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Where to Start with Cantonese | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6573 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes  Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 9 of 13 31 January 2012 at 6:44am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Goddammit, I've been in that very bookstore and I missed it. Thanks again for the tip. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| rae0011 Tetraglot Newbie Hong Kong Joined 6359 days ago 10 posts - 15 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, Mandarin, English, SpanishB2 | Message 10 of 13 05 February 2012 at 2:36pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Hi, I'm a native Cantonese speaker from Hong Kong. There was a radio programme called
'Naked Cantonese'. It was hosted by a Norwegian lady teaching local expats (?) Cantonese. Regarding the relationship between Mandarin and Cantonese, in my opinion, it's like Spanish and Portuguese (or even French). Our tonal system is a bit more complicated... For example, we have sharp ending sound like /t/, /k/, /d/ which do not exist in Mandarin. In the past we didn't really care to learn Mandarin so most of the people, say over 25 don't speak Mandarin. Even if we speak it, we speak it with a distint accent. After the handover, of course, it became more popular. Anyway, thank you for your interest in Cantonese. Feel free to let me know if you have any questions! 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| BobbyE Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5238 days ago 226 posts - 331 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin | Message 11 of 13 05 February 2012 at 7:56pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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When I originally wanted to learn a foreign language, it was Mandarin or Cantonese.
This is because I wanted to study martial arts at home with out a teacher (haha my naivete), but the only videos I could find were in Mandarin/Cantonese. I could some really bad advice that Chinese languages were too difficult for a beginner and I should start on an easier more practical language for a US citizen... Spanish. So I spent a year on Spanish (Platiquemos) and now have a really basically, survival level of Spanish. However, if I would have originally started with the language my heart truly desired, I'd be much better off now. The only reason I don't regret that time with Spanish is the many people I get to talk to in their native tongue in my day-to-day life, otherwise it would have been a waste. I highly recommend pursuing Cantonese instead of Mandarin, since that is what you truly want. Also, I would really suggest doing some kind of listening-reading method, using Steve Kaufman (youtube name: lingosteve), Luca (poliglotta), or Moses McCormick (laoshu) for inspiration and an idea of how to proceed and what to expect out of listening-reading. That is what I am doing with Mandarin right now and so far I'm really happy with my progress. Edited by BobbyE on 05 February 2012 at 7:58pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| jimbo Tetraglot Senior Member Canada Joined 6285 days ago 469 posts - 642 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin, Korean, French Studies: Japanese, Latin | Message 12 of 13 06 February 2012 at 5:15pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Having just passed through Hong Kong where I popped into a few bookstores, I've found that I need to make some corrections. My apologies. 1. I did not see the Sidney Lau dictionary anywhere. 2. The Dymocks that used to be located in the Prince's Building moved to another building nearby. 3. The bookstore I meant to refer to was the Bookazine on the third floor of the Prince's building. They have the six books in the Sidney Lau Cantonese series but were sold out of the dictionary. They said they can order it. I think I've seen it at Swindon books as well but I managed to resist going there this trip. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| zhanglong Senior Member United States Joined 4920 days ago 322 posts - 427 votes Studies: Mandarin, Cantonese | Message 13 of 13 26 April 2012 at 7:32am | IP Logged | ||||||||
I will stop by this bookstore soon to see what's available. In terms of vocabulary, are the Lau books horribly dated? How are they in terms of grammar? (I'd expect that the grammar of a language not change terribly in 40 years while vocabulary will definitely and necessarily change) 1 person has voted this message useful |
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