Why Cantonese is not too diffficult to learn

[Beardan]

I have studied Cantonese for 16 months, and have come up with a 3 way method to show Cantonese is not that difficult to learn. My secrets on the Cantonese language are revealed here:

Cheers,

Dan

[civic94]

im doing the opposite, going from cantonese.. theres lots of overlap, but it still takes time

[Hofmann]

You'se trollin. Maybe among laypeople you'll have those who conclude that Cantonese is harder than (for example) Mandarin because of its wider variety of syllables. But by that logic I can conclude that English is harder than either of them, or that a 97-key piano is more difficult to play than an 88-key piano. Actually FSI and DLI both think that all Chinese languages are about the same difficulty. However, Cantonese is less convenient to study because learning materials are not so abundant.

[Takeshi]

I didn't watch the video but:

One thing that Cantonese has going for it in "difficulty" is its two registers for the written and spoken language. If you want to learn how to write Standard Chinese, you'll have to learn a totally different vocabulary/grammar compared to what you speak; it's almost like learning two languages. Mandarin doesn't have this difficulty because the written language is much closer to Mandarin.

Of course if you are talking about the spoken language alone, they are probably about the same difficulty.

And about less convenient to study; indeed it very much is compared to Mandarin, but it is still probably the second most convenient to study after Mandarin. As much as I want to learn Hokkien and Hakka... I really can't fathom how I'd go about it for either one. (Due to lack of resources.)

[Guest realmayo]

I did watch the video and come on, I think the guy was trying to be funny. I have to admit, I thought he succeeded!

[Guest realmayo]

Incidentally this youtube clip shows how to get your Cantonese/Mandarin accent even better:

[Beardan]

Thanks Real Mayo. Just a bit of humour thrown in with the truth. I actually often learn words by referring them back to the English equivalent. However now that i have a little more experience i try and remember the tone and go from there..!! I plan to make a few more videos this year with the beautiful Cantonese language..!!

[xiaocai]

Insightful. But not very helpful to a person whose first language is not English.

[skylee]

The videos are funny.

We make fun of the korean language in the same way.

[bragsk]

well, by the same logic...russian, arabic, hindu langugage are very easy to learn, as you can just approxiamate the sound by english words...and if you know a couple of latin languages with the different R sounds, then you can pronounce russian quite accurately:)

[LeilaAz]

Nice and funny videos, thanks for sharing!

As for learning Cantonese, I do find it really difficult! I've been learning it for 8 months now, and not very intensely (unfortunately, I don't have that much time). I have been able to pick up some grammar and vocabulary, so I'm doing quite ok with the spoken language, but I haven't even started reading and writing, and, although I know some characters for the words I've learned so far, I know they are very rarely used in written language, so that's going to be tough!

[Beardan]

Keep it up LeilaAz. Keep learning new words and phrases. I struggled alot at 8 months but am better for it almost at 2 years. Still a long way to go though and i think you never stop learning!

[PhreakOut]

ahah funny guy your kid rocks btw