Hanyu 汉语 Hànyǔ

You do?

Think again! Unless you take the time to understand the politics and ideologies surrounding speaking and learning Cantonese, you may find the difficulties of actually using the language far outweigh any linguistic structural complexities. As this abstract to an academic paper suggests, whether or not anybody will appreciate your attempts at learning the language largely depends on traditional sociological categories like race and class.

Anyway, academics aside, here are 5 reasons why learning Cantonese could be a bad choice and not worth the hassle:

1. Cantonese is only a “dialect” - not a “real language” like Mandarin.

Cantonese doesn’t receive the same respect as Mandarin because it’s not an official or national language. Speaking a local “dialect” like Cantonese tends to mark group solidarity and in-group status. If you are white, or visible “non-Chinese-looking”, like it or not, you’re probably not going to qualify for in-group status unless you have a local spouse, significant other or somebody else to make you appear more “in-like”.

In Hong Kong, the language of power, wealth and prestige is English. English, then, and to a lesser degree, Mandarin, are perceived as the languages of opportunity. If you want to show that you are educated, you speak English. It’s no coincidence that fierce political battles have raged in Hong Kong (and still do) over the medium of instruction in secondary schools there ever since 1997 when the Hong Kong Government introduced mother tongue instruction.

Teaching Cantonese as a Second/Foreign Language is, given the political climate, hardly a priority. It’s not surprising that it’s difficult to find decent Cantonese learning materials and Cantonese language classes in Hong Kong. Some native Cantonese speakers may discourage you from learning Cantonese, insisting that it is uncultured and primitive and too difficult for outsiders (especially white ones) and offer you little help when you try to learn it. Because of its low status, some speakers in Hong Kong will refuse to speak to you in Cantonese and either reply in English or ignore your initial attempts at speaking it. Here are some experiences of an Australian learning Cantonese.

Ironically, if you “look Asian” in Hong Kong, you’ll more likely be expected to speak Cantonese, or somehow acquire it through osmosis. So, if you were born in Elliott Lake, had great-great-great grandparents from Toi San and can’t use chopsticks, or don’t have a clue what a tone sounds like, that trip back to the “Old Country” to trace your roots and learn Cantonese could be a tough slog.

Wanna learn Chinese? Er, go learn Mandarin!

2. No officially recognized romanization system

Whereas Mandarin has “pinyin”, there is no equivalent official romanization system for Cantonese. Although the Yale system is found in most materials for foreigners, no Cantonese speakers in Hong Kong (apart from a few Cantonese teachers) would have a clue how to read or write Yale. The same can be said for Jyutping, an alternative system to Yale which uses numbers to mark tones and can also be used as a computer input method for Cantonese, as well as the system used by the Hong Kong Government.

Cantonese learners who cannot already read Chinese characters are at a distinct disadvantage because they are forced to rely on their textbook and dictionary. It is difficult for the beginner to learn from her surroundings because everything is either written in Chinese or in inconsistent ad hoc systems that are unhelpful for serious learners. Even Hong Kong surnames and place names are anglicized so that the romanized spellings are inconsistent and unhelpful for the learner. When a Cantonese speaker is speaking English, Cantonese names are pronounced as if they were English. All these factors converge to give an English-speaking outsider the feeling of being shielded or protected from having to deal with Cantonese. There is rarely any expectation that she should bother learning Cantonese - despite its status as the language of the majority in Hong Kong.

3. Cantonese is dying out

That’s what they said in the LA Times article Cantonese is Losing its Voice. In North American (and probably other) Chinatowns Cantonese is mostly spoken by older people. New immigrants tend to speak Mandarin and young ethnic Chinese born overseas are learning Mandarin because of the economic and professional benefits. It is also “discouraged” (read “banned”) in Singapore, where Mandarin and English are actively promoted by the government. Now that more Hongkongers are going to Mainland China for business and work, they are also learning Mandarin. If you want to learn Chinese, it will be far more practical to learn Mandarin than learn Cantonese. And, anyway, [see 5. below] “everybody speaks English in Hong Kong”.

4. The everyday spoken language is not directly related to the way it’s written.

Cantonese uses a number of nonstandard characters not found in Mandarin and which may be omitted from Chinese dictionaries. Whereas it is possible to write in Cantonese, rather than Standard Written Chinese, the practice is frowned on and highly stigmatized.

The lack of an official romanization system mentioned above, and the negative attitude towards (especially) white Westerners speaking/learning it one frequently encounters, means you’re on your own if you decide to learn the language.

5. In Hong Kong everybody speaks English

So, you don’t need to learn Cantonese! This is really not true, but it’s a common myth. It may feel like it when you first arrive in Hong Kong. Frequent high-end department stores and shopping centres and it will mostly be true. Furthermore, if you are an expat with a high salary and good job, you will be surrounded by English-speaking Cantonese anxious to show you that Hong Kong is “Asia’s World City” where the outsider can get along in English and need not go to the trouble of learning the local “dialect”.

But venture off the beaten track, you will realize that it’s just not true that “everybody in Hong Kong speaks English”. Nevertheless, the belief that they do is a big part of the popular ideology and essential to branding Hong Kong as a modern, democratic “world city”. Assuming you are white and English-speaking, by trying to learn Cantonese, you are basically trying to turn the world upside down as it’s understood by many Hongkongers.

In case you didn’t guess, I don’t think the above should deter you from learning Cantonese. I hope it doesn’t! While you will surely often encounter negative attitudes, you might be lucky enough to meet a bunch of great Cantonese people who are really happy you want to learn their language and will do everything to help you. I hope you do!

But, if you run into problems and get frustrated and discouraged, understanding the politics of learning Cantonese may put things in perspective. As Linguist Carol Edelsky noted in her paper Not Acquiring Spanish as a Second Language: The Politics of Second Language Acquisition, majority language speakers usually do not acquire the minority languages in their community. Edelsky found that Anglo first graders in a bilingual Spanish Program in Arizona failed to learn that language. She concluded that the classroom situation reflected the more general relative political position of Spanish and English in the outside world. A similar situation surely exists for Cantonese in Hong Kong. As many native English speakers find, it can be a struggle to position oneself in the role of a learner of Cantonese when the expectation is that English speakers are teachers of their own language and Cantonese speakers are the learners of English.

In Part 2 of this article I’ll give a few ideas about what kinds of people in Hong Kong will be most likely to appreciate your interest in learning Cantonese and suggestions for dealing with speakers who want to speak English when you want to practice Cantonese.