Guest Devon Posted March 17, 2004 at 02:03 AM Report Share Posted March 17, 2004 at 02:03 AM I'm having an awful time remembering which words in Cantonese are colloquial and which are written, I notice that when I say even basic phrases in Cantonese to some of my friends that I'll say the written form instead of the spoken form. What's the best way to remember if a character is written or spoken in Cantonese? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quest Posted March 17, 2004 at 02:38 AM Report Share Posted March 17, 2004 at 02:38 AM 熱血男兒漢 (yit6 hyut3 naam4 yi4 hon3) 比太陽更光 (bei6 taai3 yeung4 gang3 gwong1) 热血男子，热胜红日光？ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quest Posted March 17, 2004 at 02:55 AM Report Share Posted March 17, 2004 at 02:55 AM Can you tell us a little bit about yourself? Are you fluent in written Chinese but having trouble with spoken Cantonese? What language do you speak? etcetc Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Devon Posted March 17, 2004 at 04:19 AM Report Share Posted March 17, 2004 at 04:19 AM My apologies, I should have introduced myself first. My name is Devon Myong, I'm from Sudbury Ontario Canada. I'm 15 and I've been studying both Mandarin and Cantonese for about a year. I can read/write about 1 000 (maybe a bit more) traditional characters, so I'm not completely fluent. I consider my Cantonese skills to be somewhat awful because I always forget which of the characters are used for the written form and the spoken form, often mixing them up and making a fool of myself... I can speak French, Spanish and Korean (although I dislike Korean... best not to ask why). The other post you made, I'm assuming you're correcting my quote (?), this is just from the Once upon a time in China theme song, (from what I was able to understand from the Cantonese theme it means "The firey blood/spirit of a hero, burns as bright as the (midday) sun" but I could be wrong.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quest Posted March 17, 2004 at 02:54 PM Report Share Posted March 17, 2004 at 02:54 PM I think, you should learn the three languages(Mandarin, written Chinese, Cantonese) separately and one at a time. That means, learn Cantonese as it is spoken, do not refer to written Chinese to help you speak Cantonese. Moreover, if you do not originally speak a Chinese dialect, learning them all at once can be overwhelming, and I believe one year's time is not exactly enough. There is no set rules on which written words are also used in spoken Cantonese, you just have to listen to how people speak, and practice speaking (conveniently) with your friends. What I posted was the original words in the lyric, your version is the translated then retranslated version Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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