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Cantonese | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| trauma2020 Diglot Groupie United States Joined 6575 days ago 58 posts - 64 votes  Speaks: English*, Korean | Message 1 of 28 06 September 2008 at 1:48pm | IP Logged | ||
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After a week in Hong Kong, I've recently started thinking about learning Cantonese. I've done some research regarding what materials to begin using, but still had a few questions. My plan is to begin with Colloquial Cantonese, Pimsleur, and Teach Yourself. After that I would like to go through a fairly comprehensive more grammar oriented course. The two I have come across have been Sidney Lau's 6 book course, and a 2 book course from Yip and Matthews (Basic Cantonese: A Grammar and Workbook). I suppose ideally it would be best to go through both, but considering time restraints, if you had to use only one which would you use? I have read that while Lau's course is very comprehensive and uses Chinese characters, the vocab used is a bit outdated. On the other hand, the other course does not use Chinese characters, but is more current. As Cantonese is mainly a spoken language, I understand that having the characters might not be necessary, but I suppose it could be helpful later on in your studies, or if you had an native speaker helping you?
That brings me to my next question: Chinese characters. I have reached ~basic fluency in Korean, and have been thinking about learning the characters just for fun anyways. So I was wondering, are the characters in use in Hong Kong the same characters that would appear in Korean? I'm fairly sure both use the traditional characters, but thought I would just check to make sure. And if this were the case, it wouldn't matter if I learned through a book aimed at learners of Korean or a book aimed at learners of traditional Chinese characters (cantonese), correct? Thanks in advance 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6012 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 2 of 28 07 September 2008 at 5:04am | IP Logged | ||
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I wouldn't use both Colloquial and Teach Yourself.
As a rule, books in both series cover very similar material at a very similar pace, so you'll end up switching off and skimming ("Yup...know that...uh-huh...know that...") which means you end up effectively doing nothing. Of the two, I find TY generally to be more workable. (Actually, I wouldn't recommend using either top start off with. I've never managed to reach the end of a TY or Colloquial book -- they are dull! But that's a seperate issue.) If you're wanting to mix your courses, I'd say one each of: audio intensive, mixed mode, academic/technical. So your Pimsleur, TY and something more schooly. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| unzum Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom soyouwanttolearnalan Joined 6915 days ago 371 posts - 478 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: Mandarin | Message 3 of 28 07 September 2008 at 8:34am | IP Logged | ||
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I'd recommend using Pimsleur first, on its own. Reason being is that if you're using other materials at the same time you'll probably get bored with Pimsleur's slow pace. So try going through the 30 lessons at a quick pace, maybe two lessons a day. This will get you used to the sounds and very basic patterns.
Like Cainntear said, I wouldn't recommend using TY or Colloquial at the beginning either. I tried using TY first off but found there was just too much vocab introduced each chapter (70+) and not enough exercises. I think it's probably more useful later on, to supplement your vocabulary. Why don't you try FSI? It was done about the same time as Sidney Lau's course but is available to download off the internet for free. Here's the link. There are two levels and lots of audio for practising the tones. I'd recommend it as the main learning material. It covers a lot of stuff. So to reiterate: FIRST Pimsleur THEN FSI Cantonese THEN TY or Colloquial Also, I would be careful about learning Cantonese characters from a book aimed at learning Korean characters. Some of the characters may have the same meaning but there will differences and it's likely you'll just confuse yourself. Try this page and this page for learning Cantonese characters. I'm not aware of any commercial resources for learning Cantonese specific characters though. Good luck! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| trauma2020 Diglot Groupie United States Joined 6575 days ago 58 posts - 64 votes Speaks: English*, Korean | Message 4 of 28 07 September 2008 at 11:21am | IP Logged | ||
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I think I am too much of a visual learner to start out with solely Pimsleur.. I was hoping to move on to that maybe second. Right now I'm just looking through Colloquial, trying to get a feel for the sounds and the tones.
I'm kind of interested in FSI now too. How would you say the accents/vocab in it are? Is it outdated at all? (And I'm not sure if there is a big difference, if at all, but is it more of a HK cantonese or a mainland cantonese?) I noticed it introduces 7 tones instead of the 6 other materials have covered. And as far as the grammar covered in the course, would you say it is comparable to say another grammar oriented text (Yip and Matthews perhaps)? Thanks for the replies. Edited by trauma2020 on 07 September 2008 at 11:22am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| unzum Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom soyouwanttolearnalan Joined 6915 days ago 371 posts - 478 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: Mandarin | Message 5 of 28 07 September 2008 at 6:02pm | IP Logged | ||
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I wouldn't even bother doing Pimsleur after going through something else. Pimsleur is so easy and moves at such a slow pace that you will find yourself pretty bored. It's a nice easy introduction for absolute beginners but if you use Pimsleur after something else you will probably know all the stuff being taught anyway.
FSI is pretty good. Some of the language may be outdated but you will easily pick up more modern expressions. Try listening to the podcast Naked Cantonese, which uses colloquial and modern speech. It's pretty easy to pick up the differences. The 7 tones thing isn't much of a problem either. Older Cantonese differentiated between the high level tone and the high falling tone, whereas in Modern Cantonese the high falling tone isn't used as much and you can mix the two quite freely. And I'm pretty sure it uses Hong Kong Cantonese but I'm not sure.
Sorry, I haven't read any other grammar books so can't really comment. But anyway, FSI is a really good course. This topic discusses the course in more detail and also provides characters for the lessons. If you are more of a visual learner you might want to go for TY instead of Colloquial. TY includes traditional characters with the dialogues and vocab so you could use that as a source for learning the characters. You also probably shouldn't throw out all the audio resources either, as Cantonese is mainly a spoken language and isn't written down that often. I've got a friend who's fluent in Cantonese and Hakka, however she can't read a word in Chinese. Also, you'd be missing out on some fantastic audio resources like RTHK's podcasts. Check out the Korean learning one as well, I personally listen to the Japanese one (language podcasts here) Here are some more links: Cantostories for stories in Cantonese jyutping, characters and English translation. Also have a look at Cantophilia, which collects Cantonese videos and then transcribes and translates them. Anyway, if you have any more questions feel free to ask! 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6012 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 6 of 28 08 September 2008 at 7:25am | IP Logged | ||
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I'm very wary of Pimsleur in general, and not on simple grounds of audio-only.
I recently borrowed Pimsleur Hindi World Citizen Edition from the library, and I stopped ten minutes into it. The guy on the tape said something with a T in it -- but I know from previous study that there are 4 Ts (and 4 Ds) in Hindi. I couldn't hear which one he was saying, so I couldn't copy it correctly. Had I continued, I'm certain that it would have resulted in a "falling together" or similar sounds that would have been difficult to rid myself of later. I imagine Cantonese would have similar problems -- I haven't studied it, but I understand that there are several "sh"-like sounds which the ear will be unable to distinguish without explicit guidance. (No guidance of this sort is generally given in the Pimsleur method.) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| unzum Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom soyouwanttolearnalan Joined 6915 days ago 371 posts - 478 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: Mandarin | Message 7 of 28 08 September 2008 at 8:17am | IP Logged | ||
They don't explicitly tell you about Cantonese pronunciation in Pimsleur but they do give some help with tones. I think if you're careful and you repeat exactly what the speakers say you'll be okay. This might be difficult if you're used to having written explanations, though. FSI is a lot better for teaching pronunciation. They have loads of drills comparing similar tones or pronunciation (e.g. high falling versus low falling tones), this is really good for getting your ear to hear the differences. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6012 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 8 of 28 08 September 2008 at 10:53am | IP Logged | ||
But how can you? As an example, some English people say "Scottish" with a hard T sound. Most Scottish people (and most English people) pronounce the double-T as a glottal stop. In much of North America, it's pronounced as a weak aveolar flap, approximately between R and D. In India, they pronounce it as a retroflex voiceless plosive. Speakers of any Romance language will speak English with a semi-dental T. My brain will immediately understand "Scottish" in all of these accents, so my brain clearly isn't fully distinguishing the sounds -- it doesn't hear them[*]. How can we imitate what we don't hear? As for "written explanations", well I don't care how I get my explanations as long as I get an explanation. Or perhaps I should say "instructions". If I go into a face-to-face lesson, the teacher can ask me to repeat -- fine. But what a teacher does that Pimsleur can't is pick up on my mistakes and help me change the sound. Without the option of such feedback, Pimsleur should be giving more information up front. [*] And I'm quite good at language learning, too. It's worse for the new learner. I hate Spanish learners' accents, and it's the teachers' fault. No-one ever instructs them on pure vowels. English speakers don't have to recognise pure vowels, so they approximate Spanish's pure vowels with the nearest equivalent English diphthong. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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