常問問題 : Frequently Asked Questions

Website FAQ

1. Can you translate something for me?

Sorry, I am only learning myself!  If you just want a few words translating try the "Translate This!" forum and someone may be able to help. If your request includes the words Chinese Alphabet though, please read this page first!  If you want to check a particular Chinese symbol or phrase, it might be worth photographing it and posting to our Chinese Translation forum.
 If you want professional Chinese translation for a website or publication then contact me as I know a few freelancers who would be happy to provide a quote.
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2. Will you add my link to your links section?

If your site is non-commercial and relevant to Cantonese then probably yes, just send me the link.

If your site is commercial then I would charge a small fee.  Please see Advertising on this website for more information.
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3. What is my name in Chinese? / I want a Chinese tattoo of <phrase>!

I can't help you personally so please don't mail me.  Chinese names may either be a phonetic version of your real name (which can look "funny" to a native Chinese person) or you can take a completely new name that (hopefully) means something you like.  Only a Chinese person or someone who has studied Chinese for many years will be qualified to give you a name.  

Some pages that may be of use for names are :
www.mandarintools.com/chinesename.html
http://zhongwen.com/qianming.htm

Similarly, if you are going to tattoo yourself, you'd best ask someone who knows a fair bit of Chinese - I am not that person!

So, for requests such as this you really need to post to the Translate This! forum.

There is now an essay about Chinese tattoos.  It contains a newspaper article and is recommended reading.

There is also an interesting forum thread about Chinese names.
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4. How can I help you with this website?

Thanks for asking! Actually, there are lots of ways in which you can help so I have moved them all to their own page at "How you can help this website".
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5. Your site is great but I want to learn Mandarin - please add Mandarin sections too!

　SHORT ANSWER :  Sorry, this website is aimed at learning Cantonese as that is what I am learning myself.  However, there are many more websites devoted to learning Mandarin than Cantonese, take a look in the links section for some good starting points.

LONGER ANSWER :  Having said this, Cantonese and Mandarin use the same written language so lots of the pages within the site will still be of use to you.  Also, the sections that are dynamically generated from a database can be converted to Mandarin without too much work, look at the Master Character List as an example.  I will try and convert the online quiz and flashcards to Mandarin soon.
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6: How do I pronounce the Cantonese words on your site?

Please see the section explaining Romanisation.  Also, some pages have sounds which you can hear by clicking the red links next a Chinese character.
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7: What are those numbers next to some of the words?

Ah, you mean things like fung1 etc!  They indicate the Cantonese tone of the word.  Cantonese is a tonal language so if you want to speak it, you will at some point have to learn the correct tones.  There is a whole page about this subject at : Cantonese Tones.
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8: You have a mistake on one of your pages!

I am only a beginner at Chinese so it is quite possible there will be some mistakes on the site.  It would be really helpful if you could let me know by posting to a dedicated thread in the forum, "Mistakes in this Website".

You can of course also mail me using the contact page.  Unless it is a minor mistake I would rather you used the forum though because often other people will join in the discussion and provide more information - this then benefits the other students that read the site.
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9: Someone wrote something in the forums that I object to!

The forums on this site all have Etiquette Guidelines. There is also a simple procedure for reporting an offensive post.
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10: Your flashcards are wrong!

If you mean that the characters don't appear next to the correct descriptions then please read the instructions! I get so much mail about this you wouldn't believe it... The cards do not appear aligned correctly on the screen as they are designed to be printed out on both sides of a sheet of card and cut into squares.

11: Your website isn't suitable for children!

Well, it is and it isn't.  Please read our Parental Advisory.

12 : If I learn Cantonese, will I be able to understand Mandarin?

Sorry, no - but the two languages do share a common written language so it's not all bad news.
This question is explored in far more detail in this thread.

13 : Do Chinese people read left to right or right to left?

This is answered in the How to Write Chinese essay.

14 : Is Cantonese a language or a dialect?

Another huge can of worms (although I've never quite understood why myself).  The short answer is that linguistically, it can be argued either way. The (extremely) long answer is debated rather passionately here.
Also see FAQ question #12 above.

Webmaster FAQ

1. Who are you?

My name is Adam Sheik and I live in the United Kingdom.  I started learning Cantonese properly in 2001 and I am still not very good!
The reason this website was started is explained in About this website.
My personal homepage is at www.sheik.co.uk/adam
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2a. Are you Chinese?

I am half Chinese.  My father is from Hong Kong / Macau and my mother is from Newcastle, England.  I have lived in England all my life and unfortunately didn't learn Cantonese when I was younger.  I still have family in Hong Kong, Macau and possibly Southern China.  I also have a lot of Chinese uncles and aunties living in England, as well as my Grandma.  All of my Cantonese speaking family help me practise now when I see them.
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2b. Why can't you speak Cantonese if your family do?

I don't really have a good answer, but I don't think it was considered to be important that my generation be bilingual when we were children.  My family wanted us all to do well at school and that obviously meant speaking English.  Also, my father and all my uncles worked long hours at our family restaurant which meant that my cousins and I saw more of our English speaking mothers when we were growing up.  My auntie married a Chinese man and their daughters can speak pretty good conversational Cantonese.  All of the rest of us only know basic phrases (mostly taught to us by our Grandma) and basic characters (eg: ones on Mahjong tiles!).

Please don't write to me telling me that multi-lingual children learn just as quickly at school.  I know that and so do my family.  I would definitely encourage any mixed language parents to teach their children both languages.  Actually I think this is quite a common viewpoint nowadays - a few decades ago that wasn't so true though.

 We still run our family restaurant by the way and the website is at www.sheik.co.uk/hongkong if you are interested!
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2c. Can you speak Mandarin / Esperanto / Klingon?

Unfortunately I can't speak Mandarin at all, although inevitably you learn a little whilst trying to learn Cantonese.

I believe there are many types of intelligence and I personally find foreign language learning very difficult (which is frustrating as I would love to be naturally good).  I always try and learn the local language when travelling though so I have "basic tourist phrasebook" abilities at Italian, Greek, Czech and Portugese.  I also learned a bit of French and Spanish at school.  None of these skills are good enough that I could say I was multi-lingual, but I'm hoping that my Cantonese will eventually get good enough for that.  If it did I would expect to move onto Mandarin and after that perhaps Japanese.
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3a. Where do you learn Chinese?

I learn by speaking with my family, using the Internet and by reading some books.
Also, I used to attend a class in Cambridgeshire, England, run by the St. Neots Chinese Society.  
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3b. Do you know of any Chinese classes near <place>?

Sorry, I honestly don't know of any classes.  Feel free to ask in the forum though.
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4. Why are you learning Cantonese?  Mandarin is more useful as it is spoken by more people! 

Mandarin is the official language of China and is spoken by many more people worldwide than Cantonese.  However, this makes no difference if all of the Chinese people I want to speak to are Cantonese!  Here in the United Kingdom, it is rare for me to meet Chinese people who speak Mandarin but not Cantonese.
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