Cantonese and Mandarin are not accents of one another. Two people can read the same page of a Bible and say almost none of the same sounds out loud. Most tools quietly treat Chinese as a single choice, produce Mandarin, and let the reader do the work. We ran Cantonese as its own language, read what came back, and it came back in real Cantonese. This page shows you the exact characters that prove it, so you do not have to take our word for anything.
This is the part that confuses everybody, including software, and it is worth two minutes because it decides what you offer at the door.
Chinese characters carry meaning rather than sound. That is why a page of written Chinese can be read aloud by a Mandarin speaker and by a Cantonese speaker, and both understand it, while sounding almost nothing alike. It is a genuinely remarkable arrangement and it has held a very large area together for a very long time.
What it hides is that Cantonese is a separate spoken language. Not a dialect in the way an English speaker means the word. The vocabulary differs, the grammar differs in places, and the sound system has more tone distinctions to keep apart than Mandarin does. A Mandarin speaker who has never encountered it does not follow a Cantonese conversation.
And Cantonese has its own written form. There are characters that exist to write Cantonese words, and a Cantonese speaker writing to a friend uses them without thinking. That written form is what speech looks like when you write it down, and it is unmistakable.
So there are three different things a room can be handed, and only one of them is Cantonese: Mandarin, standard written Chinese, and written Cantonese. Most tools produce one of the first two and call it Chinese.
The version you can use on Sunday. If somebody tells you they speak Cantonese, give them Cantonese. Handing them Mandarin because both are called Chinese is the same size of mistake as offering a Portuguese speaker Spanish, and it is made far more often because the word Chinese makes it invisible.
Six deliberately hard Danish lines went into every language at once, on the same day, through the same path a live service uses. Nothing has been edited since. Four of the Cantonese ones are here, and every one of them contains characters that Mandarin simply does not use.
割禮唔係身體外面嗰種，而係藉住聖靈喺人心裏面嘅割禮。
From the Danish Omskærelsen er ikke den ydre på kroppen, men hjertets omskærelse ved Ånden.
Read the third and fourth characters. 唔係 is the Cantonese way of saying is not. Mandarin writes 不是. Then 嗰種 for that kind, 喺 for in, and 嘅 where Mandarin would put 的. Four separate giveaways in one sentence, and none of them would appear if this had come out of a Mandarin model.
你哋係因著恩典，藉住信心得救，呢個唔係出於你哋自己，係神嘅禮物。
From the Danish Af nåde er I frelst ved tro, og det skyldes ikke jer selv, det er Guds gave.
你哋 is you, plural, in Cantonese. Mandarin writes 你們. It appears twice here. 呢個 is this, where Mandarin writes 這個. And the sentence still lands on 恩典 and 得救, which are the words a Chinese speaking church reads in Ephesians, rather than on ordinary words about being helped out of trouble.
聖靈臨到佢哋全部人身上，佢哋就開始講唔同嘅語言。
From the Danish Og Ånden faldt over dem alle sammen, og de begyndte at tale på andre sprog.
佢哋 is they, in Cantonese. Mandarin writes 他們. Again it appears twice. The Danish word can mean a spirit, a ghost or a bottle of something strong, and this is Acts chapter two, so the output names the Holy Spirit outright. 講 is also the Cantonese verb for to speak, where written Mandarin reaches for 說.
但係其實冇乜好擔心嘅。
From the Danish Men der er ingen ko på isen.
The Danish means there is nothing to worry about. Word for word it is a sentence about a cow standing on ice. The cow is gone, correctly, and what is left is 但係 for but and 冇乜 for there is not much, both of them Cantonese to the bone. A Mandarin sentence here would read 但是 and 沒什麼.
That last Danish line ran on into a second sentence, which arrives in the following caption rather than in this one. Everything shown above is copied exactly from the run, including the punctuation. Give the system your outline first with Context Enhancer and it starts the service already knowing the passage.
The captions will not look like the page of the Bible in your guest's hands, and there is a good reason for that.
Most Cantonese speaking congregations read from the Union Version, and the Union Version is standard written Chinese. A Cantonese preacher reads that page aloud in Cantonese sounds. So the printed page and the spoken sermon are already two different registers, and everyone in the room is used to it.
What came out of our run is speech written down: the form people use in messages to each other. It reads as somebody talking, which is what a sermon is. It does not read as a printed Bible page, and a reader who was expecting one will notice within a line.
Which is better depends on your room, so ask. For most listeners, captions that read like speech track a live talk better than a formal register does. If your congregation would rather have the formal written form, run Chinese in Traditional characters instead, which is a separate entry and a different page. Either way, put the wording your church uses for names and key terms into Keywords once, and it stays fixed.
Cantonese captions come in Traditional characters, which is what readers from Hong Kong and most long settled communities abroad grew up with.
The Simplified against Traditional question, and why it is a decision rather than a detail, is covered on the Chinese page.
This is where the difference stops being an argument about labels and becomes something you can hear from three rows away.
There are two Cantonese voices, one man and one woman, and they speak Cantonese. Not Mandarin reading Cantonese words, which is not a thing that can be done, and not a generic Chinese voice with the edges filed off.
Cantonese keeps more tone distinctions apart than Mandarin does. Getting them wrong does not produce an accent. It produces a different word, and then a sentence that a listener has to reassemble while the speaker is already three sentences further on.
For older guests in particular this is the mode that works. Reading a screen for forty minutes is work, especially in a script that rewards a close look. Listening is what everybody else in the room is already doing, and one earbud is the whole of the equipment.
Pick the voice deliberately rather than accepting a default. In a room where several people are listening rather than reading, the voice is the service as far as they are concerned.
Three separate questions. Cantonese answers yes to all three, on its own entry, without borrowing anything from Mandarin.
A visiting Cantonese preacher can speak Cantonese and the whole room follows in whatever languages it needs. One of the 81 languages that can be the source, not only a destination.
Written Cantonese in Traditional characters, on the phone your guest already carries, or on the screen at the front through MulingDisplay. One of 182 languages that can be read.
Two Cantonese voices, through an ordinary earbud. One of 81 languages that can be listened to rather than read.
Cantonese and Chinese can both run in the same service at the same time, along with everything else your room needs. Language count is not a price lever here and never will be.
Often the oldest established Chinese speaking communities in a European city, and often the ones assumed to need nothing.
Cantonese speaking families have been in many European cities for generations, arriving from Hong Kong and the surrounding region long before more recent movements from elsewhere in China. In some cities the older Chinese church is a Cantonese church, and the Mandarin congregation is the newer one.
A single household can hold a grandmother who is comfortable only in Cantonese, an adult son who works entirely in the host language, and a younger generation that switches between the two mid sentence. They come to church together and sit together.
That is the practical case for running Cantonese as one language among several rather than holding a separate meeting. Nobody has to be moved to another room, and nobody has to sit through forty minutes at half comprehension out of politeness.
More recent arrivals from Hong Kong have added to that in several countries, often people who already have a church background and are looking for somewhere to belong rather than for an introduction.
Assume you had no warning. This still works.
Ask whether they would rather follow in Cantonese or Mandarin. Do not decide it from a surname or from where somebody is from. The question takes four seconds and it is the whole of the difference between guessing and knowing.
Some people want text they can look back at. Others want a voice so they can keep their eyes on the front. Both are available at once, and a guest can switch during the service without telling anybody.
Keep a few cheap wired earphones in a basket by the door. It is the single most useful thing a welcoming team can own, and it costs less than the coffee.
Not for a Cantonese speaker. As a voice, Chinese means Mandarin, which a Cantonese speaker may not follow at all. As captions, Chinese means standard written Chinese, which they will read but which is not their spoken language written down. Cantonese is a separate entry and it costs nothing extra to add.
Look for a small set of characters. 佢哋 for they, 你哋 for you plural, 嘅 where Mandarin uses 的, 係 where Mandarin uses 是, 唔 for not, and 冇 for there is not. All six appear in the lines above. Show that paragraph to a Cantonese speaker and they will confirm it in a second.
Yes. Cantonese can be the language coming off the stage, and everybody else receives it in their own language at the same moment. A visiting Cantonese preacher does not have to switch language to be understood by the room.
Yes, at the same time, with no extra setup and no extra cost. Every pass carries as many languages as your guests need. Each person picks their own from the same code.
After that a single gathering is a Service Pass, a whole day is a Day Pass, and a whole week is a Week Pass. A pass does not expire, and it is not spent unless somebody actually listens.
Each has a page of its own, with a hook of its own. The rest of the 183 are a row in the table.
Nothing to install, no card, and your guest needs nothing but the phone already in their pocket and one earbud.