Zomxilla's Log 2018 (廣東話 － Cantonese)

[Zomxilla]

Not quite a new year's resolution, but because I'm travelling to Hong Kong sometime at the end of next year to meet the rest of my partner's family, I need some level of proficiency.

Learning Mandarin previously was certainly more accessible. In Auckland you can find many classes after work hours to learn spoken Chinese, and there are a lot of situations you can practice it. I haven't been able to find convenient lessons for Cantonese yet, so I'm mostly on my own in terms of directed learning.

Fortunately I have my partner and his mother to practice with. One of my goals for the upcoming months is to finish the FSI Cantonese Basic Course. Although Duolingo has released Mandarin Chinese, I probably won't be actively studying it at the same time - my pronunciation is already confused!

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Short term goals

• Conversational Cantonese by end of 2018
• Complete FSI Cantonese Basic Course by March 2018
• Watch a whole series of HK Drama (undecided which one yet)
• Learn 500 characters by mid-2018

Long term goals

• Use Cantonese for 80% of at-home conversation
• Watch HK Drama and movies in Cantonese without the need for subtitles

[Zomxilla]

It's the holiday break from work at the moment so I'm feeling extra motivated with more time for study.

Completed section 2A of FSI Cantonese
Memrise - 10 new words

I'm not sure yet what sort of approach for reading/writing I should be going for, as Memrise tends to use only Mandarin pronunciation. I may just use the vocabulary from FSI Cantonese and Memrise and drill some character writing myself.

[Zomxilla]

Finished Lesson 2 of FSI Cantonese. Lots of replacement drills, kind of tiresome. I think my partner uses slightly different vocabulary to the learning material which doesnt help!

Finished two more levels of Memrise vocabulary. Attempted to get Viki streaming but the HK dramas aren't available in my country so I have to figure out some sort of VPN solution.

Once I go out and buy a notebook I will start practicing writing, sticking to the vocab I pick up on Memrise.

[Zomxilla]

Got to the 6th level of the Cantonese course I was doing in Memrise, and the audio clips weren't there - it was basically just jyutping with the English translations. Instead I found a new course which is just the 375 most common words/characters in Cantonese. I also picked up a notebook with gridlines to practice writing. I used this method when I was learning Mandarin before and it was pretty effective.

No FSI today but some small conversation snippets at home. I also took on a challenge with the East Asia Study Group to learn ~150 characters this month (character, pronunciation, and English meaning).

[Zomxilla]

The memrise course I'm doing has 15 words per level, so I think I'll be able to meet my goal!

Vocab so far:
你，我，呀，唔，係，呢，噉，佢，嘞，嘅，個，好，嚟，都，喇，就，咩，去，啲，得，吖，有，咗，㗎，話，噉，畀，同，一，冇

A lot of particles which at this early stage don't make much sense. Having learned simplified characters in the past certainly helps!

I've signed up for the Cantonese Class 101 online lessons to supplement vocab and grammar.

[Zomxilla]

My partner's mum came round for dinner so we had a chat about Cantonese. Pretty handy having two native speakers in close proximity!

Memrise: Lesson 5 of 375 Most Common Cantonese Words
Cantonese Class 101: Cantonese Pronunciation video series (9 videos)

I'm not sure exactly how the windows Traditional (HK) keyboard works so I think I'll try and find an alternate.

[Zomxilla]

I forgot to post yesterday - I guess I didn't do much (I spent some of the day having tea and scones with my grandparents, and the remainder sewing). Yesterday was more a review day, so I didn't take on any new vocabulary.

I proceeded to the next Memrise level today, and another 10 words. The written characters for the particles were just confusing me so I've started ignoring them. I'll probably pick them up again after I have better listening/speaking skills.

Mandarin is certainly coming in handy for grammar and some of the subtler concepts. For example, the use of 想 - we equate it to "want to" or "wish to" in English but it's not exactly the way it's supposed to be used. I remember learning the usage in Mandarin so I should be able to apply it for Cantonese. Not having to learn to concept of measure words, and using 两 when referring to two objects, it's something I'm definitely appreciating. I suppose you'd call it a 中文 discount!

[Zomxilla]

How is it supposed to be use?

In Mandarin at any rate, both 要 (yao) and 想 (xiang) can be translated to "want to". 要 can be more abrupt or demanding than 想 - it represents more of a need to do something, and something you intend to follow through with, eg, 我要休息 (I want to rest). 想 can be expressed as "would like to" or "wish to". You may or may not take action on that want, eg, 我想喝咖啡 (I would like to drink coffee). In English you can use "want to" when you talk about something you intend to do or something you'd just like to do; I guess that's why I believed the meaning didn't translate properly into English.

[Zomxilla]

I had a busy couple of days recently, so only time to review Memrise vocab. Not a complete loss as my partner, his mother, and I went to yumcha for lunch yesterday. So it was a mini lesson on food vocab and listening comprehension. My partner's mum speaks to him in Cantonese most of the time, then switches to English to speak to us both. My listening comprehension is slowly getting better - being able to pick out common words helps, plus finally getting used to discerning which tones my boyfriend is using.

I still haven't started watching a drama series but I'm sure I'll have time soon. I'm back to work so I have to squeeze language learning in my commute and lunch break.

[Zomxilla]

Back to work now! Though I managed to squeeze in lesson 3 of the FSI Cantonese course, which was very helpful. I still need to review it, so I might play the audio without reading the notes while working so it's drilled into my brain. The best thing I learned was "[english word] 廣東話點講呀?" ("how do you say [english word] in Cantonese") which I'm going to be asking my boyfriend constantly.

In Mandarin, I used to get the same meaning across by saying "你怎么说 [english word] 在中文?" My friend who is a native speaker told me that one, but somehow it seams too lengthy. I wonder if "[english word] 中文怎么说" would get the same meaning across?

I can also understand now when my partner's mum doesn't understand an English word, and she'll just say "[word], 咩嘢?", then my boyfriend will answer in Cantonese.

I still don't have a solid study plan or anything, I'm just using Memrise for SRS and doing FSI lessons when I have time. As I slowly phase in more Cantonese into my daily life, I feel my learning pace will get faster. I'm only regretting I haven't been doing this for the past two years!