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There are many differences in grammars between Cantonese and Mandarin, but\u00a0the order of adverbs\u00a0<\/strong>and\u00a0double objects\u00a0<\/strong>are particularly obvious:<\/p>\n In Mandarin, adverbs are usually placed before verbs, while in Cantonese, many adverbs can be placed after verbs.<\/p>\n For example, we say \u201c\u4f60\u5148\u51fa\u53bb\u201d (n\u01d0 xi\u0101n ch\u016bq\u00f9 \u2018you first go out\u2019) in Mandarin, while in Cantonese, we say \u201c\u4f60\u51fa\u53bb\u5148\u201d (nei5 ceot1 heoi3 sin1 \u2018you go out first\u2019).<\/p>\n Another big difference is in their double objects. Mandarin and Cantonese have their double objects in the opposite order. In Mandarin, the indirect object comes before the direct object, while in Cantonese, the direct object goes before the indirect object.<\/p>\n For example, we say \u4ed6\u7ed9\u6211\u94b1 (t\u0101 g\u011bi w\u01d2 qi\u00e1n \u2018he gives me money\u2019 \u2014 subject, verb, indirect object, direct object) in Mandarin, while in Cantonese, we say \u201c\u4ed6\u7d66\u9322\u6211\u201d \u00a0(keoi5 bei2 cin2 ngo5 \u2018he gives money [to] me\u2019 \u2014 subject, verb, direct object, indirect object).<\/p>\n Both languages\u00a0use different idioms and expressions<\/strong>, too, so that even if someone from Hong Kong was able to read a piece of simplified Chinese writing, they may not be able to understand what is actually being conveyed by the writer if idioms or colloquialisms were used (and more so vice versa).<\/p>\n One great Cantonese expression to sum up all of the above, used in reference to Mandarin and Cantonese speakers trying to understand each other, is:\u00a0\u2018the chicken talking to the duck\u2019. Basically, it means that while outsiders may think they understand each other, they don\u2019t really!<\/p>\n Source:\u00a0 www.chinahighlights.com<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Different Grammar There are many differences in grammars between Cantonese and Mandarin, but\u00a0the order of adverbs\u00a0and\u00a0double objects\u00a0are particularly obvious: In Mandarin, adverbs are usually placed before verbs, while in Cantonese, many adverbs can be placed after verbs. For example, we say \u201c\u4f60\u5148\u51fa\u53bb\u201d (n\u01d0 xi\u0101n ch\u016bq\u00f9 \u2018you first go out\u2019) in Mandarin, while in Cantonese, we…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":12698,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[80],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11949","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-language"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/modernlanguage.com.hk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11949","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/modernlanguage.com.hk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/modernlanguage.com.hk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/modernlanguage.com.hk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/modernlanguage.com.hk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11949"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/modernlanguage.com.hk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11949\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/modernlanguage.com.hk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12698"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/modernlanguage.com.hk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/modernlanguage.com.hk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/modernlanguage.com.hk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Different Expressions and Idioms<\/h3>\n