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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| jsun Groupie Joined 5085 days ago 62 posts - 129 votes  | Message 73 of 76 15 January 2011 at 9:19am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
Why is Cantonese "difficult"? 1. Cantonese phonology and grammar have never been taught in school. Cantonese is even disappearing from schools, not to mention teaching Cantonese phonology. As you stated, people underestimate the differences between Cantonese and Mandarin. On one hand, non- Cantonese speakers and Cantonese speakers who don't understand Cantonese think Cantonese and Mandarin aren't that different. On the other hand, Cantonese is thought to be the barrier of "Chinese" writing. The Beijing puppet HK government always brainwash people that Mandarin will help writing . Lots of Cantonese speakers don't even know how many tones Cantonese has. And then they just tell people who don't speak Cantonese that it is difficult because it has many tones, like 8,9,10 tones. They don't even understand the basics of Cantonese at all. Foreigners who studied a bit Cantonese understand it more than them. 2. Not enough written Cantonese material. The BJ puppet government refuse to set up a Cantonese dictionary ONLINE. Every so-called Cantonese dictionary by govt and university (except privately owned Cantodict) doesn't even have Cantonese vocabulary. You can't even search for the pronunciation of 佢! This is a kind of suppression - preventing easy access. I myself spent almost 2 months to create an offline electronic Cantonese-English dictionary. http://writecantonese8.wordpress.com/2010/11/21/cantonese-en glish-stardict-finally- completed/ It is so sad that I have to tell people to read written Cantonese from 新Monday, a gossip Magazine. 3. Cantonese media is not in REAL Cantonese. music are mostly in Mandarin grammar and wordings. In the 60's and 70's, when the atmosphere was more liberating, there were a lot more Cantonese music in Cantonese grammar and wordings. Cantonese subtitle could only be found in HK movie from the 80's and 90's. Economic and political pressures push movie and tv producers for not providing Cantonese subtitle. A small potato like me can't do much, I can't do anything about politics. I can't change parent's mind. All I can do is to create more Cantonese educational stuff and picture dictionary to preserve Cantonese. I tried to ask more people to help my goal but all the attempts were just ill receiving. I don't even get lukewarm reception. Everybody is just cold about it. But I am determined to walk this lonely road to preserve my heritage. Edited by jsun on 15 January 2011 at 9:30am 10 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6582 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 74 of 76 16 January 2011 at 4:49am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
Did I state that? Actually, I find the opposite to be true. Before starting to study Cantonese, I'd heard so much talk about how incredibly different Cantonese and Mandarin are that I expected to find two completely different languages with few things in common. I found them to be much more close than I expected. The pronunciation is pretty different, but the grammar is pretty much identical and two thirds of the vocabulary is shared.
Honestly, one of my strongest memories from meeting foreign students of Swedish is that they knew some things about Swedish of which I was wholly ignorant. Some things come naturally for the native speaker whereas it has to be actvely learned and remembered by the learner. As to education, I was under the impression that the government in HK in 2000 (I think?) introduced "mother tongue" instruction in the schools, which supposedly would mean Cantonese learning. I got that from the book "Cantonese as a Written Language" by Don Snow (an excellent book I highly recommend for the interested, by the way). He didn't go into details, though, so I might have gotten it wrong.
Do you know about the iPhone app ChiDin? It's newly created and the developer has had some problems getting an offline dictionary to it. He's got one now that uses MDBG cross referenced with pronunciations from Unihan, but it's not reliable for characters with multiple pronunciations (which is a lot). You might want to contact him and offer your dictionary (just google "ChiDin").
Well, that's music, not "media" as a general rule. Cantonese movies are still very much Cantonese. And at least there is Cantonese music, though most of it is Written Standard Chinese (i.e. Mandarin) pronounced in Canto. In the 50s most of the music and movies in Hong Kong were in Mandarin, not Cantonese. And I think you're a bit off the mark with your time scale. It should read "in the late 70's and 80's", not "In the 60's and 70's". In fact, according to Don Snow, "By the early 1970s Mandarin films had virtually driven Cantonese films off the Hong Kong market, and in 1972 no Cantonese films were made at all" (page 140, second edition). All in all, I think you're mostly right. Cantonese has probably peaked and it will be losing in importance and virility, as well as in number of speakers, from now on. The rise of Mandarin will come at the price of Cantonese, both through natural processes and by conscious policy from Peking. But the old bugger still has a lot of life in it, and it's certainly better off than any other non-Mandarin lingualect of Chinese. Just look at Shanghainese. Millions of speakers and a long history, but less culture and literature than Esperanto.
Well, hang in there. You're not completely alone. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| jsun Groupie Joined 5085 days ago 62 posts - 129 votes | Message 75 of 76 17 January 2011 at 8:29pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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"Did I state that? Actually, I find the opposite to be true. Before starting to study Cantonese,
I'd heard so much talk about how incredibly different Cantonese and Mandarin are that I expected to find two completely different languages with few things in common. I found them to be much more close than I expected. The pronunciation is pretty different, but the grammar is pretty much identical and two thirds of the vocabulary is shared. " Cantonese grammar isn't identical to Mandarin or else the government won't say speaking Mandarin will help writing "Chinese", Mandarin to be exact and the general believe in it. Because we really have problem in writing "Chinese". Mainland Cantonese is quite Mandarinised. "As to education, I was under the impression that the government in HK in 2000 (I think?) introduced "mother tongue" instruction in the schools, which supposedly would mean Cantonese learning. I got that from the book "Cantonese as a Written Language" by Don Snow (an excellent book I highly recommend for the interested, by the way). He didn't go into details, though, so I might have gotten it wrong. " Now they teach Chinese literature in Mandarin (read literature in Mandarin) to enhance "Chinese" ability. This act is going to handicap the young generation's Cantonese fluency. There are many uncommon and hard Chinese characters and words in literature and in the past we studied with Cantonese so we know to read them. The young generation isn't taught how to read Chinese literature in Cantonese and their opinion on Cantonese will probably lower because they don't know that Cantonese can be used to read Chinese literature. "In the 50s most of the music and movies in Hong Kong were in Mandarin, not Cantonese. And I think you're a bit off the mark with your time scale. It should read "in the late 70's and 80's", not "In the 60's and 70's". In fact, according to Don Snow, "By the early 1970s Mandarin films had virtually driven Cantonese films off the Hong Kong market, and in 1972 no Cantonese films were made at all" (page 140, second edition)" I haven't read the book and I noticed it was written in the early 2000's so stuffs have changed a lot. In the end of 60's, if there was a Cantonese song, it would be in Cantonese vocabulary and grammar. Yes, I knew that time Mandarin and English songs were more popular. But my problem is about songs with Cantonese grammar and vocabulary. These days, the so-called Cantonese song is just in Mandarin vocabulary and grammar but sing in Cantonese. "Well, hang in there. You're not completely alone. " The government want to wipe out Cantonese so bad and they will never ever create an electronic Cantonese dictionary and nobody converted a full hardcopy Cantonese dictionary into offline electronic source. I googled on the internet, nobody did it. So I did it a few months ago. I know Cantodict is an electronic dictionary but it is online. Last time, Cantodict was down for a few days. Therefore, offline source is better. Edited by jsun on 17 January 2011 at 8:30pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| martyall Newbie United States Joined 4939 days ago 3 posts - 3 votes | Message 76 of 76 18 May 2011 at 11:55am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
If they insulted me, I will just laugh at them and will say, nice language I've heard some piece of crap. :D 1 person has voted this message useful |
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