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Tackling Cantonese | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6584 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes  Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 9 of 22 16 October 2012 at 7:16am | IP Logged | |||||
Be aware that Cantopop isn't a very good source for learning Cantonese. The vast majority of songs are in Mandarin with Cantonese pronunciation and if you try to speak like that you'll sound like an idiot. There are a few people who sing in Cantonese (I linked to some in my Cantonese resource thread above), and rap is a good source of Cantonese as most of it is in Canto. But your average Cantopop songs are 100% Mandarin (or "Standard Chinese" or "書面語" or whatever you want to call it. Point is, it isn't Cantonese). In fact, this is one of the difficulties of learning Cantonese. Lots of resources will give you Mandarin with Canto pronunciation and tell you it's Cantonese. Anything written should be checked to make sure it's not Mando. Of course if you want to get to an advanced level in Cantonese you'll have to learn to read Mandarin with Cantonese pronunciation the way Hong Kongers do it, but I think that's better saved until later.
Ha, HK is not very expensive at all. True, apartments are a bit pricey, especially compared to China, but anyone wanting to go there to study Cantonese wouldn't want to live on Hong Kong Island, where the prices are the worst, anyway. In that part of the city half the people don't speak Cantonese and those who do will sometimes refuse to speak it with you if you have a white face (and the other half will tell you you should learn Mandarin instead). For good Canto practice you'll want to get to the New Territories. My girlfriend lives in Tuen Mun and not only is food very cheap, most people don't speak English and are super happy to let you practice your Canto with them. Oh, and try to get a Cantonese IME for your computer that lets you type in Jyutping or Yale. You'll get good practice when writing and you'll have access to the thousands of Cantonese-specific characters that can be hard to input in Mandarin: 冇睇佢嘅黐叻轆乸啱 ... But do remember that apart from the most commonly used characters (like the ones above), most Canto speakers can't read the Canto characters that exist, since Cantonese isn't taught in school even in Hong Kong. The Hong Kong government policy is clear: Cantonese should not be a written language. If you write characters like 尐 or 怶 people will likely not understand, though it's a lot of fun finding these characters. Hum, very rambly post. Apologies. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6584 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 10 of 22 16 October 2012 at 7:21am | IP Logged | |||||
I'm not sure I'd call Cantonese "relatively small". Anyway, it's true there's a lot of beginner's materials out there. I find that the largest problem in learning Cantonese is getting beyond a basic level, due to the lack of written texts. That's the sort of material most lacking. It's hard to learn the vast Cantonese vocabulary that exists when it doesn't appear in print. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
 newyorkeric Diglot Moderator Singapore Joined 6381 days ago 1598 posts - 2174 votes Speaks: English*, Italian Studies: Mandarin, Malay Personal Language Map | Message 11 of 22 16 October 2012 at 3:49pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Yes, I probably exagerrated a bit but I just meant there are a lot of languages with a lot of speakers that don't have nearly as many resources as Cantonese does.
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| michaelyus Diglot Groupie United Kingdom Joined 4567 days ago 53 posts - 87 votes Speaks: Mandarin, English* Studies: Italian, French, Cantonese, Korean, Catalan, Vietnamese, Lingala, Spanish Studies: Hokkien | Message 12 of 22 17 October 2012 at 5:30pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Of course, for the overseas Chinese that are historically Cantonese-speaking, learning the 書面語 in Cantonese is in itself another challenge, especially when most of the books teaching it in Chinese are written in that kind of formal style. Diglossia is difficult! (Of course, Cantopop fans have a bit of a headstart.)
What there aren't any resources for (as far as I can tell) is the 三及第, that quintessential medium of the Cantonese literati. Although Cantopop lyric manuals must come close. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6584 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 13 of 22 18 October 2012 at 7:12am | IP Logged | |||||
The 三及第 are going to be even more difficult, surely. They're not diglossic, but triglossic! I'm looking forward to tackling them once I get going with my Literary Sinitic studies, but I've realized I need to get really good with just reading Mandarin in Canto pronunciation first, which is my current practice. Lots and lots of reading and expanding my formal vocabulary. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| zhanglong Senior Member United States Joined 4931 days ago 322 posts - 427 votes Studies: Mandarin, Cantonese | Message 14 of 22 13 November 2012 at 5:38pm | IP Logged | |||||
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It's great to see so many others learning Cantonese. I know that whenever I do speak it here in Guangzhou, non-local Chinese think I'm some kind of "genius" because "Cantonese is so hard!"
Well, everything worth doing is challenging, but if you really enjoy it, it's not much harder than anything else. Just take it step by step and always be willing to reassess your assumptions. Ari's resources are an excellent beginning. Maybe we should do a forum club for Cantonese learners. We could meet online regularly and practice. In any case, good luck with your studies! 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| vientito Senior Member Canada Joined 6340 days ago 212 posts - 281 votes | Message 15 of 22 15 November 2012 at 11:34pm | IP Logged | |||||
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this iranian-american guy speaks the best cantonese that i ever heard from a foreigner.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eO1H0sJGcI0 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| ekid777 Newbie Taiwan Joined 4382 days ago 1 posts - 1 votes | Message 16 of 22 28 November 2012 at 4:27pm | IP Logged | |||||
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If you can read Chinese, I will suggest this web-site for some basic conversation and pronunciations. It is made by students in the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
https://www.ilc.cuhk.edu.hk/Chinese/pthprog1/tm_py.html 1 person has voted this message useful |
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