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Cantonese - Intermediate to Advanced | ||
Tags: Cantonese | Intermediate | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| hkboy Groupie Hong Kong Joined 5681 days ago 65 posts - 86 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Cantonese, Mandarin | Message 1 of 40 07 March 2011 at 4:31am | IP Logged |
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I've been studying Cantonese for a few years and feel I'm at the intermediate level with speaking and listening. I only probably know about 600 - 700 characters.
I'm currently going through a few books I purchased at Greenwood Press. Also, I'm using Heisig's Remembering Traditional Hanzi. I've really enjoyed the journey in Cantonese. It's a fun and exciting language. I'm looking forward to improving more and thought I would try to keep a log. Hopefully, I can get some encouragement/advice from other learners, no matter which language you are studying. Edited by hkboy on 07 March 2011 at 5:43am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| hkboy Groupie Hong Kong Joined 5681 days ago 65 posts - 86 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Cantonese, Mandarin | Message 2 of 40 07 March 2011 at 6:25am | IP Logged |
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As far as listening and speaking practice, I'm currently using the Greenwood Press books: A Feng Shui Master, Wedding Bells, About Hong Kong, The Story of Minami & Current Cantonese Colloquialisms. In my opinion, these are all great books. They are all nicely divided in to chapters with the vocabulary at the end.
I set my itouch to repeat and kept going over and over the vocabulary. I seem to still have problems getting the vocabulary to stick. I already have an anki deck for Hanzi so I really don't want to start another deck. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| hkboy Groupie Hong Kong Joined 5681 days ago 65 posts - 86 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Cantonese, Mandarin | Message 3 of 40 08 March 2011 at 8:39am | IP Logged |
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I think I've finally got a Hanzi study system that works well for me. I take the Heisig RTH book and make sure I develop a good story. I'll write the story in a notebook and maybe only trace the character once or twice with my finger. Mr. Heisig says you should take about 5 minutes of work with each character. In the past, I would rush through them just so I could think I had completed many characters. However, I really didn't have a good story to go with the characters so I quickly forgot them.
I then have the Heisig textbook on Skritter so I can practice writing them. I also have the words on Anki so I've can keep reviewing them. In the past, I've started and stopped many times but this system seems to be really working for me. I only now need to get the Cantonese pronunciation from Cantodict. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| hkboy Groupie Hong Kong Joined 5681 days ago 65 posts - 86 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Cantonese, Mandarin | Message 4 of 40 10 March 2011 at 11:46am | IP Logged |
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Skritter has added mnemonics since I used it last. Most of the characters have a selection of them or you can add your own. Now, if they could just add the Cantonese pronunciation for them.
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| hkboy Groupie Hong Kong Joined 5681 days ago 65 posts - 86 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Cantonese, Mandarin | Message 5 of 40 10 March 2011 at 12:23pm | IP Logged |
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Why am I learning Cantonese? When I first moved to Hong Kong everyone told me to learn Mandarin. I heard that it was a "waste of time" to learn Cantonese. For a few years I did study Mandarin. However, where I'm living, few people were interested in speaking with me. During these years, I met a nice local girl and got married. Although she could speak English quite well, her parents could not. I remember her mother mentioning something about taking an English class so she could speak with me.
I think that was what made me start with Cantonese. I remember going to my first Cantonese class. Maybe I knew the numbers from 1 - 10 but that was about all. Now I can carry on simple conversations with people. I can talk with my mother-in-law and also understand her when she calls on the phone. I'm really looking forward to moving up the Cantonese mountain but I'm trying to enjoy the view along the way. Edited by hkboy on 10 March 2011 at 12:42pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| hkboy Groupie Hong Kong Joined 5681 days ago 65 posts - 86 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Cantonese, Mandarin | Message 6 of 40 14 March 2011 at 8:06am | IP Logged |
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This week I've been putting in a lot of time listening to "About Hong Kong". Quite a good book. As it says, it's all about HK. I've listened to it many times but lots of the vocabulary just dont stick. I'm starting with Chapter 1 now and I'm going to go through it many times until I know all the words. The words I'm having trouble with are:
設備: facilities 環境: environment 改善: improve Edited by hkboy on 14 March 2011 at 12:07pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| hkboy Groupie Hong Kong Joined 5681 days ago 65 posts - 86 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Cantonese, Mandarin | Message 7 of 40 21 March 2011 at 3:39am | IP Logged |
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I'm really enjoying "About HK". I guess I can now understand about 80% or so. However, I'm really only getting about 1 to 2 hours of this "good input". What I mean by that is that I really think I can only improve if I listen to content that I can understand about 1/2 of what is going on or I have the transcipt. I've been doing a lot of listening to the news and watching Cantonese movies. Maybe that helps but I don't feel I can make good progress with it. I don't really understand much of what is going on. Of course, I heard words I recognize but I'm still a ways from understanding it.
I'm going to up my listening content to 3 to 4 hours a day using mostly the Greenwood Press books. I'll still listen to the news/movies but I think at this point in my studies this is the way to go. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| hkboy Groupie Hong Kong Joined 5681 days ago 65 posts - 86 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Cantonese, Mandarin | Message 8 of 40 22 March 2011 at 4:14am | IP Logged |
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I was off from work yesterday so I managed to put get in a full 4 hours of good input. In addition to this I'm going to try to start putting myself in uncomfortable language situations.
I'm a bit on the shy side and I really need to force myself to use Cantonese. This afternnon I'm going to the cheap place to get a haircut. I know those guys don't speak much English. I've gone through all the hair vocabulary and I'm just going to do it. Who knows what I will look like when I get out - haha. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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