Tagalog + Swedish

Continue or start your personal language log here, including logs for challenge participants
tai
White Belt
Posts: 15
Joined: Sat Sep 05, 2020 5:28 am
Location: Hong Kong
Languages: Cantonese (N), English (C1), German (beginner), Spanish (beginner)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... hp?t=16007
x 66

Re: Cantonese + MIA (Japanese)

Postby tai » Wed Oct 07, 2020 9:24 am

I'm pleased to see people learning Cantonese. :D

crush wrote:However, my experience with the course has been very positive, despite my partner commenting on odd pronunciation patterns i've picked up (the way she says 惊 is different from the speaker in the course, for example).

I am using the new Glossika (subscription-based) for Spanish from Cantonese (my native) and I can understand your partner's comment. I presume the Cantonese pronunciation did not change much between the old and new Glossika. My wife, overhearing the Glossika Cantonese pronunciation, also made similar comments on its (slight) weirdness. But I would say the Cantonese sentences are quite good - yes, the weird things exist but are acceptable. Out of the 500 or so Canto-to-Spanish sentence pairs I tried, for 50-100 sentence repetitions per day, only a small number of choices of vocabulary or grammatical construct different from the usual HK usage that really feel weird to me.

e.g. Vivimos en la calle principal. -> 我哋 住 喺 Main 街 。
"Main街" is simply odd to HK ears... Or would it be a usage by overseas Cantonese diaspora? Why didn't he simply say 大街 is beyond me.

All in all, I would say the Glossika version completely qualifies as the same variety as the one spoken in HK, save for a few weird word choices.

For your particular example, I guess the character 惊 (simplified) /驚 (traditional) was pronounced as ging1 , rather than geng1 (using Jyutping)? The former sounds like when we read out a written Chinese text in Cantonese, while the latter is the usual vernacular pronunciation.

But in general Hongkonger (I suppose your partner speaks the HK Cantonese?) can be a bit "less accepting" when it comes to other Cantonese accents, probably because we are quite limited in exposure to other varieties/dialects of Cantonese due to sociopolitical reasons. HK and the parts of Cantonese-speaking Guangdong are separated by customs border, so we are not like, say, the UK people who are constantly exposed to all sorts of English accents within the UK.

crush wrote:My long-term goal is to help preserve Cantonese and make more high quality resources available...

Your noble goal is most welcome! I see quite a few resources published by Commercial Press HK in local bookstores, though I have neither used nor read any of them enough to make comment.
3 x
I hope I can successfully learn something this time.
Assimil Spanish with Ease: 43 / 109
Language Transfer: 50 / 90

crush
Blue Belt
Posts: 514
Joined: Mon Nov 30, 2015 3:35 pm
Languages: EN (N), ES, ZH
Maintain: EUS, YUE, JP, HAW
Study: TGL, SV
On Hold: RU
x 953

Re: Cantonese + MIA (Japanese)

Postby crush » Wed Oct 07, 2020 4:53 pm

tai wrote:e.g. Vivimos en la calle principal. -> 我哋 住 喺 Main 街 。
"Main街" is simply odd to HK ears... Or would it be a usage by overseas Cantonese diaspora? Why didn't he simply say 大街 is beyond me.

I think this is because the original (English) sentence is "We live on Main Street" or something along those lines, so they just translated it literally. The Cantonese course does this much more with proper nouns than the Mandarin course, that's one of my main gripes with the Mandarin course, they use so many foreign names that it makes a lot of easy sentences hard just because you have to remember how to convert a name (that you will probably never hear outside of the course) into Mandarin. The only time i use Mandarin versions of foreign names is when talking about famous people. People you know are always just their regular name (or some Chinese name they've given themself). /rant

Anyway, some of those differences/oddities may be because you're going through the course in a third language, i.e. English is the base language for both the Spanish and Cantonese courses, so small differences in translation may get larger when comparing from the two translated languages.

tai wrote:For your particular example, I guess the character 惊 (simplified) /驚 (traditional) was pronounced as ging1 , rather than geng1 (using Jyutping)? The former sounds like when we read out a written Chinese text in Cantonese, while the latter is the usual vernacular pronunciation.

He pronounces it as "geng1", but it sounds similar to (US English) gang (like a gang of robbers). The difference to my ears is very slight, but i do hear it when she says it. I'd assumed it was dialect but i'm not really sure. Kinda like how there are seemingly a million ways to say 呢 (ni/li nei/lei in addition to the ne/le form). 你嚟呢度 lei5 lei4 lei1 dou6 :lol:

tai wrote:But in general Hongkonger (I suppose your partner speaks the HK Cantonese?) can be a bit "less accepting" when it comes to other Cantonese accents, probably because we are quite limited in exposure to other varieties/dialects of Cantonese due to sociopolitical reasons. HK and the parts of Cantonese-speaking Guangdong are separated by customs border, so we are not like, say, the UK people who are constantly exposed to all sorts of English accents within the UK.

She's from Guangdong, but has said some of her friends/classmates from other areas speak a "weird" Cantonese. So i'm not sure the situation is better in Guangdong re: being accepting of other accents, but at least most Cantonese speakers will hear the language as it's spoken around them as well how it's spoken on Hong Kong TV and in movies. I wish that'd change but i think a lot of folks, especially if they feel their Cantonese is non-standard, would prefer to use Mandarin and err on the side of caution than use their Cantonese.
4 x

Flickserve
Orange Belt
Posts: 155
Joined: Thu May 17, 2018 10:08 pm
Languages: *
x 198

Re: Cantonese + MIA (Japanese)

Postby Flickserve » Wed Oct 07, 2020 5:15 pm

crush wrote:Years ago (around the time the PDF/mp3 course came out) I read some other comments by Hong Kongers also saying the same thing. But it could just be that native speakers aren't used to "classroom" speech. .

I suspect this might be the case.

When I see old black and white HK movies in Cantonese, that's slightly different from present day Cantonese what I hear around me in HK.

I recall a HK news article many years ago. There was a fairly unique school which taught proper Cantonese pronunciation.

For example

ngóh

So often now it is , óh, with the ng being dropped


I find HK and a lot of GZ people have similar pronunciation with the caveat that I have not lived in GZ. Cantonese speakers from outside these areas have more divergence. GZ speakers use much less of the hybridised english words on their speech.
5 x

kelvin921019
Green Belt
Posts: 388
Joined: Mon Apr 13, 2020 12:11 pm
Location: Hong Kong
Languages: Cantonese (N)
Chinese Mandarin (Semi-Native)
English (C1-2)
Spanish (B2)
Japanese (N1)
Russian (B1)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=16306
x 1228

Re: Cantonese + MIA (Japanese)

Postby kelvin921019 » Fri Oct 09, 2020 3:45 am

Flickserve wrote:
crush wrote:Years ago (around the time the PDF/mp3 course came out) I read some other comments by Hong Kongers also saying the same thing. But it could just be that native speakers aren't used to "classroom" speech. .

I suspect this might be the case.

When I see old black and white HK movies in Cantonese, that's slightly different from present day Cantonese what I hear around me in HK.

I recall a HK news article many years ago. There was a fairly unique school which taught proper Cantonese pronunciation.

For example

ngóh

So often now it is , óh, with the ng being dropped


I find HK and a lot of GZ people have similar pronunciation with the caveat that I have not lived in GZ. Cantonese speakers from outside these areas have more divergence. GZ speakers use much less of the hybridised english words on their speech.


We are sometimes overly strict and critical to all the teaching materials in Cantonese :lol: That's because we really love our language and want people to learn it perfectly

As a general observation, Glossika is 100% "classroom" speech and we don't generally speak like this. Having said that, no one speaks their mother language like those in textbook in any language. We all know how to use them, learn through textbook, immerse in native materials and slowly tune yourself to a more natural manner. No one can learn how to speak like natives only through textbook.

In any event, I would like highlight some of the features of Cantonese in HK and GZ (I don't have much opportunity in listening to other accent like those in Malay) nowadays:-
- HK and GZ Cantonese uses different sets of vocabularies, tho the structure is the same. HK Cantonese has more influence from English while GZ Cantonese has more influence from Mandarin.
- HK Cantonese has a lot of lazy tones (like the dropped "ng" as you mentioned). As a general rule, please learn the proper pronunciation before trying all those dropping tone.
- Most actors in old black and white HK movies in Cantonese were trained in Cantonese opera, which utilizes Xiguan dialect and they were trained to pronounce all sounds clearly and with "force" (they didn't use mic to sing back then, their voices were bright enough). You may contrast it with the accent in the 90s movies or more recent ones, which speaks a more "street-like" Cantonese. From my contact with people in both HK and GZ, I think GZ retained more "flavour" of the more traditional dialect but the general difference, at least to me, is minimal.

I don't think there's much difference in the route of learning Cantonese and other language, though admittedly it would be a big challenge to learners due to the lack of written script. So, what I want to say is...Glossika is fine :lol:
7 x

crush
Blue Belt
Posts: 514
Joined: Mon Nov 30, 2015 3:35 pm
Languages: EN (N), ES, ZH
Maintain: EUS, YUE, JP, HAW
Study: TGL, SV
On Hold: RU
x 953

Re: Cantonese + MIA (Japanese)

Postby crush » Sun Oct 11, 2020 7:08 pm

Japanese
Finished the second Harry Potter book today!

That's my second book in Japanese. It took me just over two months to get through it, faster than the first book which apparently took me 3 months. There's so much stuff left to learn... I'm hoping after reading all 7 books i'll be better prepared for some light novels or something. At this rate though it'll be next year by the time i get to that point :D

I also listened to a podcast by Noriko that i found in golyplot's log. It's a similar format to the Cantonese conversations (relatively short + transcriptions) and doesn't appear to be scripted. The speech is slower and probably simplified compared to a regular conversation, but it's at that sweet point where i can understand enough to follow along plus the episode i listened to at least was interesting to me (about learning languages). I may take time away from movies/anime to study these more intensively. Main thing holding me back is just time. It would be nice to just focus on one language, but that's so hard to do... Plus, Cantonese is more urgent and more practical.

Cantonese
I've started studying conversation number 7. The past two conversations (6 and 7) have been quite a bit simpler i feel than the others. I don't really think it has anything to do with a sudden boost in comprehension, i guess i'll see as i go through the others. After listening a few times i was able to understand probably 80% at least of the conversation. There are still a lot of parts that get slurred over that are hard for me to make out but i'm getting better at it i feel.

Today i made it through sentence 700 in Glossika. I've also spoken Cantonese every day this week, though some days more than others. I've also been watching at least 30 minutes of a movie or show in Cantonese each day.
7 x

Flickserve
Orange Belt
Posts: 155
Joined: Thu May 17, 2018 10:08 pm
Languages: *
x 198

Re: Cantonese + MIA (Japanese)

Postby Flickserve » Sun Oct 18, 2020 9:33 am

kelvin921019 wrote:
Flickserve wrote:
crush wrote:Years ago (around the time the PDF/mp3 course came out) I read some other comments by Hong Kongers also saying the same thing. But it could just be that native speakers aren't used to "classroom" speech. .

I suspect this might be the case.

When I see old black and white HK movies in Cantonese, that's slightly different from present day Cantonese what I hear around me in HK.

I recall a HK news article many years ago. There was a fairly unique school which taught proper Cantonese pronunciation.

For example

ngóh

So often now it is , óh, with the ng being dropped


I find HK and a lot of GZ people have similar pronunciation with the caveat that I have not lived in GZ. Cantonese speakers from outside these areas have more divergence. GZ speakers use much less of the hybridised english words on their speech.


We are sometimes overly strict and critical to all the teaching materials in Cantonese :lol: That's because we really love our language and want people to learn it perfectly

As a general observation, Glossika is 100% "classroom" speech and we don't generally speak like this. Having said that, no one speaks their mother language like those in textbook in any language. We all know how to use them, learn through textbook, immerse in native materials and slowly tune yourself to a more natural manner. No one can learn how to speak like natives only through textbook.

In any event, I would like highlight some of the features of Cantonese in HK and GZ (I don't have much opportunity in listening to other accent like those in Malay) nowadays:-
- HK and GZ Cantonese uses different sets of vocabularies, tho the structure is the same. HK Cantonese has more influence from English while GZ Cantonese has more influence from Mandarin.
- HK Cantonese has a lot of lazy tones (like the dropped "ng" as you mentioned). As a general rule, please learn the proper pronunciation before trying all those dropping tone.
- Most actors in old black and white HK movies in Cantonese were trained in Cantonese opera, which utilizes Xiguan dialect and they were trained to pronounce all sounds clearly and with "force" (they didn't use mic to sing back then, their voices were bright enough). You may contrast it with the accent in the 90s movies or more recent ones, which speaks a more "street-like" Cantonese. From my contact with people in both HK and GZ, I think GZ retained more "flavour" of the more traditional dialect but the general difference, at least to me, is minimal.

I don't think there's much difference in the route of learning Cantonese and other language, though admittedly it would be a big challenge to learners due to the lack of written script. So, what I want to say is...Glossika is fine :lol:

Great summary.
1 x

crush
Blue Belt
Posts: 514
Joined: Mon Nov 30, 2015 3:35 pm
Languages: EN (N), ES, ZH
Maintain: EUS, YUE, JP, HAW
Study: TGL, SV
On Hold: RU
x 953

Re: Cantonese + MIA (Japanese)

Postby crush » Mon Oct 19, 2020 5:20 pm

Japanese
This week was a bit busy, but i did Anki every day and watched Japanese-dubbed movies most every night. I also started a free Skritter trial and have been going through the hiragana section. Recognizing hiragana for the most part isn't an issue for me, but some of the katakana characters still give me trouble. I figure learning to write them should help with distinguishing them.

Cantonese
Again i didn't have much time for extra stuff, i got my Anki reviews + new cards in every day and watched some Cantonese dubs. I also started watching a weird show called Blue Ticks. The main thing i like about it is that it's about 22 minutes per episode, unlike most shows which are 40-60 minutes. Unfortunately, it seems about half of the cast doesn't speak Cantonese and their voices are dubbed. I go back and forth as far as comprehension goes, for the most part i don't understand much.

I'm currently on the 8th conversation of the Cantonese Conversations. I wish i spent more time with them as i think they're the most helpful. Listening to a new conversation i can probably understand about 70%. It's easier than a movie as there's no background noise and the voices are all clear. It's so hard to follow along with a movie, i feel like i just can't hear what they're saying, but i imagine English/Spanish movies are pretty much the same way but sound clear to me.

Ah, and today i finished up to sentence 760 today with Glossika. So again, didn't get much done with that last week with all that was going on.
5 x

crush
Blue Belt
Posts: 514
Joined: Mon Nov 30, 2015 3:35 pm
Languages: EN (N), ES, ZH
Maintain: EUS, YUE, JP, HAW
Study: TGL, SV
On Hold: RU
x 953

Re: Cantonese + MIA (Japanese)

Postby crush » Tue Oct 27, 2020 2:24 am

Japanese
Another busy week. I started mining sentences from Noriko's podcast. Those are amazing, i can understand enough to follow along with and there's tons of relevant and interesting material up there. Today i listened to an episode on extensive reading, the other day i listened to an episode on learning kanji where she mentioned resources like Wanikani and Anki which i don't see mentioned much in normal "classroom"-style teachers. Could just be that the Japanese-learning community is very unique compared to standard FIGS as (it seems) there's a much higher proportion of self-learners.

Not much else going on, i've been considering grabbing some of the graded readers from the White Rabbit Press set after i finish the third Harry Potter book:
https://omgjapan.com/collections/japane ... mplete-set

Not sure if anyone has any experience with these. I'm pretty sure levels 0 and 1 would be way too simple, and i'm afraid level 2 would be as well, but it might be nice just to have something i can hold in my hands and read through. I'm mainly looking for something closer to i+1 than what i've been reading. The other thing is it seems the earlier levels have far less text.

I've alse been mining from the Harry Potter book i've been reading, only words that are marked as common and that i've either seen enough times that i recognize them/know the meaning but it bothers me that i don't know the pronunciation of as well as words that are just interesting (and still marked as common). I'm still doing ten new cards a day. I'd like to do more, say 20 or so, but time's short and has to be shared with Cantonese.

Cantonese
I didn't get a whole lot done this week. I did Anki every day (10 cards a day), watched Cantonese-dubbed cartoons every evening for 30 minutes to an hour, and finished conversation 8 and started number 9. I also speak Cantonese most mornings with my partner and have been trying to keep that habit up.

I only did one set of Glossika reviews this past week (that was actually today), so up to sentence 780. I've been meaning to update Natibo (the app i made to help me study), fix a few issues and clean things up, just haven't gotten around to it. Still trying to convince my partner to record some conversations and stuff to help me (and others) learn Cantonese as it's spoken in Guangzhou.
7 x

User avatar
tangleweeds
Green Belt
Posts: 449
Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2015 7:09 pm
Location: Portland, Oregon, USA
Languages: English (N)
beginner: Irish
clearing cobwebs: Japanese
on the shelf: French, Latin
wanderlust: Norwegian, Vietnamese
Language Log: viewtopic.php?t=705
x 1226

Re: Cantonese + MIA (Japanese)

Postby tangleweeds » Thu Oct 29, 2020 7:20 am

crush wrote:Not much else going on, i've been considering grabbing some of the graded readers from the White Rabbit Press set after i finish the third Harry Potter book:
https://omgjapan.com/collections/japane ... mplete-set

Not sure if anyone has any experience with these. I'm pretty sure levels 0 and 1 would be way too simple, and i'm afraid level 2 would be as well, but it might be nice just to have something i can hold in my hands and read through. I'm mainly looking for something closer to i+1 than what i've been reading. The other thing is it seems the earlier levels have far less text.
They have been running a promotion in which a selection of books from each level can be read online for free. They keep saying the promotion will end, but extending access. But I can't find the sign-up link anymore. Perhaps you can find it from the login page?
https://www.ask-books.com/e-tadoku-lib-free_vol1/login.php
If not, there are sample pages to view here:
https://www.ask-books.com/mau/yomulimited
5 x
Neurological odyssey is going better! Yay!

crush
Blue Belt
Posts: 514
Joined: Mon Nov 30, 2015 3:35 pm
Languages: EN (N), ES, ZH
Maintain: EUS, YUE, JP, HAW
Study: TGL, SV
On Hold: RU
x 953

Re: Cantonese + MIA (Japanese)

Postby crush » Thu Oct 29, 2020 2:30 pm

tangleweeds wrote:They have been running a promotion in which a selection of books from each level can be read online for free. They keep saying the promotion will end, but extending access. But I can't find the sign-up link anymore. Perhaps you can find it from the login page?
https://www.ask-books.com/e-tadoku-lib-free_vol1/login.php
If not, there are sample pages to view here:
https://www.ask-books.com/mau/yomulimited

Thanks, i'd seen a post about it on Reddit but figured it had ended. Guess maybe just the registrations have ended? The second page is the link Reddit folks gave for registering, and it says:
"このサービスのお申込みは終了となりました。"
So i'm assuming the register phase is done with.

EDIT: If you'd recommend them (or anyone else has any recommendations), i may just grab one or two of the paper versions anyway.
1 x


Return to “Language logs”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 3 guests