f(x) got interviewed in Hong Kong!

[nobodyelse-care.livejournal.com]

Source: deliciousgreeny

Cantonese is the official language in Hong Kong right? I've heard native Mandarin speakers have troubles understanding Cantonese so I'm a bit surprised that Victoria and Luna can understand the interviewer. Also surprised that Victoria said she communicate using Mandarin with Amber when they met for the first time. I thought she doesn't speak or understand Mandarin.

Comments

[vvvanilla.livejournal.com]

lol there's probably a translator beside them or something.

[hardcorxsooshee.livejournal.com]

hey, i can actually understand the interviewer 8D

[dbsk-love.livejournal.com]

i think amber does know a little bit since her parents are taiwanese plus she was in that mv with danson tang, a taiwanese singer. and yeah, there's probably a translator.

[majaiku.livejournal.com]

taiwanese people mostly speak mandarin and/or taiwanese, not cantonese :

[dbsk-love.livejournal.com]

yeah, that's what i meant. the op said she thought amber didn't know mandarin so how could have victoria communicated with her in mandarin at first.

[dbsk-love.livejournal.com]

and i knew that too btw

[enchantark.livejournal.com]

I love how the interviewer goes from Cantonese to Mandarin and vice versa...

[reddragon16.livejournal.com]

It depends how much they've been exposed to. The main difference between Cantonese and Mandarin is the way words are pronounced. One of my best friend's is from an area that speaks Mandarin, but from watching dramas etc he's picked up Cantonese so can speak/understand both.

[yingmoon26.livejournal.com]

actually there's a pretty big diff between cantonese and mandarin. besides the difference in how words are pronounced, in mandarin, you pretty much speak the way you write chinese. on the other hand, cantonese has a lot of slang and extra words that don't actually exist in writing.

because of this, cantonese speakers don't have that hard of a time speaking/understanding mandarin, but much less mandarin speakers can speak/understand cantonese. i'm cantonese myself and have no problem with mandarin, as with most of my cantonese friends, but most of my mandarin friends cannot understand or speak catonese, minus one friend.

[dorkiilove.livejournal.com]

this pretty much
im mandarin but whenever i hear canto songs it all sounds like gibberish to me

but in my chinese class, there are multiple canto speakers who can understand mandarin even without being "officaly taught" it

[dbsk-love.livejournal.com]

kinda like the term blow water and whatnot.

[yingmoon26.livejournal.com]

lololol my canto friends sometimes joke around when we're too lazy to type out chinese with direct translations like blow water

[dbsk-love.livejournal.com]

lol, that also means bull shizzing too

[quicheand.livejournal.com]

Wooo I understood like three words! I'm a native mandarin speaker, but I understand cantonese basically the same way I understand korean...i.e. there might be one phrase out of like 10 seconds of speech that I magically pick up because of similarity to mandarin, but other than that I'm totally lost.

When Amber was doing that thing with Danson Tang, she said in an interview that she speaks Mandarin, but slowly and with great difficulty, and then she got stuck, so Danson Tang said, "But don't worry because I'll interpret for her and help her say the rest." So I'm thinking that Amber, like most Taiwanese/Chinese-Americans, can understand just enough to get the gist of the conversation, and can speak a little, but fairly slowly and nothing too complicated.

[quicheand.livejournal.com]

Also, Luna is able to understand the interviewer because at the part where they asked her if she could understand, it was in Mandarin.

[onemillionlove.livejournal.com]

yep cantonese is the official language in hong kong!

[vikihpnerd.livejournal.com]

lol, there's an interpreter hiding off-camera that translated for them...but it's probably edited out

[hugtimes.livejournal.com]

idk, i find cantonese isn't that much of a problem for native mandarin speakers. my mom can speak both fairly well and most of her family know basic conversation stuff.

[wintersol.livejournal.com]

still upset that f(x) is gonna debut in japan rather than china.

[drfaith101.livejournal.com]

came here to say this :(

[xalexandriam.livejournal.com]

ughhhh...all of my feelings about that. >:|

[cairistiona.livejournal.com]

It's so ridiculous, especially as Luna learnt Mandarin before, presumably to help with their Chinese debut. I don't think any of them know that much Japanese.

[hoyah.livejournal.com]

:( yeah it's unfortunate, since they seemed like a group already aiming for china, at debut

[xalexandriam.livejournal.com]

luna is so qt in this interview.

i love it when victoria speaks chinese. she sound so much more confident (duh) and her voice doesn't get as high pitched as it does when she speak korean.