A series of lessons in Cantonese are available freely on the Cantolounge site., wit additional materials available for sale. The resources are introduced in the short video below
SCMP Post Magazine What the devil are you saying? The locals go to great lengths to dissuade Westerners from learning Cantonese, but Cecilie Gamst Berg refuses to fall for the old "it's too difficult for you" ruse. 14 April 2013 Cecilie Gamst Berg
From left: Jennifer Kong, 23; Andy Chiu, 28; Ivan Lam, 24; and Tiffany Wan, 22, work in the hotel industry. Their favourite new Cantonese phrase is "kam chi pok kay liu". Photos: Jonathan Wong
"Chok!" ; "Hou heh ah"; "Hou cheu ah" *
By the time you read this, these words and expressions may well be obsolete. The Cantonese language changes faster than you can say "Hot Chok! olate" and new buzzwords appear and become hopelessly dated in the time it takes to gobble down a bowl of instant noodles, or gong tsai min ("doll noodles", probably named after the first company to manufacture them).
In fact, an awful lot of Cantonese slang seems to revolve around food; like jyu pat ("pork cutlet": a fat, ugly girl), sek yuhn faan ("eat soft rice": live off the earnings of a prostitute), mou mai juk ("riceless congee": a plan going nowhere), hahm choy ("salty vegetables": crumpled clothes) and ha cheun fan ("shrimp egg powder": low-grade heroin).
Although I won't mention them in a family magazine, that most revered of objects, the penis, has more nicknames in Cantonese than Australians have words for being drunk. And talking of unmentionables, here is a typical example of how Cantonese evolves: because rude characters couldn't be written out in newspapers or in film subtitles, Chinese writers started using the letter X where the offensive character should have been. So they'd write "Hou X wat dat", for instance, which is as clean as saying "damned disgusting". Cantonese being what it is, though, people soon took to saying "X" (pronounced "ekk-see") as a euphemism for a swearword, and now ekk-see has become a swearword in its own right, one frowned upon by office ladies.
The younger set, I've been told, have long since moved away from X - and are now using the letter Q.
Jeff Wong, retired, says his favourite new Cantonese expression is "mou tak shu" ("sure win").
Their constantly evolving and highly descriptive slang and jargon are a matter of pride for the majority of Hong Kong people, who nevertheless display a strange schizophrenia when it comes to their local language. On the one hand they boast about Cantonese being the most difficult language in the world and the one with the fastest-changing slang; on the other they go to great lengths to discourage foreigners from learning it, assuring us "it's just a street/gutter language", "it's just a dialect and not real Chinese" and the old chestnut "it's useless, you should learn Mandarin instead." "Lei yau mou gaau cho ah," ("You must be joking") is all I have to say to those people. Just a street language? Not real Chinese? Cantonese in spoken, sung and written forms was around long before that hybrid, almost Esperanto-like Putonghua (a mix of various northern dialects and Manchurian). Cantonese poems read out loud sound like angels dancing on a harp, whereas spoken Putonghua, let's face it, sounds like two cockroaches fighting in an a**e.
Cantonese has its own characters, grammar and syntax. When Mandarin/Putonghua speakers, also known as Mandohooligans locally, hear it, they don't understand a word. So how can it not be a language?
I have a theory about why Hong Kong people in general (not all, obviously, otherwise I would never have learnt Cantonese) put up such a fight against white-skinned foreigners acquiring any knowledge of their language. When the British landed on this barren rock and took over everything, Cantonese was the only thing the locals still owned exclusively. With Cantonese as their shield, they could stand in front of their colonial overlord telling him, for example, "Laan si gaht lou" ("push off") while smiling beatifically, so he assumed they were saying, "Jolly good weather today, what? Although there is a spot of humidity."
Wilson Cheung, 23, barman - "hou 'Q' fan"
That's probably how the myth about Cantonese being the most difficult language in the world came into being. It was a ruse, set out by those crafty compradors and opium tradesmen to ensure that the obtuse gweilo ("devil geezers") would never understand what was really going on. The British, meanwhile, who in Irish poet Brendan Behan's immortal words "[...] God help them, want[ed] every language to be like their own", were happy to keep forcing English down the locals' throats and writing the Chinese off as inscrutable.
So the colonial spirit lives on, with the local people having internalised it - why else would they encourage people to learn Putonghua instead of Cantonese, saying it's "more useful"? I'm sure it's well meant, but know they really what they say? How can learning a completely different language from the one spoken where you live be more useful where you live?
Ricardo Hui, 32, property agent - "yat wok suk".
Now it's the northern hordes acting like the British of yore, demanding that people wherever they invade, sorry, "visit or settle", speak their language, looking down their noses at the local tongue because they don't understand it. With the central government's incessant cries for "harmony" and "unity" it irks them to the point of madness that areas of their fiefdom should speak a, for them, unintelligible language.
How many times have I, or my students (I teach Cantonese), heard these and other arguments against us learning the local tongue over the years? All too often I have been in the middle of an otherwise pleasant conversation in that fun and vibrant language when my interlocutor suddenly remembers that I am, in fact, a foreigner and he is straying from the path he's been brainwashed down since infanthood by talking to me in his own language?
Alisa Wong, 24, human resources assistant - "wak kei".
When I ask him how he thought we should be having the conversation if I didn't speak Cantonese, he'll say: "In English, of course!" (Nowadays, with increasing frequency: "In Mandarin, of course!")
Oh, so do you speak English/Mandarin?
"No."
Oh dear. It must be a cultural, nay, a Hong Kong thing, though, because nobody in Guangdong province, the very cradle of the Cantonese language and culture, has ever told me I shouldn't learn its language. They do switch to Putonghua in mid-sentence, sometimes mid-word, however, when they suddenly remember I'm a "foreign friend" and therefore can't understand a word of what I myself have been saying.
Another thing I used to hear a lot from Hong Kong people, with decreasing frequency now that it is too late, was, "Don't learn Cantonese, it's too difficult for you." Ouch! That hurts. So a two-year-old can do it, but it's too difficult for me?
Cecilie Gamst Berg, the writer - "hou ekk-see mun".
When people tell me how extremely intelligent I must be to be able to say for example " jou san" ("morning!") in the language of the city I have lived in for 23 years, I think, "Come on, it's just a language." I also get weary of the "White person talking Cantonese!" clips on YouTube. I mean, nobody has posted "Chinese person speaks English!" That would be racist, after all.
I must admit, nevertheless, that when you undertake learning Cantonese, you take on quite a challenge; but it's not the language itself - that's dead easy - it is the logistics. Everything is stacked against you.
There is little earnest study material to speak of, as everyone has decided once and for all that Cantonese is just an irritating gadfly dialect trying to elbow in at the big boys' table. There are no books written in Cantonese characters and syntax, no magazines and few newspapers - although Apple Daily is leading a fightback, with an increasing use of the local lingo. The best source, apart from a small handful of apps, are Hong Kong movies, which delight in using the latest slang and allowing their characters to talk like real Hong Kong people do.
One of the very few proper English-Cantonese dictionaries comes without Chinese characters; which, if you ask me, is a little bit like publishing an English dictionary in phonics, where you have no idea of the proper spelling of the words. The word "patronising" springs to mind, as it so often does when it comes to this linguistic madness.
There are glossaries which do feature Chinese characters, but they're often not very helpful. One publication, for example, lists the word "dizzy" under A ("wan-wan dei" - "a little dizzy") and most other words under H ("da gun si": "have a lawsuit"; "sau yong muhn min": "have a sad look"; "o si [dai bihn]" : "have a stool" [yes, reader, defecate]; "bou ngah": "have the tooth filled"; and, of course, "sau chi gek": "have a [mental] shock").
This can make it very interesting, if a tad time-consuming, to look up words - is "nap" listed under N? No, of course not; it's listed under T - "fan an gau": "take an afternoon nap".
This kind of dictionary disarray is typical of the very anarchic nature of Cantonese - it just refuses to be pinned down and it doesn't take kindly to being pigeonholed. There are probably about 12 or 15 different ways of Romanising the characters, for example. And with the crazy spelling of words we see in Hong Kong, where "gok" ("country") is spelled "kwok", "goon" is spelled "kwun" and my local restaurant, Mau Gei, is spelled "Mau Kee" - is it any wonder there is a disconnect between taxi driver and irate Caucasian passenger? I beg you: if you want to learn Cantonese, learn the characters at once. Two or three hundred of those and you'll be well on your way to world supremacy.
Perhaps Cantonese is the Glaswegian of Asia; it may not sound beautiful at first listen ("Wai! O oi lei!" means "Hey! I love you!") but like Glaswegian it's terse, straight to the point and an excellent fighting language. And rather than being "the most difficult language in the world" it couldn't be easier: as with Chinese per se, there are no tenses of the verb, no genders, no plurals, no declensions. There are hardly any prepositions and few possessives.
"Long time no see" (hou loy mou ghin) is a typical example of the economy of the language.
"Oh, but the tones," people cry. "What about the nine [or 11, or 210] tones? They are impossible to learn for a foreigner." Well, not really. I've found that when people get over the shock that a Caucasian is speaking their language, they can understand what you say even if you use the wrong tones. Sentence structure is much more important. And besides, how about the people who speak through a hole in their throat? They only have one tone but are understood.
So now that the silly notion about the enormous difficulties of learning Cantonese is out of the way, what's holding everyone back?
I'm sorry to say, and I speak here again on behalf of my students, who all have the same complaint: Hong Kong people just won't give it up. They insist, insist on speaking English, no matter how poor their vocabulary is and how good the Cantonese of their interlocutor. Because it's been written in stone since the beginning of time that no Caucasian can ever - EVER - learn Cantonese. Although it is different for Filipinos, Indonesians and Indians, who get roundly mocked if they don't speak Cantonese like a native a couple of hours after touching down at Chek Lap Kok (should be written Gok; "red some-kind-of-fish point").
So Cantonese is genetic, learnable only by "those with black hair and brown eyes", as a taxi driver once told me. In that case, what happened to "Cantonese is the most difficult language in the world" - surely someone held in as little regard locally as a domestic helper wouldn't have the intellect to pick up the world's most difficult language in five minutes flat? It's baffling, I tell you. Baffling.
But, of course, the fact is, arriving Asians often do learn Cantonese very fast. Why? Because it's expected of them. No matter how brokenly they speak it in the beginning, local people answer them in Cantonese because it's the norm.
There has admittedly taken place a huge sea change in foreigners' attitudes since the early 1990s. At that time, I was laughed at by locals and other foreigners alike; by locals for thinking I could go against nature and my genes; by foreigners, young Englishmen in particular, for "going native".
Now the locals are the only ones laughing. Foreigners now want to emulate me, saying that it's only right to try to learn the language in the place where you live, rather than trying to force your own language upon locals. Well, duh!
It may be an uphill battle, but have you ever tried fighting a downhill battle? It's easy to stumble and accidentally impale yourself on your own broadsword.
Now we have the added aspect of a relentless influx of Mandohooligans to contend with, with Hong Kong people enthusiastically embracing the "real Chinese", with its poverty of vocabulary, communist-speak properties and, worst of all, simplified characters.
A good example of Hong Kong people's "willingness to go with the flow" (or, to put it less kindly, apathy) was seen in July 2010. The central government proposed that local TV and radio stations in Guangzhou scrap or severely reduce their Cantonese-language programmes, ostensibly to accommodate all the non-Chinese speaking foreigners flocking to the city later that year for the Asian Games.
Incensed at what they rightly saw as yet another ham-fisted attempt by the authorities to quash Cantonese (historically the language of breakaway rebels and now a terrible thorn in the side of our "everyone-must-be-the-same" rulers from the north), thousands of mainly young people gathered at Gong Lam Sai (Jiangnan Xi - incidentally, the Korean "Gangnam" means the same: "south of the river") station despite the organisers of the protest having been arrested and the protest called off.
Being a Cantonese fundamentalist, I of course went along, and it was truly an electrifying experience. Thousands of teenagers and people in their early 20s were thronging the street and pavements near the station, the police looking helplessly on. For how could they arrest or even lightly attack people whose only wish was to keep hearing their own language spoken on air? Besides, only four or five of the people there weren't using their iPhones to film everything that happened, so the old "suspect beat himself to death while jumping handcuffed off the pavement" explanation wouldn't have worked well in this case.
"Gong jau yan gong gong jau wah, teng m meng jau fan heung ha!" ("Cantonese people speak Cantonese, if you don't understand it, p*** off back to the sticks"), went the war cry.
Three weeks later there was to be a similar demonstration in Hong Kong, this time all above board, with lots of police in attendance to deal with any high jinx. Oh, this was so exciting! I would stand shoulder to shoulder with Hong Kong people, shouting out our support for Cantonese, the most fun, interesting, dynamic and excellent-sounding language on Earth!
When my Caucasian friends and I arrived at Southorn Stadium, in Wan Chai, we saw clearly how great the interest to preserve their own language and culture was among Hong Kong people. There were four of us ... and just three of them.
-----------
*" Chok!" Means to strike a silly pose/ham it up for the cameras. Apparently it comes from English "choke" and is so happening there isn't even a Chinese character for it.
"Hou heh ah" means really bored, nothing to do.
"Hou cheu ah" means really busy, hectic. ___________________________________________________________
Why Cantonese isn't as hard you think: following the journey of two learners
[This is a slightly edited version of a posting on Benny Lewis's language learning site (http://www.fluentin3months.com/cantonese/ )and includes input from Hong Konger Brian Kwong.]
To wrap up 2013, let’s share another “Why a supposedly hard language isn’t as impossible as you thought” type post! This time from Cantonese native speaker Brian, who has guest posted here before and who organizes the Plus 1 challenge. One of the challengers, Jan, took on Cantonese for his project and you can see the result where himself and Brian chat in Cantonese after the three months in this video. English subtitles are also available if you watch directly on YouTube but those with basic Cantonese should be able to understand most of it unaided:
Now let’s hear Brian’s take on all this!
——————-
Most people struggle to learn Cantonese.
This is one of the biggest reasons why it is way more common to find foreigners who can speak fluent Mandarin rather than fluent Cantonese.
When I came across foreigners like Carlos Douh from Canada and Jan Van Der Aa from Holland, who were both successful in learning Cantonese, I got very curious to find out how they did it. You will see what I discovered in this post and hopefully you will be able to apply their lessons learned into your own Cantonese learning journey.
Why Learn Cantonese? Why learn Cantonese if Cantonese is only spoken in Hong Kong which equates to about 8 million people?
That’s what most people think, but Cantonese is actually spoken by approximately 70-100 million people in the southern provinces of Guangdong and Guangxi, Macau and different countries around world. If you travel around the Southern part of China, Hong Kong and Macau, Cantonese will definitely come in handy.
We can’t talk about why you should learn Cantonese without discussing classic Hong Kong movies. You can’t truly appreciate Hong Kong classic movies like “The Police Story” (Jackie Chan), “Way of the Dragon” (Bruce Lee), the “Once Upon a Time in China” series (Jet li), “Internal Affairs” (the original movie which was re-made into a Hollywood movie called “The Departed” featuring Leonardo DiCaprio) just to name a few, unless you learn Cantonese. Yes, you can read the subtitles but a ton of meaning gets lost in translation and who likes reading those tiny subtitles anyway?
Differences Between Cantonese and Mandarin While there are some similarities between Cantonese and Mandarin, there is a huge difference in words, pronunciation and grammar, particularly in the placement of verbs.
Depending on who you ask, some may say they are distinct enough to be separated into two different languages, instead of just dialects. Just because you can speak and understand Cantonese does not mean you can speak and understand Mandarin and vice versa.
Mandarin is spoken exactly the same way as it is written, while Cantonese is not spoken in the same way at all.
There are plenty of words in Cantonese that are different in Mandarin. Here is a video with example words and a bit of Cantonese history.
What Makes Cantonese Difficult? Although some languages are easier to learn depending on which languages you already know fluently, there is one factor that always makes a language more difficult than it actually is. That is: other discouraging learners.
If someone wants to learn Cantonese or any “difficult” language, he/she may ask for opinions from other language learners who have already made an attempt. “Is Cantonese hard to learn?”
This question will give you a misleading answer 99 out of 100 times because it highly depends on the person’s experience in learning Cantonese and the languages they can already speak. Since there aren’t many foreigners who have successfully learned Cantonese this person will likely get a reply similar to “it is very difficult.”
This is like asking a student who dropped out of medical school “is removing someone’s appendix hard?”
If a friend asks someone who was interested in learning Cantonese the same question and if he/she hasn’t even attempted learning Cantonese, he/she will most likely say “I heard it is very difficult” without even trying!
Do you see how the vicious cycle of the myth “X language is difficult” spreads like a virus?
Instead of looking at whether or not a language is difficult, focus on why you want to learn the language, how you will use the language, and what learning this language means to you. Are you willing to do what it takes to learn it?
Once you are clear on the why and what learning this language means to you, then you can start learning. If you consistently work on it, the only way you can fail is if you quit.
With all that said, let’s learn from people who have had success learning Cantonese. It will give you a leg up if you choose to take Cantonese on!
Meeting Carlos Douh in Hong Kong About a year ago, I saw my friends from Hong Kong sharing this viral video on Facebook with 1 million+ views.
His Cantonese is as good as it gets for someone who is self taught.
I was impressed, so I had to meet him in person and ask him how he learned to speak Cantonese.
At the time when I contacted Carlos, he had just moved to Hong Kong for good and I was about to fly there. It was perfect synchronicity. We set up an interview on how he learned to speak Cantonese like a champ.
To summarize interview above:
1. Make the choice of focusing on speaking only
Interesting enough, this is the same approach as Benny.
Carlos said it is tempting to want to learn to read and write Chinese but he would rather be really great at speaking only, than to be average in speaking, reading and writing. If you are only average in speaking, reading and writing, there is no “wow” factor at all. If you are great at speaking Cantonese only, you are able to not only wow the locals every time you open your mouth, you can also communicate with the natives more effectively.
2. Learn the romanization of Cantonese first, do not learn by ear
Carlos uses the Yale romanization system which was developed for English speakers and takes into account the sound and the 6 tones in Cantonese.
He recommends using a romanization system so you are taking out the guess work and inconsistency of playing it by ear. Imagine learning English without the alphabet and only learning by ear.
Who would do that? No one.
Why would anyone attempt to learn a language with 6 tones without a romanization system? It is pretty crazy if you think about that, no wonder Cantonese is “difficult”.
3. Learn the basic structure of Cantonese by speaking
Since you have an idea of how the tone and sound works, you can learn the basic sentence structures by practicing your speech with native speakers.
Cantonese is not a tense language, which means it does not distinguish past, present, and future in verb forms. There is no verb conjugation chart to study and there is no gender in the language unlike the Romance languages (woohoo). The structure is pretty straight forward and all it takes is practice.
4. Learn new vocabulary by writing it down
When you hear a new word that you don’t understand, try to write it down in romanization, then reproduce it to a Cantonese speaker.
The native speaker will understand you even if you are saying it correctly or not. In this way, you are training your listening and speaking skills at the same time.
5. Memorize new words
Once you double check the correct pronunciation and meaning of the words with a native speaker, you can memorize it.
Carlos memorizes new words by writing it down on a piece of paper as a list. You can try this technique as well.
Cover all the words except for the vocabulary at the top and move down the list by saying the words and the meaning out loud, one at a time, until the very last word on the list.
If you can’t recall a word at any time, start from the very top and try again.
6. Rinse and repeat 3-5
That’s it!
Carlos’ Top 3 Language Learning Tips 1. Make sure you have the desire and passion and are ready to do what it takes to learn your target language
There is always a “tough grind” at the beginning, then everything will become easier. Without desire and passion for your target language, you are likely to give up before you get over the “tough grind” stage.
Make sure you are ready to do absolutely whatever it takes to learn your target language.
2. Carlos’ motto is “Hear it. Speak it. Memorize it.” (as explained earlier in steps 3-5)
3. Make it fun
Learning a language could be boring and it is your job to make it fun for yourself.
Learn jokes, learn slang, learn by watching movies or reading books and practice with native speakers. Have fun with it!
Meeting Jan Van dee Aa from Holland
I met Jan May 2013 at the first ever Polyglot Conference in Budapest.
We asked each other the usual, boring icebreaker questions but the moment when Mandarin started coming out of Jan’s mouth, everything changed.
Imagine you are in a foreign country where nobody speaks your language and all of a sudden, you meet someone who can.
The connection is instant.
“If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.” -Nelson Mandela
This was the first time that I actually experienced Nelson Mandela’s famous quote, instead of just understanding it intellectually.
The quote is actually true and we became good friends right away.
At the time, he already wanted to learn Cantonese. We did a little practice but his Cantonese was not at a point where we could have a conversation. Fast forward to October 2013. I asked if he wanted to learn a language together in the Add1Challenge, where 100+ language learners set our own goals to aim for in 90 days. We could support and motivate each other during the journey.
Jan took on Cantonese.
In the past 90 days, Jan learned Cantonese consistently for the first time and you can see our first conversation in Cantonese on day 91 of his Add1Challenge, at the start of this post.
Jan’s Cantonese is still far from perfect. If he learns a Romanisation system it will definitely help with his pronunciation, but it’s still a pretty damn good result after 90 days of consistent learning. How did Jan learn Cantonese? Jan learned Cantonese by putting himself in the Add1Challenge, and surrounding himself with 100+ language learners who are all aiming for their own language learning goal in 90 days. It’s more fun learning a language in a collective group than to learn it all by yourself and it also gives you more motivation to keep on going.
Through consistent Cantonese lessons that Jan scheduled 3-5 times a week, he was able to practice with an informal teacher at italki.com. He takes notes during his italki lessons and reviews his notes afterward.
Repeat for 90 days.
That’s it.
There is no magic formula here.
The only thing Jan and Carlos have in common is that they both focused on speaking only and they put themselves in a position to have tons of practice speaking Cantonese. Consistency is key.
Conclusion Every language and every language learner is different. Almost every polyglot that I’ve interviewed has a different approach in learning a language.
The only common denominator that separates a language learner who gets amazing results compared to a typical language learner who never gets anywhere, in my opinion, are three things:
1. Successful language learners set a goal. They never quit learning and they learn consistently.
2. Because they never quit, they have lots of time to experiment and explore many different techniques for learning a language; they know what works best for them.
3. Successful language learners all started with adding one language.
2014 is right around the corner, I hope the story of Carlos and Jan inspired you into taking massive action in learning the language you’ve always wanted to learn.
What language learning goals do you have for 2014?
Let Benny and I know in the comments!
About Brian
Through a survey, Brian discovered that the most common struggle language learners have is “time and routine”. He created the Add1Challenge, where 100+ language learners set their own goals to aim for in 90 days while sharing struggles, victories and gathering together for support. The results and stories has been nothing but amazing. Join the next Add1Challenge now and finally learn the language you’ve always wanted to speak.
Cantonese proverbs illustrated
Inspired by Peter Breugel's 1559 panel painting`Nederlandse Spreekwoorden' (`Flemish Proverbs'). Hong Kong graphic designer Ah To ( 阿塗) produced in 2014 a series of illustrations of Cantonese proverbs, some of which can be seen on the Cantonese Resources Blog. Details of his recent publications, intended primarily to aid local parents in teaching their children Cantonese are available on his Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/artohk
It wasn’t until Jonathan Ma began learning Cantonese intensively that he realised how crucial it was for understanding Hong Kong culture.
Ma, a 33-year-old English teacher, was born locally but moved to the United Kingdom when he was a child. Although he grew up travelling between the two territories and speaking basic Cantonese, he never received formal education in the language – until he moved to Hong Kong and decided to enrol in private courses two years ago.
The impetus behind his decision was simple: he wanted to stay in the city in the long run, and integrate himself into the community.
Ma is among the people contributing to an apparent renewed interest in learning Cantonese, according to local language course providers.
Although there hasn’t been extensive research conducted on the popularity of Cantonese courses in relation to other programmes, teachers say that interest in the language has picked up in recent years.
One such programme is the Yale-China Chinese Language Centre at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, which runs various Cantonese courses. Total enrolment for Cantonese programmes grew by about 30 per cent from 1,508 in 2010 to 1,918 last year.
This trend is also seen at Q Language. The learning centre has seen a 60 per cent increase in students learning Cantonese from 2010 to last year. Students range from 25 to 45 years old, and take an average of 120 hours of lessons.
At Hong Kong Language School, the number of Cantonese students also more than doubled from 132 in 2010 to 311 last year. The majority of students take classes for social rather than professional reasons.
“Mandarin is still much more popular due to the demand from local employers. However, Cantonese has still been rising with no signs of any change,” Q Language director Stuart McCutcheon said. About 30 per cent of students are ethnically Chinese but were raised overseas, 20 per cent are local expats looking to study basic Cantonese and 20 per cent are expats or job seekers from other Asian countries, he said.
Despite the demand, Cantonese is a difficult language to learn as well as teach. Since spoken Cantonese and written Chinese differ vastly, educators must grapple with whether to teach spoken or written first. In addition to being phonetically complex, highly colloquial and nuanced, Cantonese also does not have a standard qualification system. There are currently no standardised Cantonese tests or certifications, leaving individual programmes and centres to create and offer their own.
Branda Kwong, a Cantonese teacher at Hong Kong Language School, said that although there are romanization systems used across the board by teachers, there are no standard textbooks and teaching methods can vary drastically.
“I created my own teaching structure. Hong Kong people don’t learn Cantonese, just speak it. When we go to school, we then learn to translate our Cantonese into (written) Chinese,” Kwong said, who uses a textbook that the school created to teach her students. “This is different from English and Mandarin. If your student doesn’t know how to speak Cantonese, it’s unsuitable to teach them how to write.”
Aside from studying, effectively practising with locals can also be a challenge for students, Kwong said. Hongkongers might reply in English when you speak to them in Cantonese because they want to make sure they understood you correctly, or because they themselves want to practise English, she explained.
“If you can’t be persistent, then you won’t get a chance to practise,” Kwong said. “If you have enough confidence to continue speaking in Cantonese, then they will too. You have to persevere.”
While Hong Kong is a city where many speak English or Mandarin, Cantonese dominates the local language scene.
Some argue that those who are not proficient in Cantonese can feel isolated from local culture, and find it difficult to establish relationships with the many locals who cannot speak the language that they do.
Not having Cantonese not only limits their social circle but also their ability to understand issues that are important to Hongkongers and to integrate themselves into local communities.
Aya Kazama, a 33-year-old expat from Japan who has lived in Hong Kong for four years, began learning Cantonese in March and struggles most with pronunciation.
“Everyone speaks English. (But) normally I’m the only one who is a foreigner,” Kazama said, referring to her workplace. “If they start chatting and getting excited, they forget about me and start talking in Cantonese. I thought it would be better to have some knowledge.”
Ma also said he valued understanding what was being said around him.
“Just to understand what people are saying around me, that’s everything. If I don’t understand ... I feel like a fool,” Ma said, adding that learning Cantonese also helped him better understand local politics and social issues.
“One feels isolated from society if you don’t have the ability to communicate with the wider community. If you live here longer, every single person should (take) the opportunity and motivation to learn Cantonese.”
In recent years, the Cantonese language has become a topic of contention following the rise of localism – a pro-democracy political movement that advocates greater autonomy for Hong Kong and the preservation of local culture.
The Education Bureau’s proposal in February to adopt simplified Chinese characters and emphasise the study of Mandarin in local schools, as well as broadcasting station TVB’s decision to use simplified characters in the subtitles of its Mandarin newscasts, drew widespread criticism.
South China Morning Post Why you have to know Cantonese in Hong Kong - two foreign husbands explain Elaine Yau 11 May 2016
Many expatriates live in Hong Kong for decades without picking up more than the few Cantonese phrases needed to make their way home in a taxi.
Shin Kataoka is one of those rare people; he even wrote his doctoral thesis on the history of Cantonese. But the Tokyo native came with an advantage: he had majored in Chinese at the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies. Now an assistant professor of Chinese at the Hong Kong Institute of Education, Kataoka taught Japanese at the University of Edinburgh before moving to Hong Kong in 1995, again as a language teacher. He married a Hongkonger who taught Cantonese, acquired a taste for local television dramas and in 2004 enrolled to pursue his doctorate at Chinese University.
“When I learned to speak Cantonese, there were many books for beginners,” he says. “But I didn’t want to read them as they were too easy. There were no books for middle grade. So I eventually wrote one myself and I am writing other Cantonese books with my wife.”
Despite having learned Cantonese for 20 years, Shin says he has yet to grasp many of its linguistic quirks. “Cantonese is a very difficult language to learn. People always make fun of my grammar. Omitting a [functional but meaningless] word in a verb can convey a very different meaning than what I intended. Sometimes I speak Cantonese with a Putonghua construction. When people hear that, they instantly switch to Putonghua to talk to me. Then I know my language is not colloquial enough.”
John Wakefield, who speaks fluent Cantonese, is an assistant professor in the department of English language and literature at Baptist University. Photo: Nora Tam
John Wakefield picked up fluent Cantonese after coming to Hong Kong in 1983 as a Mormon missionary.
He has since left the church, but during those early years, “I saw Cantonese as a tool to help make people believe what I believed,” says Wakefield, an assistant professor in English at Baptist University.
“I first learned Yale pinyin for non-native speakers. Then I learned Cantonese pinyin for a long time before I learned the Chinese characters. I learned the sound of words way before I learned their meaning.”
Like Kataoka, he married a Hong Kong woman. Their daughter attends an English Schools Foundation school, where she learns Chinese using Putonghua – a set-up he is not entirely happy with.
“If I could choose, I would rather [my daughter] learn Cantonese as she was born in Hong Kong. She once did an interview for an internship with HSBC and she was tested on her Cantonese. Many people say you can do anything as long as you know English, but it’s far from the case. You have to know Cantonese in Hong Kong.”
Kataoka and Wakefield both express worries about the future of Cantonese, which has become a political issue in the tussle to maintain an autonomous Hong Kong. “Using Mandarin to teach Chinese is a political decision. It’s not decided from an educational point of view. People should use their mother tongue to learn a language,” he says. “Mandarin should be taught as a separate subject. I see parents speak to their children in English and some [local] children don’t know Cantonese. I am worried that Cantonese will disappear one day.”