Tag: rthk

All going well

I’ve been meaning to post for a while, but I always find some reason not to. As planned, I finished Teach Yourself Cantonese at the end of February, and I’ve been working on Colloquial Cantonese while listening to Cantonese radio and watching Canto TV, i.e. the ATV live stream. I guess part of the reason I haven’t posted in a while is that I felt I had to write a review of both books, but nobody reads this blog anyway so I don’t know what I was worried about.

Teach Yourself Cantonese was a pretty decent book, it taught me a lot of high-level vocabulary by the end, and it used hanzi all the way through so I could enter things into my SRS. Colloquial Cantonese is a near-total waste of money. It barely teaches anything over 15 worthless lessons, and barely teaches any characters at all. The one great thing I learned from the whole book is how to understand weather reports. And those Hong Kongers love their weather reports, they’re always going on about it. Now I can understand when they’re talking about clear skies, or relative humidity, or advising people to wear more clothing because it will be cold.

I was just listening to an announcer going on about it on RTHK 2 just now, and I was so chuffed when I understood every single word that I came over here to post about it. 😀 Up next I’m going to mine the Lonely Planet Cantonese guide for more sentences while continuing to grab vocabulary from Cantonese news broadcasts. I learn about 20 new compounds from each news broadcast, just by following the Mandarin subs closely while listening to their words. It’s hard to explain, but if you’ve studied Japanese and a bit of Mandarin before, it shouldn’t be too hard. I get the gist of each news item mainly because of that prior background. Here’s what I’ve learned today:

接力  zip3 lik6 –  relay
走勢  zau2 sai3  –  tendency
出現  ceot1 jin6  –  to appear; to emerge; to arise
動作  dung6 zok3  –  action; movement
表明  biu2 ming4  –  to clarify
要求  jiu1 kau4  –  request
估計  gu2 gai3  –  to estimate
投資者  tau4 zi1 ze2  –  investor
完全  jyun4 cyun4 –  completely
薪金  san1 gam1 –  salary; wage; pay
討論  tou2 leon6 –  to discuss; to talk over; to debate; discussion; talk; debate
休息  jau1 sik1 –  to rest; to take a break; recess; a rest; a break
答案  daap3 on3 –  [n] answer
出發  ceot1 faat3 –  to set off (on a journey)
海水  hoi2 seoi2 –  [n] seawater
質疑  zat1 ji4 –  call into question (truth or validity)
功能  gung1 nang4  –  function
重開  cung4 hoi1 –  to reopen
範圍  faan6 wai4 –  range, scope, limit
輻射  fuk1 se6 –  radiation, irradiation
反擊  faan2 gik1 –  to hit back

Interesting radio program

I haven’t found any good Cantonese TV programs I like, but I have found one radio program I follow quite regularly. It’s a radio drama they play on Thursdays at 6pm GMT on RTHK1, after which they play a lot of music. I haven’t figured out the overall story yet, but I find that I’m understanding more and more every week. I only caught the last few minutes of this weeks, but a lady running a stall called a young girl over and tried to sell her something. The young girl refused repeatedly and eventually ran off. And…that was the end of it. Well, at least I got that much, right? laughing Small victories, small victories.

First post in a long time

I’m embarrassed to admit I’d forgotten all about this blog (^^;;) until Khatz posted a comment I made long ago on his blog.

I just got a question about how it feels to juggle Japanese and Cantonese, so I’ll try and post a progress report below:

Because I spent a lot of time (several years) trying to get good at Japanese and I’m loath to lose all that, I’ve been spending more time keeping Japanese up to par than learning Cantonese. Given the choice I’d rather watch a Japanese drama than a Cantonese one or listen to Japanese music. I’ve been branching out more and more, but not too far. But recently I’ve been getting more confident that I’m good enough in Japanese that I won’t forget it so easily, even if I stop for a while. I won’t say I have “native” fluency in it or anything ‘cos that’s a lie, but I’m having a harder and harder time coming across vocabulary I don’t know and I don’t remember the last time I heard something in a show/movie I didn’t understand (I need to watch more complex stuff, seriously), so I must be doing something right.

From next month onwards, I’d like to get even more serious with my Cantonese. I’ve worked through most of the example sentences with audio at Cantonese.sheik.uk, and I’m on chapter 10 of Teach Yourself Cantonese. Not bad, but not that good considering I’ve had a year to get that far. However putting pressure on yourself is the surest way to stop enjoying a language, so I’m treating it as a fun journey. I’ll get there when I get there. As long as I can understand what George Lam is singing by 2050, I’m cool 😀

There’s also the issue that there’s far less comprehensible learning material available on the internet in Cantonese than there is in Japanese. Lots of people learn Japanese so the community is really supportive and you can get stuff at all stages. Complete beginner, semi-intermediate, intermediate, advanced, native, it’s all good. At any given time there are thousands of people learning along with you, and many of them have blogs and forums to take part in. Plus Japanese is just Japanese, you know? You don’t have to juggle between Simplified and Traditional or find a video that says “Chinese” and then it turns out to be “Mandarin”, etc.

Whining won’t get me anywhere though, I’ve just got to keep on moving. A year ago everything on RTHK radio was a complete blur, but now I’m starting to get the general idea of some conversations: “Oh, they talking about hospitals”, “Oh, they’re complaining about transportation (I think)”, etc. Hopefully I’ll have something even more exciting to report a year from today.

So that’s it!