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Cantonese class

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  1. #11

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    Adam M - been really informative reading what your experiences have been. I'm trying to learn as most of the job ads require Cantonese and/or Mandarin. I'm having trouble absorbing the vocab but it's probably because I'm trying to learn too many words at once. I'll give you method a go by putting on the REPEAT function on the MP3 player.


  2. #12

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    Quote Originally Posted by kiwi_bc:
    Adam M - been really informative reading what your experiences have been. I'm trying to learn as most of the job ads require Cantonese and/or Mandarin. I'm having trouble absorbing the vocab but it's probably because I'm trying to learn too many words at once. I'll give you method a go by putting on the REPEAT function on the MP3 player.
    Yes the repeat function on MP3 player works to memorise words! I can learn 100-150 words per week using this method and have my tones 80% accurate when using them in real life speech.

    Though, in the previous Jyutping examples, I wrote my post very fast without thinking and got the measure word wrong for building and office floor. Only just realised after re-reading my post.

    My apologies.

  3. #13

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    Wow, your approach is an evidence for ultra ambition. Although I am not as consequent as you, your post is a a helpful guideline. Maybe I will be able to converse a little with my Chinese inlaws during Chinese New Year .


  4. #14
    Quote Originally Posted by Adam M:
    I think if you are serious in learning Cantonese you need to:

    1) forget about Language exchanges
    2) forget about classes
    3) forget about watching movies (until you get to intermediate)
    4) forget about songs (they are sung in written language, not oral language).
    5) forget pimsleur (you will not get far with 100 word vocab)

    I am a native English speaker and learnt Cantonese to advanced fluency without any of the above.

    When I first started the classes moved so slowly and were primarily in English. In about 2 months I had only learnt about 100 words. This is pathetically slow and inefficient.

    If you want to learn a language you shouldn't spend your time in teaching English to another person. It took me more than 2000 hours to learn to speak Cantonese fluently. The time wasted in teaching someone English could be used to listen to vocabulary or dialogues.

    In addition, language exchanges will be dominated by English (I can guarantee this), you will not hear enough Cantonese to learn much.


    Get yourself a book and go through the material. There is a good book by Susanna Ng called "Interesting Cantonese" with audio cds. It teaches 3000 most common words.

    I spent my days listening to 2-3 min dialogues 100-200 times in a row until the tones became second nature. Cantonese is very tonal and you will sound like a doofas if you don't speak with the correct tones. How on earth are you going to memorise tones to 1000+ words from language exchange or class?

    I like to see anyone who gained any fluency from language exchange or by going to class! Even Steve Kaufmann of the linguist who speaks 9 languages including Cantonese states that classes are a total waste of time and the only way you gain learn is by listening to the same words over and over 100+ times!
    i am a hk born native cantonese speaker who learnt english to advanced (near native) fluency by finishing high school and college in the us. beside these two languages, i also speak mandarin and shanghainese.

    i guess it's just easy to pick up the language when you live in an environment surrounded by it.

    i speak cantonese because i was born and raised in hk.
    i speak shanghainese because my family is of shanghai origin.
    i speak mandarin because it's just easy with the above two advantages.
    i speak english because it also is an easy language to learn given you are not trying to write like a medieval-age english gentleman.
    Last edited by Sino Defender; 24-08-2006 at 12:05 PM.

  5. #15

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    You can buy Susannah Ng at any Commercial press book shop in HK. Very easy to find.


  6. #16

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    I think I'll pick myself one up too. Sounds good. Good advice Adam! I'm a language teacher and have varying degrees of proficiency in seven languages. I completely agree with your advice. Language classes will work if you combine them with real-world practice and try to use and think in the language as much as possible.


  7. #17

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    Quote Originally Posted by jayinhongkong:
    I think I'll pick myself one up too....
    I can't see on their website (it's also painfully slow at the moment)
    let us know if you found one and which branch - cheers

  8. #18

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    Quote Originally Posted by kiwi_bc:
    I can't see on their website (it's also painfully slow at the moment)
    let us know if you found one and which branch - cheers
    I will check out the CP branch in Tuen Mun and see if I can get the book there. Was quite a bit of challenge to figure out the address of that branch for all branch addresses on their website are in Chinese.

  9. #19

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    CP locations

    In case anyone else needs to locate a store.

    http://translate.google.com/translat...language_tools

    Google rocks


  10. #20

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    Oct 2004
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    Quote Originally Posted by kiwi_bc:
    Google rocks
    Wow, I'm impressed.
    Anyway one of my super helpful Chinese colleagues just called the CP branch in Tuen Mun. They said that they don't have the book in stock anymore. The only branch which still has some copies is the CP Star book store on 3 Salisbury Road in TST.

    *****UPDATE*****
    Just called the TST branch. They only have 10 copies left (minus 1 which I already reserved for myself )
    Last edited by dicesix; 28-08-2006 at 01:59 PM.