Why I Decided to Learn Cantonese, And Not Mandarin

“Why not mandarin?”

This was a common question I got get when I first started learning Cantonese. And on one level I can understand it. Mandarin has more than 1 billion speakers while Cantonese has somewhere around 60 million. Just by sheer numbers you’re more likely to bump into mandarin speakers rather than Cantonese speakers.

But this type of reasoning says a lot about the mindsets about language learning that we have. And things in life in general.

When someone asks me why I choose Cantonese over Mandarin (even though they mean well), to it’s like someone asking me: “why did you marry your wife instead of ‘this’ woman?”.

I didn’t choose my wife by lining up 10 women and then picking out the one who I’d like to marry the most. There was no comparison involved. It has nothing to do with any other women on the planet. I just fell in love with her and wanted to spend the rest of my life with her.

Just like I chose to marry my wife because I fell in love with her, in a similar way I chose Cantonese.

For most people, deciding to learn a language is usually an emotional decision. Unless it’s for work, school or family reasons. Although those can have strong emotional elements too.

To learn such a language as Cantonese for a Scandinavian like me who at the time only spoke Swedish, English and Norwegian - there has to be a strong why behind learning it. Reasons like “it’s the most spoken language in the world” is not enough fuel to motivate you on the journey it takes to learn a language like Chinese.

And I’m convinced that if I would have chosen to learn Mandarin out of pure logical reasoning I would have stopped a long time ago.

That doesn’t mean that I have something against mandarin and wouldn’t even be open to learn mandarin in the future. I might very well do that.

And in fact, by learning Cantonese first I will already have a huge head start if and when I would decide to learn mandarin. Just as someone who has learned to speak Spanish is gonna have a huge advantage if they decide to learn say French or Italian.

So if you think about it, for me, learning Cantonese first, which I had (and still have) a fiery passion burning deep down in my heart to learn - it’s more logical that I started with Cantonese if I were to learn both languages.

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Your passion and what your heart is leading you to do will take you way farther than any logic can take you and your head. And for me as a Christian dude, when I went to Hong Kong for the first time back in 2017 I felt strongly that the Lord put on my heart to learn the language. And it was confirmed by the intense desire I felt to start doing it. I have rarely felt so excited to do anything in my life! It was really something else!

Even though Cantonese speakers aren’t as many as Mandarin ones, I have many times during travels bumped into Cantonese speakers. And since me and my wife love Hong Kong so much - it’s a place we will continue returning to. And over there Cantonese is way more useful to know than mandarin. And we also love to go to California and whenever I’m in China Town in San Francisco I’m surrounded by Cantonese speakers.

And there is something extra valuable and precious for a Cantonese native speaker that I decided to learn their language, rather than the most common Chinese one (let’s not even get started on the whole Chinese dialect/language debate thing).

It’s very heartwarming for them that I chose a more rare language to learn and it has made my interactions with people I meet even more meaningful. I have made countless friends all over the world in grocery stores, airports, restaurants and on the streets. I’ve had such cool and memorable encounters.

So if you’re feeling the urge to learn a language that might not be the most obvious choice to learn, I would really encourage you to just go for it. You won’t regret it. It will be an experience that will change your life.

And you never know what kind of doors and connections will open up because of it Just like learning Cantonese has done for me. And the journey has still only begun…


If you’re learning a more “unusual” language, comment below and let me know which one. I’d be really curious to know :)

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