Cantonese Learning Experiences

"United States, though I was born in Okinawa, Japan (US Navy)"

"Short answer: I studied Cantonese first.  I've studied for seven years, fairly intensely for the first 2 years.  I've studied Mandarin formally for four years now.

Long answer: I started learning Cantonese intensely in October 1995 in preparation for a religious mission to Hong Kong.  I was in HK as a missionary from December 1995 to November 1997.  After working as a waiter for a few months to get a bit of money for tuition, I started school at Brigham Young University majoring in Mandarin and Computer Science.  After a couple semesters, I went back to Hong Kong to teach English as a second language for 6 months.  In the spring of 1999 I returned to school and eventually changed my major to Chinese Teaching with a minor in TESOL."

"I originally began learning Cantonese in order to serve as a missionary in Hong Kong.  But I quickly began to love the language, people, and culture, and so I wanted to expand my knowledge of Chinese.  Mandarin is an extension of that love of Chinese and seemed to be a logical step in my education. 

Oh, yeah, and my wife is from Fujian China and lived in Hong Kong since she was young."

"I typically answer by saying that I'm fluent in Cantonese and functional in Mandarin.  I haven't been tested in Cantonese, but in Mandarin I rate an Advanced-Low on the ACTFL proficiency guidelines.  Considering that I'm always translating from Cantonese to Mandarin when I'm speaking, I have to expect my Cantonese level would be higher than that."

"I hesitate to say that I'm literate. I can read and do translations with the help of a dictionary, and I can compose a modest essay in Chinese, but I think if I applied the same standards for a learner of English to my Chinese I would have to say my reading and writing were 'limited Chinese proficient'."

"Not anymore. I used to be fairly decent in French for an American who took it 2 years in high school, but during my intensive study of Cantonese it was basically purged from my system.  I met a nice little French couple at the TST ferry pier and tried to talk with them in French, but I ended up saying "/ngoh/ m'apelle Michael".  I couldn't speak a sentence of French without inserting Cantonese pronouns into it!  Funny thing is - when I was first studying Cantonese - when I couldn't think of a Cantonese word I would throw in the French if I knew it.  An interesting insight into the nature of second language learning..."

"There really are no shortcuts.  You really have to practice constantly and diligently.  Everyone learns differently, but a combination of flashcards/textbooks and then just going out and using what I know worked for me.  One thing I think people always try is listening to music and watching movies.  While that can help bring your listening comprehension from classroom speed to street speed and introduce a little slang, I think most often it is a waste of time in terms of educational value.  What IS valuable is going over one song repeatedly (especially if you have the lyrics) and taking apart a short clip (30 secs to a MAX of 5 minutes) of a video."

"Well, tones, of course.  Another thing I found challenging was a lack of reading material.  I was lucky to have some specialized content for missionaries, but other than that there was nothing to read but textbooks.  I learn best by reading."

"Motivation.  I've reached a plateau where I can communicate most ideas that I want.  When I come to a point where I cannot directly say what I want, I can talk around it.  It's not that I can't learn anything new, it's that I don't feel the necessity for it."

"Cantonese is such a logical language.  While it doesn't have cognates with English words the way Romance and Germanic languages do, it has an internal consistency that is just astounding.  I find much of the grammar very intuitive.  It may often differ from English, but I found it easy to comprehend and internalize."

"1- Master the sounds and tones early. Listen to yourself and master the tones at both the word and sentence level. 

2-  Practice out loud. Don't just try and memorize it silently, be vocal even when studying.

3- Engage in conversation as soon as possible. You'll soon find that whenever you learn a new word or grammar pattern you will hear it in the next conversation you have. Do NOT be afraid of mistakes. Mistakes are your friends.

4- Monitor your own speech and correct your errors mid-sentence.

5- Study new material in manageable chunks (what is manageable will increase over time). Take frequent breaks. The first 30 minutes of study is the most effective.

6- Set up a pattern of review. Master material then put it away. Review it several hours later. Master it again. Put it away. Review it a day later. Put it into use on a daily basis if possible. Conduct a systematic review of past material regularly."

"I would say the only way I know is from experience.  You memorize a word with the correct tone and then you hear it used at that tone, you just know to use the right tone.  They key is to master them early and learn them correctly first.  When you do that they become automatic later."

"Yes. At some point I slacked off on how rigidly I studied tones and I'm paying for it.  Occasionally, a tone mistake will be severe enough that a native speaker won't know what I mean.  Unfortunately, I'm sure many of my mistakes go unnoticed because the person understands my meaning."

"The website began with a vision of becoming a hub for learners of Chinese and Chinese learning English to come together and meet.  That is still a future goal for when I develop some materials for Chinese to learn English.  I've expanded the vision a little bit to hope to provide Cantonese and Mandarin learning material which is not available elsewhere on the web."

"Maintaining the site is fairly easy.  Expanding it takes a bit of effort.  It tends to come in spurts.  A single interactive lesson can take between 1 and 3 days of work before it goes live.  It's a fairly inexpensive hobby-- $99 a year for hosting and $8 a year for the domain name.  It would be nice if it could pay for itself, but the fact that it doesn't won't keep me from adding to it."

"My favorite thing is getting an email letting me know how someone has benefitted from my work.  I also like the creative process."

"I don't like going through and finding stuff that doesn't work.  I don't like the process of testing and retesting pages to see if they perform as intended and across multiple platforms and on various browsers."

"In the long run, I plan on having a complete set of lessons in both Cantonese and Mandarin that will complement the material covered in a first year university level course of study.  I'm thinking of adding means of self-assessment, some interactive dialogues, and more content.

I will also add content for Intermediate and Advanced learners of English for native Chinese speakers.  Hopefully I will get enough traffic to support an active chat room where people can meet and teach each other."