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Tackling Cantonese | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| wakaka Triglot Newbie Hong Kong Joined 4628 days ago 2 posts - 3 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, Mandarin, English Studies: Russian | Message 17 of 22 02 December 2012 at 4:18pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I am not sure if I can give good comments regarding learning Canto as I myself am a
native speaker so I never really "learn" it :) A quick comment on CantonPop - while the lyrics are mostly Standard Chinese/書面語, I would still suggest you listen to CantoPop if learning to music is your cup of tea/preferred way of learning languages. If you are listening to Mandarin songs the lyrics don't have to match the tone at all. When you are writing lyrics for a song to be sung in Mandarin you just have to do it the way you are doing it in other non-tonal languages - the tone of the lyrics and the actual pitch of the melody don't have to match each other. In CantonPop, however, it's painful to listen to songs with the tone of the lyric not matching that particular note, and we would actually say it's a mistake. I would still recommend CantonPop as a good means to mastering the pronunciation of the language. One of my favourite songs: http://youtu.be/DhoyBgt231c I often recommend it to my friends beginning learning the language. Don't worry if you don't understand a single Chinese character. Just follow along and you will get the pronunciations of 0-9 correctly like a native. And the 9 tones are already covered :) tones: 123456789 digit: 394052786 Another note. Colloquial Mandarin is also different from Standard Chinese/書面語 too. Standard Chinese/書面語 should be understood by all Chinese users over the globe in terms of choice of words and grammar (not referencing to the difference between Traditional and Simplified Chinese) and is used in official documents as well as textbooks. Proficient Chinese users should be able to understand 95% of the content of any Chinese novels. (I don't have the stat. I just made up the number. I meant close to 100% but not perfectly) The remaining 5% goes to the colloquial choice of words influenced by the local dialect spoken by the author. Non-official stuff are not written in strict Standard Chinese. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| shk00design Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4446 days ago 747 posts - 1123 votes  Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin Studies: French | Message 18 of 22 09 December 2012 at 8:53pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Found a web-site featuring Cantonese language videos for learning:
http://cantonesepod.com/pods/2011/04/01/how-to-say-in-canton ese/ Info about the site: some of the content is posted by Sobem, a Christian organization. More like Cantonese crash course for missionaries heading into Hong Kong & China. Even some of the foreigners featured including Corinna Chamberlain speaks very standard Cantonese & Mandarin. Not someone talking with a European or American accent. Besides Hong Kong, there are Chinese expats all over so the videos are not all showing the same location. Always good to get some ideas how Cantonese natives sound. Edited by shk00design on 09 December 2012 at 9:15pm 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 19 of 22 10 December 2012 at 7:39am | IP Logged | |||||
Well ... not really. Anything you can write in 書面語 is pretty much correct to say in Mandarin, but hardly in Cantonese. There's a reason why Hong Kong, despite being such a cultural hub for decades, has never been known for its literature. It's hard for Hong Kong authors to compete with Mandarin authors who write in their native language. That's why HK schools are starting to switch to Mandarin for literacy teaching. I know Cantonese natives don't consider 書面語 to be Mandarin, but they're wrong. And because they keep insisting on it, their language is dying. (Sorry, that article really depressed me.) Edited by Ari on 10 December 2012 at 7:40am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| wakaka Triglot Newbie Hong Kong Joined 4628 days ago 2 posts - 3 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, Mandarin, English Studies: Russian | Message 20 of 22 10 December 2012 at 9:11am | IP Logged | |||||
I agree with you. Yes, anything you can write in 書面語 is correct in Mandarin. Colloquial Mandarin with regional flavour, however, is not correct 書面 語. Just like if you speak with perfect Beijing accent you are going to score very poorly in the standard exam. During the 白話文運動, advocates of such movement adopted the colloquial Mandarin used at the time - which is slightly different from the one used nowadays, evolving just like all other languages in the world - as the standard written Chinese to replace the then defacto written form, Classical Chinese. In popular culture, however, users of different dialects mix a lot of their own words into their writings, allowing some relatively more influential dialects such as Shanghainese, Min Nan and Cantonese some room to narrowly survive in their written form. I agree that Cantonese is dying. How sad :( I however do not agree with the article that using Mandarin as the teaching medium does any better in literacy teaching, given that a lot of the pieces taught in school are written in Classical Chinese. My friends from Mainland China sometimes ask me to read some of the pieces in Cantonese just to give them a feeling of how lyrical the pieces were meant to be when they were written. One of the good things about Chinese is that we can still appreciate the pieces written 1000 years ago relatively easily without learning another language say Latin. I would argue the trend that more schools are adopting Mandarin is more a speculating move seeing the Chinese economy becoming increasingly prominent, which is not an uncommon thought in such an opportunistic city. The good stuff is ruined in our own hands. Thanks a lot for your interest in my native tongue by the way :) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Eternica Triglot Newbie United States Joined 5074 days ago 24 posts - 74 votes Speaks: Cantonese, English*, French Studies: Hungarian, Spanish | Message 21 of 22 13 December 2012 at 5:15am | IP Logged | |||||
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I've started created some beginner Cantonese learning materials, which I plan on eventually putting up on a website. However, I am very far from that goal due to a bunch of things like site design/content/hosting/etc., so I can't officially release them eat.
Despite that, I did place some of my lessons on a test server, so if anyone is interested, send me a private message! My lessons are geared towards the complete beginner, and I don't introduce a lot of vocabulary, so keep in mind that this is probably too easy for an intermediate learner (even a high-beginner, though it may be good review) or the such. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| nosmas Diglot Newbie Canada Joined 4366 days ago 1 posts - 2 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English Studies: Japanese | Message 22 of 22 14 December 2012 at 10:48pm | IP Logged | |||||
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i recommend take a look at cantoneseclass101.com. It is one of the language that
innovative language is currently focusing on. The website is getting more mature after 2 years of opening as there are lessons on introduction, absolute beginner, beginner, lower intermediate, intermediate and advanced level. (They have a new series starting January so there will be more coming soon) I don't think their advanced level is good, but if you ran through all the lessons from absolute beginner to intermediate. You should be able to begin communicating in Cantonese, and should be able to understand a certain degree from native materials. However, I dont recommend using their dictionary as it is Mandarin oriented. I will recommend three dictionaries: 1) cantonese.sheik.co.uk dictionary Their dictionary is cantonese-oriented and you can choose between Yale and Jyutping. 2) mdbg.net character dictionary This website is mandarin oriented but their character dictionary also offers Cantonese reading. Use it when you cannot find the word in sheik dictionary 3) JCanExpress dictionary (Japanese only) This is a Japanese-Cantonese/Cantonese-Japanese dictionary. I know it sounds funny to you that I am recommending it to a English speaker. But their dictionary is Cantonese- oriented and the content is good enough for me to recommend to someone who doesn't know Japanese. Their dictionary offers native pronunciation of Cantonese! I think this might be the only dictionary that has Cantonese pronunciation in the world Also, you should watch some Cantonese drama with English subtitles after you reached upper beginner level. (or earlier but i dont think its helpful, maybe good for getting used to the rhythms) Good luck! Edited by nosmas on 14 December 2012 at 11:08pm 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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