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Re: Chinese "languages"

From:Boudewijn Rempt <bsarempt@...>
Date:Wednesday, May 10, 2000, 17:44
On Tue, 9 May 2000, Barry Garcia wrote:

> > I have a friend whos family is from Taiwan, and she speaks fluent Mandarin > (she helped me with the tones once, which I have now forgotten how to do). > Anyway, she says that Cantonese sounds harsh and ugly to her, but Mandarin > is softer. She thinks is may be due to the higher number of tones in > Cantonese than in Mandarin. >
It's more likely the result of the unreleased final consonants in Cantonese, I think, more than the number of tones. (Upon reflection I'm not so sure of the term - but they're there anyway ;-). Boudewijn Rempt | http://www.valdyas.org