Tag: atv

I found a new Cantonese TV livestream – Guangdong TV!

It’s been a while since I last posted about my Cantonese learning adventures. First I took a break from posting about it, then in the past 6 months or so I haven’t learned much at all. The reasons for that are both myriad and nebulous. What matters is that I’m finally back in the saddle and ready to take my studies seriously once more.

Thanks to the unfortunate break I have once again reverted to an intermediate-level learner just when I was on the verge of breaking through to advanced. But I learned all that stuff once and I can learn it again if I just focus my energies in the right direction. And since I do find just reading (or trying to read) about Cantonese boring, not to mention I like the sound rather than the sight of that particular language, it’s time to go back to finding good media to listen to or watch.

The bad news is, the ATV stream I used to watch all those terrible dramas on has apparently gone down for good. Boo, hiss. In fact I wondered for a second whether the company itself was still in business, but apparently they are. The good news is, I found another Cantonese TV station to watch: Guangdong TV! Yay~ I’ll even share the link with you: http://www.wcetv.com/asx/LIB/LIB106170_v5.asx

Since Guangdong is part of Mainland China and has historically been under their rule, I hear their Cantonese is more heavily influenced by Mandarin than Hong Kong/Macau Cantonese is, but a beggar like me hardly has a choice. I’ve only watched a little bit of it, but the commercials at least are in normal Cantonese, and that’s the best part of watching TV, right? ^_^ So I’m in a really good mood right now, yay!

Off-topic rambling

The ATV stream is back! Woo-hoo! You don’t know what you have until it’s gone, and all that.

Just in time, cos I was going astray, visiting all kinds of English websites and reading about Japanese celebrities. They’re all so coy. They won’t even admit to the plastic surgery and dental work many of them (Namie, Gackt, Amuro, etc) have obviously had. Come on, don’t be so shy. We know you did it! Actually I believe stars are entitled to their privacy just like the rest of us, and that their obligation to the fans stops right at entertaining us. But as a fan, I can’t help it. I loooove celeb gossip!

Just now I dug up some dirt about B’z vocals Koshi Inaba. He’s one of the most intensely private Japanese stars out there, and the only thing he’ll cop to is having parents, a brother and some dogs. Now I can finally put the doubts to rest: he’s married and has at least one kid as of 2002! Bob Marley had these lyrics: “Only your friend / Know your secret / So only he / Can reveal it”! Yup, it was someone on one of his tours who spilled the beans: American bassist Billy Sheehan, via his official website. Source: http://www.billysheehan.com/photos/photos_bz06.html

More of these, Billy. Go on more tours and reveal more information oh so casually on your site! Next up, Tak Matsumoto. He’s 50 and apparently…single? Not that there’s anything wrong with that…

Going My Way

Nothing interesting’s going on with me, I’m still plodding faithfully along. I gave up on books for now to focus on internet resources. I was lucky enough to come across Milan’s Cantonese blog with several Cantonese monologues recorded by his wife, a native Cantonese speaker. They’ve made excellent sacrifices to my Cantonese SRS deck, MWA HA HA HA HA! I’m happy with how much I’ve learned from them so far, but I’m also encouraged by how much I already understand. I can’t call myself a beginner any more, maybe more like a lower-intermediate learner. I can get the gist of most things I listen to, and even understand quite a bit of some topics. As for the news, once they have those Mandarin subtitles up, it’s all over for them. Needless to say, I enjoy watching the news quite a bit.

Or more like I enjoyed it, because the ATV stream I used to watch regularly suddenly went down a few nights ago. I’m heart-broken sad Now I have to find a new source of terrible dramas and annoying tourism shows and endless mahjong tournaments and pro-Beijing news to watch. It was fun to have ATV streaming away whether I watched it or not, and I learned a ton of new characters and compounds from the news broadcasts. But it does no good to lament the past, just got to keep moving forward. I’m sure I’ll find something else eventually.