can mandarin understand cantonese
Quora User, fluent speaker of Mandarin and Cantonese. Knowing Cantonese alone does not make you understand Mandarin due to the large differences in the language/dialect. However, I believe the majority of Cantonese speakers can understand Mandarin, but only because they have separately studied Mandarin (either formally in school, or self-taught).
Best Answer: Unless they are bi-lingual, they can barely understand each other. I frequent Hong Kong almost every month, the locals who have lived in Hong Kong all their life and mainly spoke cantonese cannot speak / understand mandarin. And for Mainlanders who goes to Hong Kong, they usually have a hard time understanding the cantonese. Some neighboring cities of Hong Kong like Guangzhou and Shenzhen, where cantonese are spoken a lot, the locals can sometimes be bi-lingual in mandarin and cantonese.