I take my hat off to you if you can add any variant of Chinese in that amount of time. I know it took me a lot longer, and my Chinese is still extremely broken.
In HK and Macau, Cantonese will work fine, of course, but I think it is harder to pick up. There's also the notion that if you are going in to China on a future trip, Mandarin could be very useful, and not just for punting.
When it comes to sex words, I've found that most girls in HK and Macau can decipher my attempts to speak either Mando or Canto, even if they are only fluent in one of those. The sex vocabulary is not that large.
I've found that people generally appreciate the effort to speak their language, even if all it does is make them smile or wince.
Bottom line: Either, but I'd do Mandarin for the other benefits.
Gherk | |
