Tag Archives: learn Cantonese

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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Learn Cantonese in Hong Kong

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
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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 videos

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. [...]
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Learn Cantonese Dialogues Lesson 1

Dialogue 1 [display_podcast] Dialogue 2 [display_podcast] Dialogue 3 [display_podcast] Dialogue 4 [display_podcast] Dialogue 5 [display_podcast] Dialogue 6 [display_podcast] Dialogue 7 [display_podcast]
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Learn Cantonese Book 1

Learn Cantonese Book 1, published by Hanyu Press, is now available as a free .pdf. Learn Cantonese Book 1 contains transcripts in traditional Chinese characters, Yale Romanization and English translation for all the approximately 60 dialogues in lessons 1-15 (originally from the FSI’s Cantonese: Basic Course, Volume 1). It also contains vocabulary lists and a Cantonese [...]
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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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