect, and so the two learn all subjects in english and mandarin, and there are two teachers in every classroom, each a native speaker of one language
as are their homework, reading material, etc etc
my wife speaks to the kids ~99% in mandarin, and I ~99% in english. gramps in mandarin, nanny in english.
amongst the kids' friends, only mandarin or english. no cantonese.
the kids are able to understand cantonese, just because of whatever they pick up by shopping for flowers and ordering food. when spoken to in cantonese they respond in mandarin.
it is relatively easy for cantonese-ONLY speaker to understand mandarin, and more difficult for mandarin-ONLY speaker to understand cantonese. |
