My Recent Cantonese Studying Methods

[wushijiao]

Basically, I have been studying Cantonese for about a year and a half. Mostly half-heartedly, but sometimes fairly intensely. Recently, I've tried to kick it up a notch.

Here's where I’m at:

I've finished listening to many of the audio materials out there. The best being:

-Teach Yourself, Cantonese

-Fung Shui Master

-Wedding Bells

-Advanced Level Current Canontese Colloquialisms

After listening to those books over and over for months, I think I put down a solid foundation, but my progress was kind of stagnated.

If come to realize probably the three biggest problems:

1) I wasn't really doing any extensive listening to authentic materials

2) I wasn't really doing any extensive reading with authentic materials

3) I wasn't speaking very much

To solve these problems, I've started to:

1) Listen to Cantonese podcasts. I find the VOA show isn't to hard to understand because it talks a lot about subjects I know (American foreign policy) and formal radio news is about 90% similar to Mandarin (according to research). However, it’s not dramatically entertaining. I've also started listening to the radio, and random call-in shows.

2) Finding a lot of written Cantonese can be tough, but I've been trying to read 蘋果日報 and 壹周刊, both of which have decent amounts of Cantonese in the articles. I think one of my problems is that I like to learn through reading, but until now, I've neglected reading in Cantonese, and 99% of my Chinese reading while in HK has been in Standard, giving me basically no help wth Cantonese.

3) As far as talking, luckily my wife can now speak Cantonese, so we practice together. But this is a bit like the semi-blind leading the blind. I also have a Cantonese lesson once a week, which helps with speaking to some extent.

So, with that in mind, what do people recommend as far as:

1) Are there any podcasts you can recommend? Are there any radio programs you like and you would recommend? Are there any good TV shows you could recommend (although, to be honest, I often find Cantonese TV with Mandarin subtitles to be a little too much. I sometimes can’t handle working with two foreign languages at the same time!)

2) Are there any good Cantonese texts that you could recommend (books, newspapers, magazines, interesting writers…etc)?

3) Any tips on speaking more? I know partly my lack of speaking ability is due to my own laziness, but I find HK society to be hard to get into, for a gwailou.

So, I feel like I've been making decent progress, but I know I could be doing much better.

[calibre2001]

Are you working amongst locals? How bout being thick-skinned and just keep speaking? Persistence is key here.

Also watch plenty of TVB serials. Reading the mandarin will help you 'hear' and pick up words and phrases quicker.

[wannabeafreak]

3) As far as talking, luckily my wife can now speak Cantonese, so we practice together. But this is a bit like the semi-blind leading the blind. I also have a Cantonese lesson once a week, which helps with speaking to some extent.

Dump the Cantonese lessons. I found them to be useless and hindering. Why do you call it practice with your wife? My wife is local HK chinese too. I call it "speaking" and not "practicing". I never speak English to my wife at all. All my communication is done in Cantonese. You are missing out on massive progress if you don't speak Cantonese all the time to her. Even though my wife lived in Australia for much longer than I lived in Hong Kong, and even though she can speak fluent and smooth English, she only speaks Cantonese to me.

1) Are there any podcasts you can recommend? Are there any radio programs you like and you would recommend? Are there any good TV shows you could recommend (although, to be honest, I often find Cantonese TV with Mandarin subtitles to be a little too much. I sometimes can’t handle working with two foreign languages at the same time!)

You know the number 1 way to acquire Cantonese is by watching TVB soaps from 8:30pm to 10:30pm each night. Then watch the re-runs at mid-night. Additionally, I cannot even read Chinese and I understand basically everything on TVB now. So on your HDTV remote, click the "sub-title" button and it will not show subtitles for TVB I even watch Pearl in Cantonese NICAM too.

2) Are there any good Cantonese texts that you could recommend (books, newspapers, magazines, interesting writers…etc)?

If you want more Cantonese reading material, naturally you should go to discuss.com.hk or uwants.com.hk. Seems nearly every magazine in Hong Kong is written in Cantonese. Also, I've noticed nearly every new western movie I've watched this year has Cantonese Subtitles at the Cinemas.

3) Any tips on speaking more? I know partly my lack of speaking ability is due to my own laziness, but I find HK society to be hard to get into, for a gwailou.

I suggest you do the "I am French, and cannot speak English" route. I strictly refuse to acknowledge or give any reaction to any English from any one. Even I went to the Revenue Department, I will only speak Cantonese.

You probably need to meet more local friends who have no interest in English. I don't make friends with individuals who want to know me for English. Even at work, everyone speaks fluent English. I only just speak Cantonese.

Also when you meet people 1 off and you know you'll probably never meet them again, I think this is a good time to start talking a lot of sh*t. The more sh*t you talk, the more you'll get them interested in conversation, which gives you plenty of time to blabber on for ages. I can talk 6 hours of bullsh*t to anyone

I also suggest you buy this book: Dictionary of Cantonese Slang: The Language of Hong Kong Movies, Street Gangs and City Life. You'll never get good unless you acquire the massive slang commonly spoken.

Lastly.... You better go to http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/phorum and start asking questions, though my hunch is that you already do

[Hofmann]

You can edit and read Wikipedia. Reading anything on the internet (except images) can be aided by CantoFish.

[wushijiao]

Are you working amongst locals? How bout being thick-skinned and just keep speaking? Persistence is key here

You're right. However, I generally don't have any (work-related) reason to speak to my Cantonese-speaking co-workers. But I think I'll find more excuses to chat.

wannabefreak, thanks for the great advice, and I love your website by the way! As far as lessons, I thnk they are helpful because I basically control what goes on (I set the pace, the materials...etc. Lately, we've just chatted about dfferent topics that happen to be in the newspaper that day). In other words, it's not like I'm passively sitting there waitng for the teacher to do the work.

You know the number 1 way to acquire Cantonese is by watching TVB soaps from 8:30pm to 10:30pm each night. Then watch the re-runs at mid-night. Additionally, I cannot even read Chinese and I understand basically everything on TVB now. So on your HDTV remote, click the "sub-title" button and it will not show subtitles for TVB I even watch Pearl in Cantonese NICAM too.

Very good. Will do.

Seems nearly every magazine in Hong Kong is written in Cantonese.

Quite a few are. I've found (壹周刊/Next) to be pretty good. The entertainment half of the magazne is basically 95% Cantonese, while the other is a bt lower. Still, I think i'll have to do some more exploring to find a other magazines (that, ideally, aren't all about celebs).

My wife is local HK chinese too. I call it "speaking" and not "practicing". I never speak English to my wife at all. All my communication is done in Cantonese. You are missing out on massive progress if you don't speak Cantonese all the time to her. Even though my wife lived in Australia for much longer than I lived in Hong Kong, and even though she can speak fluent and smooth English, she only speaks Cantonese to me.

That's pretty impressive. My wife is a native Putonghua speaker, but her Cantonese is getting good enough that we're both trying to speak as much as possible in Cantonese to each other. But certainly, I'll make an effort to speak more to people, make friends in Cantonese...etc.

Hoffman- thanks for the tip about Cantonese Wikipedia!

[Ah-Bin]

For listening

Open Radio Hong Kong has so many podcasts on many different subjects.

www.openradiohk.com

For reading

I managed to pick up two volumes of scripts of radio plays called "golden teenage" (黄金少年). which was completely Cantonese, and also another book called "Here Comes Bow Tie" 堡呔0黎了 (I think those were the characters)- a collection of funny essays from the Apple Daily supposedly written by Donald Tsang all in very colloquial Cantonese.

Oh, and I just found out Golden Teenage episodes are online too...somewhere

http://www.outie.net/forums/viewthread.php?tid=21778 gives dead links

Also it is good practice to download the Cantonese input system, and use it all the time when you want to type Chinese. Don't rely on its English translations though, they usually come out in Mandarin.

[wannabeafreak]

Open Radio Hong Kong has so many podcasts on many different subjects.

www.openradiohk.com

Thanks for this link. I'm now a big fan and the level of Cantonese is just right. I listened to 3 hours of podcasts and there were about 5 words I needed to look up

[wushijiao]

Also, Hoffman, thanks for the Cantofish link. One thing I've been doing is going to the 蘋果日報，and then going to 目錄 and then finding some of the stories that have video (about 10%). I read the story using Cantofish, then listen to the video a few times. Most videos are 40 seconds to one minute, which is just about right.

[wushijiao]

Just to give a bit of an update...

I had somewhat of a realization the other day (although the ideas were floating around for a long time, but finally articulated it). To some extent, my own conceptions of how to learn Cantonese were what was holding me back. In learning Cantonese, so often in textbooks and in forums and talking to people, you somewhat get the subconscious notion that in learning Cantonese you should focus on the typical "Hong Kong" characteristics: ie. how to order dim sum, going to Macau, shopping in Mongkok...etc. Then you might move on to Hong Kong films, and so on. While there is nothing really wrong with any of that, and knowing those things is probably why many people take an interest in learning Cantonese, it doesn't 100% align with my interests or my "competitive advantage" in learning the language. In some ways, it's not entirely unlike getting to advanced levels in Mandarin, but finding that every learning material tends to focus on gardens in Suzhou, the Ming dynasty, or China's silk industry. What people think you should learn and what you should learn, and when, may vary quite a bit.

It now seems brutally obvious that a Mandarin speaker, after going as far as the textbooks can take you, should consolidate his or her grasp of over the parts of the language that are more or less the same as Mandarin-- ie. the written and formal parts of the language. After listening to tons of news podcasts over the past few months, I'm now fairly confident that I'll be able to understand the with 90%+ comprehension in just a few months. Not to sound too over-confident, but the my progress in comprehension (through listening to news podcasts about topics I already know about combined with daily reading of Apple daily with Canto-fish and self-made podcasts) has been fairly quick. Since news, as far as vocabulary used, is only about 10% different in terms of lexicon (and a lot of that is fairly simple, 的 to ge), it shouldn't be hard once you figure out how the pronunciation systems are different. Of course, colloquial is more like 30% different, which means that it varies quite considerably in terms of vocab, and even grammar patterns. But even then, by consolidating the 1-to-1 stuff first, you at least get to the point where you can understand 70% or so of colloquial. In other words, consolidating what one can achieve relatively painlessly should be the first step, then mastering spoken and slangish terms.

So, anyway, I'm now communicating a lot with my HK co-workers and friends in Cantonese, and I try to chat with people whenever possible. I watch a lot of podcasts and news and TV B. I can now speak "with fluency", although I'm years away from "fluent", however that is defined. I think that with Cantonese, as a white foreigner, the better you get, the more people are willing to speak to you as well, especially if you live in the 鬼佬 districts of town- where it can feel like an

.

I think over the next few months, I'll be able to pivot towards more slangish stuff, and I plan to buy the book wannabefreak recommended.

[skylee]

The video is quite funny.

[wushijiao]

The video is quite funny.

I thought so too! This sort of thing happens all the time! Although, I'm really thankful to HKers for speaking English (to better communicate with the outside world) and trying to make HK a great world city (which I think it is), but the flip side is that it's annoying for the 2% of people who really try to pick up Cantonese!