As Far As I Know
well, my story is a bit more interesting, my mother language is the HK indigenous dialect - hakka ( common in UK), except more case of some are taught Cantonese and hakka at same time, could not speak Cantonese until late teens as I was brought up in UK, could not read or write, over the years, I have grasp the capacity to read and to a certain extent basic writing, I can read newspapers, it's hard, it's not easy at all, but with the will and dedication, anything is possible.
over the years, I have used various methods on how to learn to read Chinese, ie, watch Cantonese films and concertrate on the Chinese subtitles, a phase listening to canto ballads, read kids comics, etc,
No I was in my teens when Chinese school reached my town and so was more concerned on my O/A levels.
Chinese was not important in my first few jobs in HK but I could still pick-up some along the way just by watching TV or going to karaoke.
A few years ago I was reading some history books on China written by western authors and asked myself wouldn't it be better to read Chinese for a more local bias. I have been reading Chinese books ever since.
Still read SCMP rather than Chinese newspapers though.
Oh no. You guys put put me to shame. I cannot say I can read a whole newspaper but parts of it to gain an understanding or gist. My family dialet also Hakka and we picked up Caontonese with the TVB videos. I will definitely rummage in my sons' school bags tonight! At work I'm also faced with suppliers and customers who speak Putonghua. I get my own point over in one way or another. But what I find really difficult is understanding what they are saying. Have you guys made any break throughs in this area?
Unfortunately, there are no shortcuts for learning Chinese, and as adults it's a lot more difficult to spare the time to do so. Patience would be the number one thing to have in any regard. That said, I've been trying to brush up on my Chinese as well, trying to put in an hour a day just writing stuff that I see on things such as menus and tenant notices in my building that frustrate me when I can't read them.
If you have a cell phone, it helps tremendously to have an app that you can use to identify characters. I use Pleco on Android, and it's pretty awesome because you can use the camera to identify characters as well as use your finger to scribble out the character.
I've been told that a good way to learn something is to learn it with the idea that you're going to teach it to someone else. I actually just posted my first lesson on my blog, if you're interested you can check it out. I'm hoping to add more as I go along. http://joyojc.com/2013/12/learning-c...akeout-menu-1/
Again, and I can't stress this enough, be patient and do it a bit at a time. It's too easy to get overwhelmed trying to learn everything at once, and there are literally thousands of characters to learn. Good luck.