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Expats who know canto was it worth it?

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  1. #1

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    Arrow Expats who know canto was it worth it?

    I asked a similar question in a different thread and received different responses. But the problem was most of these posters didn't speak canto. I understand why considering its literally probably one of the hardest languages to learn if English is your native language, also considering most of their co workers can speak English. But I didn't know if I should take their advice since they wouldn't know how their life would be if they knew canto. That's why i'm looking for expats who learned canto, few questions.

    -How long did it take to get around conversational fluency?

    -Was it worth the time and effort?

    -How was the improvement on your social life?

    Last edited by akikaki; 12-03-2012 at 12:37 AM.

  2. #2

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    I speak it very badly, but it has widened and improved my experience here for sure. I'd recommend giving it some effort.

    akikaki and Watercooler like this.

  3. #3
    Quote Originally Posted by akikaki:
    I asked a similar question in a different thread and received different responses. But the problem was most of these posters didn't speak canto. I understand why considering its literally probably one of the hardest languages to learn if English is your native language, also considering most of their co workers can speak English. But I didn't know if I should take their advice since they wouldn't know how their life would be if they knew canto. That's why i'm looking for expats who learned canto, few questions.

    -How long did it take to get around conversational fluency?

    -Was it worth the time and effort?

    -How was the improvement on your social life?
    Q1 - 4 (almost 5) years, still not fluent but good enough.

    Q2- If you highly value being able to shop easily and order food without problems then maybe yes (I'd argue in HK you can do this perfectly easily in English). Otherwise no.

    Q3 - Almost zero improvement - you are still a gweilo. If anything the locals who are interested to know a gweilo are turned off because you might want to speak canto.

    Others will disagree with me. I learnt as I married a local and it makes things marginally easier for me.
    Last edited by Alan Partridge; 12-03-2012 at 01:17 AM.

  4. #4

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    Thanks for the reply, I know there isn't much canto expat speakers on these forums, or HK for that matter. I'm just curious how has learning canto improved the quality of life in HK for expats and was it worth it.


    edit: thanks to both of you


  5. #5

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    Quote Originally Posted by Alan Partridge:
    Q1 - 4 (almost 5) years, still not fluent but good enough.

    Q2- If you highly value being able to shop easily and order food without problems then maybe yes (I'd argue in HK you can do this perfectly easily in English). Otherwise no.

    Q3 - Almost zero improvement - you are still a gweilo. If anything the locals who are interested to know a gweilo are turned off because you might want to speak canto.

    Others will disagree with me. I learnt as I married a local and it makes things marginally easier for me.

    Would you think mandarin is more important for a expat to learn compared to canto?
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  6. #6

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    Canto maybe more important if you plan to spend the rest of your life here, your other half is a native Canto speaker, or you have some other strong ties or personal reason to learn it. Otherwise there isnt much point learning a language spoken by only 56 million native speakers worldwide. You'd be much better off investing your time in Mandarin, which has 845 million native speakers.

    I think the fact that most international schools in HK teach Mandarin as a 2nd language (after english) rather than Canto is also quite telling on how they rate the importance of the local language.

    kpelszyn likes this.

  7. #7

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    Quote Originally Posted by bdw:
    Canto maybe more important if you plan to spend the rest of your life here, your other half is a native Canto speaker, or you have some other strong ties or personal reason to learn it. Otherwise there isnt much point learning a language spoken by only 56 million native speakers worldwide. You'd be much better off investing your time in Mandarin, which has 845 million native speakers.

    I think the fact that most international schools in HK teach Mandarin as a 2nd language (after english) rather than Canto is also quite telling on how they rate the importance of the local language.
    200 million speak Cantonese, I think.

    Cantonese will improve your everyday life here. Mandarin won't. It all depends whether you will end up spending a lot of time here. Many come for two weeks but end up staying in HK for decades.

  8. #8
    MinhVu1

    i think i need to brush up on my canto i can speak some of it conversely but i need to improve, i want to learn to read and write in canto as well. I live in Philadelphia and we have a chinatown it sucks when i talk to people i have to use english words to sub for the canto word, buti vow to get better..


  9. #9

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    Quote Originally Posted by bdw:
    Canto maybe more important if you plan to spend the rest of your life here, your other half is a native Canto speaker, or you have some other strong ties or personal reason to learn it. Otherwise there isnt much point learning a language spoken by only 56 million native speakers worldwide. You'd be much better off investing your time in Mandarin, which has 845 million native speakers.

    I think the fact that most international schools in HK teach Mandarin as a 2nd language (after english) rather than Canto is also quite telling on how they rate the importance of the local language.
    Way more people than 50 mio speaks canto but yes agree that mandarin is of more value in the grand scheme of things.

    I have a good canto level and it definitely is a +. It has not changed my life but the older generation ( security guard, tea lady in my office, taxi drivers, ) love it when u can converse with them relatively properly.

    In my case it was totally worth it is as my other half is a native canto speaker and her family too. They speak fluent mandarin and good English but.canto remain their language of choice.
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  10. #10

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    Despite the increasing appearance of written "slang" Cantonese (the equivalent of "gonna" or "wanna" in English), written Chinese is MUCH closer to Mandarin than it is to spoken Canto although every character has distinct Cantonese pronunciations. It's somewhat (pedants, please notice the qualifier) analogous to the difference between Swiss German and the high German which every German-speaking Swiss child learns to write and read at school.

    If you want to improve your literacy skills, it is a heckuva lot easier to learn Mandarin ... but if you're a weirdo like me then you might enjoy figuring out Canto's "split personality"

    Fiona in HKG likes this.

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