learning Chinese

I want to pick up some very basic stuff, polite salutations, swear words, directions and so on before I come over. i.e:

'No, this is a knife ...' (thanks to Croc Dundee for that one)
'How many dogs did your mother sleep with before she birthed you?'
'Don't shoot ... I will go quietly ...'
'My best friend is a Minister of State and my brother-in-law is a military General.'
'Which way to the nearest pleasure house.'

You know, all the casual commentary a foreigner may need when motorcycling alone and for the first time. I am brave and stupid in equal measures, it should work OK for me if I can develop a sense of humour.

Is it best to pick up a bit of basic Mandarin or to try Cantonese from the online courses available (quite a few to choose from)? I am guessing Mandarin is more 'universal'. And would I do best learning by 'sound' from recordings of phrases or by trying to pickup a few thousand characters and translate?

A list of favourite necessary phrases from any of you experienced Chinese speakers and native Chinese would be most welcomed ...!

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Originally Posted by jape

I want to pick up some very basic stuff, polite salutations ...

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...and so you came to a motorbike forum!

Mandarin is certainly the one to go for as cantonese will be useless outside guangdong province and i suspect that's not where you want to do the bulk of your biking.

Learning by sound is a good place to start, stay away from characters as they will melt your brain by the third one. If you use torrents, you can find some mandarin lessons to download for free. You can listen to them while you look for your screwdrivers or try to screw bolts into smooth holes!:thumbsup:

Good one to start with is Chinese pod, teaches you daily common use Chinse, but not sure the kind you are looking for. http://www.torrentz.com/ec1f567610b8...9b2ee57bfa2253 ..

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Originally Posted by felix

...cantonese will be useless outside guangdong ...

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NO... eastern Guangxi are native speaker of this family http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yue_Chinese

For example-- Qinzhou (It's in Guangdong b4 1964) is one of those Yue speaking area / the language problem "Supersignet" faced: http://www.mychinamoto.com/forums/showthread.php?11

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Originally Posted by humanbeing

NO... eastern Guangxi are native speaker of this family http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yue_Chinese

For example-- Qinzhou (It's in Guangdong b4 1964) is one of those Yue speaking area / the language problem "Supersignet" faced: http://www.mychinamoto.com/forums/showthread.php?11

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and that population size? I doult those people don't speak Mandarin (the other way around?) or they are middle age undereducated.