Learn Cantonese, you will find out that you wasted your time. Learn Mandarin, you can use anywhere in the world. Has more benefits.
Learn Cantonese, you will find out that you wasted your time. Learn Mandarin, you can use anywhere in the world. Has more benefits.
Thanks to Romeolo's infallible logic, please stop learning any local language that isn't spoken widely around the world. Studying Dutch when living in Holland? A waste of time! German in Germany, useless! Swedish in Sweden? You're better of with a billion-speaker language!. BTW these examples are all languages with lesser speakers in the world then Cantonese.
When I first visited HK I could only speak Mandarin, any really found I lacked proper ways of communicating. Learning Cantonese opened up HK to me tremendously it was the best thing I ever could do coming here!!!
Last edited by Gatts; 06-05-2012 at 05:21 AM.
Horrible idea. You're in for an evening of melodramatic cliches & cheesiness beyond your imagination.
You'll hear 100% correct and colloquial cantonese alright, but apart from that or harnessing its strong sleep-inducing effect for a good night's rest, I don't see anything about the soapies that makes them worth watching. You're better off turning on the canto soundtrack when Pearl is showing its commercial-laden Harry Potter.
And even among the Hong Kong natives TVB isn't exactly known for its creativy, originality or even being socially responsible.
Why not go for something a bit more tasteful, such as RTHK Radio 4's bilingual narration? That's surely the more elegant variety of cantonese to be learned by a refined expat.
Actually, it really depends on what you want to do in HK.
How long you intend to be here? a couple of years, then maybe by the time you are semi fluent, you are gone. So spend your time on something that is useful later in life.
Are you one of those expat who lives in central, your main mode of transportation is the escalator, IFC is one of the best mall you've ever been to and Kowloon is a country across the sea. Cantonese won't be useful to you.
Cantonese is only useful if you are spending significant amount of time in local stores especially on Kowloon side. You want to eat at the local char chan teng instead of restaurant. You enjoy shopping at the back street of Mongkok or SSP and not getting ripped off. Mandarin speakers will get ripped off within 5 sec in Mongkok, because they know you are a tourist and won't come back again. There are lots of things in HK that only being local (not just speaking but reading) grant you the access. These information are normally not published and its from word of mouth. Things such as special discounts (thats when you see a long queue of locals), cheap eats, midnight buses to MK etc. If saving a couple of bucks is not worth the hassle for you, there's actually not much to gain speaking the language.
If you believe Romeolo concept that you should learn mandarin because its more widely spoken, then you don't need to learn it here, you can learn it back home. I bet there are plenty of illegal chinese immigrant in every corner of the world who are willing to teach mandarin cheaply. Also, Romeolo FYI singaporean speaks singlish not mandarin. I would like to see you speak to a Singaporean indian/malay in mandarin. Mandarin benefits if you stay or plan to stay in China or does lots of Chinese business. Outside of China, maybe Taiwan but most chinese business people (outside of china) can communicate in some level of English. Unless of course you plan to travel the globe and visit every chinatown, then it will be quite useful.
What? Never said don't learn the useless cantonese, just saying that mandarin would be better. End of the day, Hong Kong is China, China main language is Mandarin. Most of the shops in Hong Kong have sales staff that speak to chinese people in mandarin first. Is that really infallible logic?
So you learnt to speak cantonese, whippee, still, the sales staff will always speak to you in mandarin first!!
It seems you never have visited Hong Kong, or perhaps are Mainland Chinese yourself, or both?
In my almost 10 years in Hong Kong, I have never, ever heard sales staff approach Chinese / Asian people in Mandarin first. Unless you are talking about the Nathan Road/Causeway Bay tourist trap variety. Please check things with reality first before posting.