Problems speaking cantonese

mayling03 · Joined: 11 Nov 2003 Posts: 4 Location: North

I do find it useful to have a second language and to be bilingual, as communication with my parents and granma are important to me. Learning mandarin or cantonese can bring many benefits, as the music scene is pretty big over there, although not being known here in the UK (they do not know what they are missing).

I was brought up by my granma as from a very young age, my parents had to work in a take-away full time as a lot of others do aswell. My granma didn't speak mandarin or cantonese, she speaks 'Hack Gar' (Chinese Dialect). I found it embarrassing to communicate with my accent as it is a dying dialect. My parents also speak this dialect, everytime I went to Christmas Do's with relatives, they would tease me about the lack of cantonese I spoke.

That until, this guy from Hong Kong came to study in England at a college near to where I live.

The fact that we communicated everyday for a year, he managed to change my accent into those that speak perfect cantonese in Hong Kong. I also in turn, improved his english. I am greatful for this guy and I have been to Hong Kong several times and fallen in love with the city, though people still suss you out as I do have a slight accent, that in saying that I do get comments from BBC's that my cantonese is of an exceptional level. I have taught myself to read by listening to lyrics as all know, that speaking cantonese is different from the written form. By watching television, it can improve your reading skills as well as writing.

My dream is to one day live in Hong Kong, but for the mean time, I intend to study japanese as this is also a useful language to use in the Far East. Though I do find it hard to keep up my cantonese.

agylee · Joined: 30 Nov 2003 Posts: 1

When I started working in HK my Cantonese improved a lot and I don't have an accent anymore. My husband (native HKer) helped out a lot. Now I'm learning Mandarin and I find that learning the Cantonese first helped a lot. Mandarin follows the standard written Chinese text more closely unlike Cantonese, which has a lot of colloquial terms. My husband told me that in HK schools, the standard written chinese is taught but because it is so formal, it is not spoken. Nowadays, some of the trashy magazines and tabloid newspapers in HK are using the colloquial Cantonese and there are concerns that the kids are not able to differentiate it from the standard Chinese.

Guest · Posted: Tue Dec 02, 2003 11:05 pm Post subject:

hi everybody, it's my first time posting on this board. it really made an interesting one and a half hour read to go through every post. the various discussions (esp porkscratching's) certainly helped alot in a recent dilemma of mine. I'm at the stage of "thinking of getting married" and recently has been thinking about the "what language to speak to my children" dilemma. I'm a malaysian who studied and now is working here. I speak cantonese, mandarin and hakka. I always thought my cantonese was fluent until I met some HK students years ago, i don't mind being made fun of as long as i learn something out of it. My cantonese however is better than the average M'sian as i am more exposed to HK culture where i live back home.
I fully agree that language teaching should be started as early as possible. I remember the days in kindergarten, it's a private school where we will be punished for not speaking in english by taping our lips shut. That's how i got my basics in english rite. At home i speak to my parents in mandarin (mum's taiwanese) and cantonese with my sisters. we were brought up by a maid who speaks it.
My main regret in life is not working hard enough to learn how to read/write chinese charaters. my mum used to force me into tuition lessons after school, sometimes even tempting me to finish my essays with rewards. my standard now is probably that of a 6 year old's. I believe there are alot of ppl out there who share my frustration of not being able to sing along to various cantopops during those karaoke nights.
My sister married a belgian husband and he speaks flemish/dutch and english. My sister speaks to my niece(2 yrs old) in mandarin and my bro-in-law speaks to her in dutch. They then speak to each other in english. When the whole family gathers for a reunion, we'll dish in some cantonese and my grand speaks to my mum in hokkien. Watching her confused expression during these events is really good after dinner entertainment. She is however able to converse with her parents in different languages and i'm sure when she grows up will be fluent in at least three languages.

cheekicharlie · Joined: 05 Dec 2003 Posts: 9

Learning a new language is always hard, especially if you are jumping from an European language to an Asian language. I am a BBC but spend my childhood in Hong Kong when I learnt Cantonese. I am grateful for it as I can read and speak the language (although my written Chinese is pretty bad). Having spend a fair amount of time in HK, I would say it is extremely important to speak Cantonese and Mandarin if one is planning to live and work in HK. But I know it is not an easy language to pick up, since returning to London from HK in 1997, I found my spoken Cantonese is getting dire due to lack of opportunities to use it. All I can say is persevere and if you can, surround yourself with Chinese people and force yourself to converse only in Cantonese, listen and watch Chinese news/current affairs programmes.

Good Luck[/color]

Guest · Posted: Tue Dec 16, 2003 1:05 pm Post subject: Mandarin lessons

I was wondering if anyone knows of anywhere in Surrey (near Farnham) that does Mandarin lessons? I only know a few words / phrases at the moment, but want to move to China with my partner ASAP, I know most Chinese companies employing English speakers tend to offer Chinese lessons, but I would feel more comfortable if I knew more.... and since my partner and I work different hours a lot, learning from her really isn't an option :(

And as another motive it's so when we haev kids they don't all 'gang up' on me since I don't understand them!! :)

eye_candy1870 · Joined: 08 May 2003 Posts: 86

forget cantonese...you guys arebetter off learning the ONLY chinese language, Mandarin.

Cantonese wont be used in business communications during the boom times in China so why bother learning this colonial dialect?

GundamRX78 · Joined: 25 Jan 2004 Posts: 10 Location: London

I come from Hong Kong, If you want to learn I don't mind to teach you, and then you could improve my English
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I love Hong Kong

tenpence · Joined: 24 Feb 2003 Posts: 174

Cantonese or mandarin?

GundamRX78 · Joined: 25 Jan 2004 Posts: 10 Location: London

Cantonese, including writing Chinese (Traditional)
_________________
I love Hong Kong

Guest · Posted: Mon Mar 01, 2004 5:47 pm Post subject:

yeah,, speaking cantonese is quite important nowadays,, you can see those china people learnig english and cantose ,, why not you bbc ,learn more ????

AlexTang · Joined: 25 Feb 2003 Posts: 0

All,

The last time I visited HK, they still use Cantonese and the number of people I see on the streets that are willing to speaking Mandarin are very few or none. You see shop assistants trying to speak Mandarin to the China / Taiwaness Customers. I agree that if you are going to China / Taiwan you need to know Mandarin to travel as well as business. But if your Mandarin isn't good, you can use English. In south China, people will still understand Cantonese, where do you think Cantonese is from :p

Alex

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