"Should I study Mandarin in Hong Kong"

[Guest]

Quote

Do you mind sharing a bit more of your successful experience? I am having an awful time trying to learn Mandarin in HK having learnt Cantonese. I don't think Cantonese is helping me that much. Also,  I am a bit tired of mainland Chinese saying I sound like a HK person speaking Mandarin  (and then HKers saying my Cantonese is like a Singaporean). 

 

I just spent a lot of time doing stuff in Mandarin rather than Cantonese, although in general I didn't go round speaking it with Cantonese natives. A lot more time was spent learning on my own (watching 康熙來了, deliberately memorising Mandarin songs) rather than interacting with others. I guess you've heard of SRSs?

 

Studying at the university with the most Mainland postgrad students also helped, but only after I had done a lot of solo study.

 

I also particularly recommend using this Taiwan dictionary:

 

http://dict.concised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/jbdic/gsweb.cgi?ccd=Qfb6Tf&o=e0&sec=sec1&index=1

 

I like it because everything is read out. (Caution though: a very small minority of the recordings are done by someone with a slightly Hokkien-influenced accent. Mostly, though, it's very reliable.)

[thechamp]

I actually think studying mandarin in Hong Kong wouldn't be that bad a decision. Probably the hardest thing about Chinese is the characters, and they're all around you in Hong Kong, so it would be like having flashcards everywhere (even if they're pronounced differently).

 

Also, in my experience, pretty much every young Hong Konger can speak quite decent Mandarin (I went to school with a few cantonese people and would meet with them when I was in Hong Kong).

 

It definitely wouldn't be the cheapest or the most efficient way to study Chinese, but it would be pretty comfortable and certainly an advantage over studying in a Western country!

[Flickserve]

 

 

On 09/02/2018 at 12:30 AM, 889 said:

You need to stop speaking Cantonese. Stop it completely. Your Mandarin will usually be understood, sometimes more sometimes less. Use it all the time. Everywhere

 

That won't be possible. I need to use Cantonese in daily life to get work done and earn a living so that I can continue to browse Chinese forums. 

[889]

Oh. That's too bad.

 

But you can't possibly be surprised that your Mandarin is lagging: your head is swimming in Cantonese all day. Some can do it, of course, but for most of us switching between foreign languages is stressful and difficult.

 

[HuayangAcademy]

It would be quite expensive but if you live in HK no problem getting a few lessons there. 

For the cost of going to HK and studying 1 month you could go to some places in China and study for 1 year 

[Flickserve]

8 hours ago, 889 said:

But you can't possibly be surprised that your Mandarin is lagging: your head is swimming in Cantonese all day.

 

Just wanted to find out any other ideas that I might be missing