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Expats who know canto was it worth it?

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  1. #21

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    Hmm I will have to look for English subs again, I have trawled through the nowTV channels occasionally.

    I'm not a great language speaker but I don't find the whole tones thing that difficult. Context makes up for sloppy intonation most of the time! I have been doing a 45 minute lesson a week for a couple of months....and mess around with some iPad apps for practice.


  2. #22

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    Quote Originally Posted by mid_gen:
    Context makes up for sloppy intonation most of the time! .
    You know its funny you should say that because I have (to my surprise) generally found that context doesn't help a lot of the time like say in English where if you get the pronunciation slightly wrong the listener can figure it out.
    In my experiences here I can be saying exactly the same canto word or phrase to two native speakers and one will immediately understand it based on context but the other one will not have a clue if there is the slightest mispronounciation even with context of the conversation to go by.
    Its like people's ears are finely tuned antenna that only picks up very narrow band frequencies
    Perhaps due to rote learning growing up.

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  3. #23

    I think it is also a case of them being a stranger to foreigners attempting their language (badly).
    For example, I'd imagine a foreigner to get by more easily on their accented/poor English in somewhere like London than somewhere like Newport (Wales) !

    But also, some people are idiots who (imo) enjoy embarrassing the person trying to speak their language because on some silly level, it makes them feel good like they think 'ahh my language is so difficult, look at you haha'...at this point I will switch to English....yeah how you like them apples!

    Last edited by SiuMaiTaiTai; 05-05-2012 at 11:44 AM.

  4. #24

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    Quote Originally Posted by garycyk:
    In fact , not every pople in Mainland China speaks Mandarin well and Mandarin is not a mother tongue of Mainland pople. In mainland there is different dialects for different place, such as Shanghai people speak Shanghaiese, Sichuan people speak Sichuanese.
    I know I said it many times before but Shanghainese, Sichuanese are designated as Chinese languages not dialects. Examples of Chinese dialects would be Mandarin as spoken in Shandong, as opposed to Beijing or Taiwan Mandarin because these are mutually understandable to all speakers yet different. Cantonese dialects would be Taishan Cantonese as opposed to HK Cantonese for example.
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  5. #25

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    I would suggest learn mandarin instead of cantonese. At least if you go to china, or taiwan, or even singapore that you can actually use your mandarin rather than cantonese. I think Mandarin is more easier to learn than Cantonese to.


  6. #26

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    Quote Originally Posted by garycyk:
    and if u guys decided to learn Mandarim, dont talk to local hk people in Mamdarin, we hate it
    Well, only the backwards locals hate it.

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  7. #27

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    Yes, locals hate mandarin because they struggle to speak it fluently. Its hard to express oneself without a good grasp of the language and having to repeat yourself continuously. Hmmmm, this sounds like being in LKF at 3am


  8. #28

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    The problem with this question is that anybody who has learnt cantonese will probably say it is worth it.

    Anybody who says it isn't worth it probably hasn't learnt it.

    Me? I want to learn it, I am sure it would be a huge benefit, but I am ridiculously slow at getting round to doing it.


  9. #29

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    Quote Originally Posted by garycyk:
    no, local people have a strong faith nd idendity that they are different from Mainlamd people
    Of course locals are just mainlanders who happened to be on this side of the line when the British took over all those years ago. That's just down to good (or bad?) fortune, nothing genetically or culturally fabulous about that compare to mainlanders although some locals might continue to delude themselves into thinking so.
    Last edited by Loz_2; 05-05-2012 at 08:30 PM.
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  10. #30

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    Original Post Deleted
    Come on stick back to the topic.

    We were all created in the image of god.