Like Tree28Likes

Life after you learn Cantonese....

Closed Thread
Page 3 of 6 FirstFirst 1 2 3 4 5 6 LastLast
  1. #21

    Join Date
    Mar 2010
    Posts
    6,745

    I guess your Chinese must be really good then.
    On one instance when I asked for water the waitress brought me Coke, it's a liquid anyway...


  2. #22

    Join Date
    Mar 2007
    Location
    Gold Coast Marina
    Posts
    17,934
    Quote Originally Posted by Morrison:
    I guess your Chinese must be really good then.
    On one instance when I asked for water the waitress brought me Coke, it's a liquid anyway...
    I considered being able to ask for a Diet Coke to be a minimum requirement of a foreign language and studied it assiduously.

    (Yeah, I know, other people start with "hello" and "thank you"... boring!)

  3. #23

    Join Date
    Jun 2004
    Location
    HK
    Posts
    14,624
    Quote Originally Posted by bryant.english:
    It's Potunghua but widely used in HK, esp. to Gweilos as HKers think it's more likely to be understood by us than josan or m'on..

    its not putonghua it's cantonese.
    chingleutsch likes this.

  4. #24
    Quote Originally Posted by Creative83:
    You guys have to watch out the traps when learning a new language.

    Whenever you learn a language, it's too easy to learn a couple of phases and 100 or so vocabulary and look at people w/ expected surprises when you speak and feel good about it.
    If you want true respect, you have to be dedicated enough to learn a good amount before the more intuitive people take you seriously.
    Don't be one of those guys who start speaking a foreign language and expect something out of it. People can tell where you're coming from.

    Use it to communicate. Don't use it to impress. That'll result in the respect ou7blaze talked about.
    Who are these 'more intuitive' people? Where do they hang out? Most HK locals I know, socially and at work, get pretty impressed at the simplest little phrase of Canto. Even people I don't know - say the cashier at the local Cafe De Coral - get's real worked up over it. Waaaaaaaaaaa! Busting out the Canto is fun and useful but I doubt many expats do it to get some form of high-fiving respect or approval by the local folk.

  5. #25

    Join Date
    Nov 2008
    Posts
    567

    too many to list all. . Strawberry, Cherry, Kiwi fruit and etc etc..
    vitamin, cheese, toast, sofa.......................................
    Only a few of them are widely used throughout China though.

    Quote Originally Posted by Morrison:
    yeah, exactly what I was thinking.

    Then there is also a few English words that have made it into Cantonese.
    E.g. "taxi" or "store", 的士, 士多, respectively.
    What's interesting, the Mandarin pronounciation of the characters is "ShiDuo"
    which still sounds very similar to its English origin.
    Do you know of other English words that have made their way into Cantonese,
    including written Cantonese ?

    "bus" is another one, it has even spread to Guangdong province and beyond
    chingleutsch and Morrison like this.

  6. #26

    Join Date
    Nov 2009
    Location
    Tuen Mun
    Posts
    2,074
    Quote Originally Posted by Morrison:
    btw, it is 租,not組 in taxi
    You're quite right (slaps self with radicals chart).

  7. #27

    Join Date
    Jun 2010
    Posts
    2,136
    Quote Originally Posted by Char Siu King:
    I doubt many expats do it to get some form of high-fiving respect or approval by the local folk.

    When you learn a language, majority of people get into that 'high' state of wanting to impress (unless the language you learn is English where people will expect you to know the language) whether that is through impressing locals or impressing your friends through speaking with locals in that language. The form doesn't matter. It is not 'wrong' to feel the need to impress, but when the intent is no longer a pure focus on learning the language, mastery of it becomes inconsistent and difficult to follow through.

    There are different depths when it comes to speaking a language. The ones with the best grasp of it are the ones w/ motivations distinct from those looking to impress.

    By no means am I discouraging the OP.

  8. #28

    Join Date
    Mar 2007
    Location
    Gold Coast Marina
    Posts
    17,934

    Creative, until you mentioned it ,nobody was trying to impress anyone (except perhaps themselves).


  9. #29

    Join Date
    Aug 2008
    Location
    猴山
    Posts
    23,652
    Quote Originally Posted by chingleutsch:
    You're quite right (slaps self with radicals chart).
    The only Chinese radicals worth knowing about are behind bars aren't they?

    Why do some people who have learnt to read CHinese characters think it is cool to discuss the structure of Hanzi - when it is not.

    Even as a 10 a penny Mandarin speaker life in Hong Kong is more rewarding (5 years ago no one wanted to speak it now there is no shame!)
    Last edited by East_coast; 19-04-2011 at 06:59 PM.

  10. #30

    Join Date
    Mar 2010
    Posts
    6,745
    Quote Originally Posted by East_coast:
    The only Chinese radicals worth knowing about are behind bars aren't they?

    Why do some people who have learnt to read CHinese characters think it is cool to discuss the structure of Hanzi - when it is not.

    ....
    haha. man, I am laughing my ass off.
    As you don't understand the subject matter ( radicals ) you are not in a position to judge how cool or uncool it is.
    Actually, it is extremely useful as many different Chinese characters are pronounced in the same way. So mentioning the radical is the quickest way to let others know which character you mean.
    But I guess all this is beyond your comprehension.
    Last edited by Morrison; 19-04-2011 at 07:16 PM.