Hanyu 汉语 Hànyǔ

Cantonese courses in Hong Kong are surprisingly few, despite it being the main language of daily communication in Hong Kong and spoken by over 90% of inhabitants. Fortunately, a number of new schools/companies are appearing that offer Cantonese courses in Hong Kong.

If you are new (or not so new) and want to learn Cantonese in Hong Kong, this short list will help you find a suitable course.

The Cantonese courses offered by the non-profit YMCA are probably the best deal price wise. There are 3 levels and the cost works out to just HK$50 per classroom hour. Here is a link to a pdf with the information.

The HKLLC is “a leading language school in Hong Kong which specialises in Cantonese and Mandarin Learning programmes in conversation and Chinese Reading and Writing for expatriates, locals and overseas Chinese”.

There is not much concrete information on the website, despite quite a few links. To learn how much their courses actually cost, you need to send an email. It took me around an hour to receive a reply.

They have both intensive and short term courses. The intensive 40 session course has lessons from M to F and consists of a 50-minute teaching hour, a 50-minute conversation hour, and an extra 1 hour language lab. The Course Fee is HK$8,200- (material fee included).

The short term 10 session Cantonese course is identical to the intensive in its format. The Course Fee is HK$2,300- (material fee included)

Because it’s not clear how much of the course fee should be allowed for the language lab, we can only come up with a rough figure of around HK$100 per hour for the HKLLC course.

The CUHK offers Cantonese evening courses for Non-native Chinese Speakers at 3 levels. These courses are 40 sessions held twice weekly. Each session is from 19.00 - 20.50. Here is a link to a pdf with information on the CUHK’s Cantonese courses.

EDC Languages, located in Admiralty, offers both private (From HK$155 – HK$190 per 45 minutes) and group Cantonese lessons. The group course fee is HK$2,940 for 30 hours, (Rate Per Hour HK$98), HK$3,680 fort 40 hours, (Rate Per Hour HK$92) and HK$5,280 (Rate Per Hour HK$88).

The Global Language Centre, located in Central, on Des Voeux Rd has private Cantonese classes for from HK$155-187/Hour and group classes (2-3 learners) for from HK$90-110. The fees vary according to when you study. It’s slightly cheaper during the day than in the evening.

The Hong Kong Language Training Centre offers Cantonese classes ranging from HK$250-/per hr/per class for 1-2 students for 24 or above hrs. to HK$330-/per hr/per class for 5 students and over. There are other rates for fewer students and fewer hours.

You can find HKLTC’s prices here for their Cantonese immersion courses with rates in USD.

Here is a link to a pdf with information on the International Language Centre’s Cantonese courses. Tuition per student for a 36 hour course is HK$4320 for the Beginner Level and HK$4520 for the Intermediate Course.

The Hong Kong Institute of Languages, located in Central, offers a 10 week, 20 hour Foundation course in Cantonese. The course fee ranges from HK$2,388 - HK$ 2,988, depending on the number of students and the time offered. The HKIL also teaches Cantonese courses for companies, schools, teens and children.

Chinese Language Professional gives information on their Chinese language courses here. There is only a price for an Intermediate Cantonese Course - a 36 hours Conversation Course for HK$5,398 and a 48 hour Conversation, Reading and Writing Course for HK$6,698.

The Talking Mandarin Language Centre, in spite of their name, also teach Cantonese. To get their rates, however, you’ll need to fill out an online form and give them your mobile number.

This charity has Cantonese courses for “ethnic minorities”. You will have to figure out if you fit in this category. Here is their brochure.

http://www.christian-action.org.hk/cdp/Lang_Prog_leaflet_Eng.pdf

I haven’t got around to posting much here lately. I’ve been putting most of the Cantonese stuff into the free online Moodle course at http://cantonesecourse.com . I love WordPress - but it wasn’t designed for learning.

Eventually I’ll have all the 50+ dialogues from the 15 lessons of Cantonese FSI Volume 1 made into YouTube videos. To date I’ve managed to churn out over 20 of them. No claims that these are great videos - just a modest attempt at experimenting with materials for learning a neat language online.

Hate these rather crass and vulgar efforts at “edutainment” a la YouTube? Question their pedagogical value? Never mind - you can always just download the .zip of the dialogues as mp3s.

This is the first in a series of Cantonese learning videos with simple everyday dialogues. Sound files were extracted and recycled from the US Foreign Service Institute’s (FSI) Basic Cantonese 1. Photos of Sham Shui Po are distributed under a Creative Commons licence and/or GNU. Everything else is public domain.

Two acquaintances on their way to computer parts in scenic Sham Shui Po bump into each other outside the Golden Computer Centre.

Here is the transcript in Yale Romanization, traditional Chinese and English translation.

A: Hòh Sàang, jóusàhn.
B: Léih Táai, jóusàhn.
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 Flash Video: Play in Popup | Download

This is Unit 6 of the Money Module in our Mandarin Chinese Video Lessons Series.

DIALOGUE 1

1. A: 请问，你们这里可以换美金吗？
Qĭngwèn, nĭmen zhèli kéyi huàn Měijīn ma?
Excuse me, can I change U.S. dollars here?
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All languages at one time or another borrow words from other languages. Most of the scientific and technical vocabulary in English is composed of Greek and Latin roots. And for some reason, lost in history for most people, our swear words are Germanic. Loanwords in Chinese are not so obvious - but they are still there. One of the more common ones is 咖啡 . Another one is 法西斯 .

The first time I heard 法西斯 used in a real context was some time just after June 4th, 1989. Three year old 毛毛 had just arrived from Beijing with her mother to join me in Columbus, Ohio, where I was finishing up my PhD dissertation. We were listening to a rally by a group of Chinese students. 毛毛 was sitting on my shoulders earnestly watching and listening.

打倒法西斯, yelled the angry crowd
爸爸, said 毛毛, with that innocent curiosity that only 3 year olds seem to possess, 法西斯是谁?
Not knowing how to explain such an abstract concept to her, I mumbled 他是坏人

And 19 years later, according to Michael Ledeen, 法西斯 is still alive. You can read a bilingual English and Chinese version of Ledeen’s article over at anti-cnn.com.

Is he correct?

我不知道. But I imagine that most people who thought that Ledeen was right wouldn’t want to learn Mandarin. And that would be a shame, wouldn’t it?

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