Tag Archives: Hong Kong

The Sociolinguistics and Ideology of Learning Cantonese in Hong Kong

This is a continuation of my earlier piece on Learning Cantonese in Hong Kong. I wrote Part 1 (So yuh wanna learn Cantonese, eh?) in a semi-playful and tongue-in-cheek manner. On the surface, it was a rant about the problems “foreigners” sometimes face learning the Cantonese language in Hong Kong. It listed several common beliefs, presented [...]
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Learning Cantonese for NooBs: Communication Strategies

You’re a Cantonese NooB. You find yourself in a situation where you don’t know the Cantonese word you need. What do you do? a. keep your mouth shut b. use a circumlocution (e.g. “smelly” + “fruit” for ‘durian’)
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So yuh wanna learn Cantonese, eh? (Part 1)

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
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Learn Cantonese 4: What Time is it?

This is Lesson 4 in our Learn Cantonese Video Course with simple everyday dialogues. Mr Wong goes to visit a young lady friend (Chan Siuje) in Mong Kok and practices his Cantonese.Here is the dialogue in traditional Chinese characters, Yale Cantonese romanization, and the English translation:
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How to say “Joe the Plumber” in Chinese (叫阿祖食屎)

I’m not interested in American politics. Quite frankly, I’m with Stanley Bing at Fortune China. Stanley wrote a piece in Chinese entitled 乔已经够多了 (I’ve had enough of Joe). Me, too. On a bad day, I’d be less polite and 叫阿祖食屎! But, like it not, the US is having an election and the rest of the world has [...]
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Learn Cantonese 3: Multilingual Hong Kong

This is is the third 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. Avatars were made with CrazyTalk. Photos of Hong Kong are distributed under a Creative Commons licence and/or GNU. Songs are copyright of various [...]
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Learn Cantonese 2: Getting to know you

This is the second 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. Avatars were made with CrazyTalk. Photos of Hong Kong are distributed under a Creative Commons licence and/or GNU. Everything else is public domain. In [...]
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Learn Cantonese 1: Mistaken identity

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 [...]
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