Cantonese: The 2013 Goals and Progress Thread

[querido]

Share your goals and report your progress here!

I'll start:

My interest in Mandarin was academic, you could say; I didn't have any friends who spoke it and I had no concrete plans to visit China either. I did OK but I let listening comprehension and conversation lag embarrassingly. I must have some impediment or blindness to this, something in addition to the difficulty of the language, that I'll try to understand and overcome.

As I begin Cantonese I hope my progress in conversation will be aided by the fact that I want to converse now much more than when I started Mandarin, as I now have good friends who speak Cantonese and I hope to keep them! I could still measure my progress in flashcards but I hope to prove as I go that I can really use the words and hopefully never ever again let flashcarding dominate my study time. Better to pump up the usage time, eh?

My goal, this year, is to nail down the pronunciation and tones and have a working daily conversational vocabulary of, hmm, I don't know, a couple of hundred words.

If you're a beginner please don't compare yourself to me. I'm old; you should do much better! :-)

[abcdefg]

Don't know what to say, @Querido. Do you anticipate there will be much carryover from Mandarin to make learning Cantonese easier? Maybe Hanzi recognition, if nothing else.

Good luck.

[querido]

Thanks abcdefg. I might start a thread about that. On the other hand, I might have this thread all to myself! :-)

So, does Chinese-forums have any other English speaking members studying Cantonese who would like to log their goals and progress here?

[Meng Lelan]

Not to fret, you will not be alone in this thread I am sure. How did you end up with Cantonese speaking friends by the way? Maybe it has something to do with where you are now. Here where I am not a lot of Cantonese speakers live here. Also I would like to know how you manage with Cantonese tones.

[skylee]

I am a native speaker so probably won't be of help. But good luck. There are only 6 tones in Cantonese (the other 3 tones are acutally entering tones), and if you can master jyutping it might not be that difficult.

Sharon Lau, despite her look, is a native Cantonese speaker too. She sings well in this video (the song is about the unreserved love of God, and people call her pastor) ->

[querido]

To abcdefg:

There is carryover from Mandarin.

1) Pronunciation: I remember what Cantonese sounded like to me before I started studying Mandarin. It sounded like a martial arts movie, as that had been my main exposure to it (and very little exposure at that). Of course, that was impenetrable. I liked it too. But after six years of Mandarin, Cantonese sounds different. It has lost that specific magic though I imagine it still sounds that way to many people. My tutors' daughter once told me that her parents were not fighting but just having a spirited conversation. I knew that! The carryover with regard to pronunciation is that it is now not impenetrable. It isn't much worse than some block of Mandarin I don't know.

2) Tones: Of course, the function of tones is no longer alien. There are merely more of them.

3) Vocabulary: Aside from my materials being in traditional characters (which I understand is optional but which I wanted to study anyway), the experience so far is largely (I did not say entirely) like learning synonyms: (Jyutping)nei5 > ni3, (Jyutping)hou2 > hao3, etc. It is fortunate that, just as there are familiar points of correspondence between simplified and traditional characters, it is usually the case (although less so) that there is some resemblance in the pronunciation, e.g. nei5 hou2 = ni3 hao3.

Generally speaking, so far the differences in the tones are much greater than the differences in the vowels and consonants, and that would be the biggest potential problem. So, in my studies I am not actually trying to make use of these correspondences: a lot of that will happen automatically but my Mandarin is mercifully not interfering so far. I'll give a good example: as I'm getting used to the word (Jyutping) gou1 hing3 = (pinyin)gao1 xing4 I do see the tower and I will hear "gao" if I linger over it. :-)

In short, starting Mandarin was like taking baby steps in an alien world while starting Cantonese now is like taking baby steps in a familiar field. It's much easier.

[querido]

To Meng Lelan:

How do I manage with the tones? With regard to learning vocabulary some of my answer is above.

1) I have a few "anchors" that will work during the early learning stage. For example, m4 goi1 swings from the lowest pitch to the highest, and I've heard it many times. If I say it or hear it in my mind I am instantly mostly "set" to make all of the other tones. There are others. nei5 hou2 (= ni3 hao3) I've heard and said so many times that the sound is "there", and those are the two rising tones.

2) To me, the low tones have an anchor formed by the bottom of the vocal range; there's nowhere to go. The 4th tone (which causes some people problems, partly because it is called "low falling" in some places but, quote, "low and flat" in some other places) is the easiest tone because I have the bottom of my range to hit against, and two of the other low tones are an easy reach from there.

3) Many lessons teach the tones separately but I found one in which the six are said quickly, and, it forms a little melody. Sorry I've forgotten my musical terminology but it is not in a major key, and it does not stretch one full octave from bottom to top; there is a strong instinct to stretch this into a very common (Western, if some of you will pardon the expression) musical phrase spanning one octave, but it doesn't. I found this little melody to be very helpful. The overall impression given by a block of Cantonese speech, to one who has not studied it yet, is that it is not in a major key. That's correct. Oh, any native can "sing" this for you!

詩 si1 High Level
史 si2 High Rising
試 si3 Mid Level
時 si4 Low Falling
市 si5 Low Rising
事 si6 Low Level

4) To me, the third tone (level and in the middle) is the hardest precisely because it floats somewhere between m4 and goi1, as I said.

Did I answer you OK in these two posts?

[querido]

A little more about tones and Romanizations:

1) My tutor (older and from Guangzhou) uses a "High Falling" tone (on some words) that is not denoted in Jyutping. I choose to learn this tone anyway, in passing. At first I wanted to stick to older materials in Yale or Sidney Lau for this reason but, eh, it's problematic. One podcast site that I like, which uses Jyutping (no High Falling) and teaches in their tone lessons that the 4th tone is "low and flat", nevertheless uses High Falling and a falling 4th just about everywhere else!

2) My tutor's speech is free of course, not locked into a single key or song. The Romanization system is a framework for learners. I'm not going to worry about this at this time, but I intend to mimic my tutor in every regard as well as I can. She also does not use the various other pronunciation modernisms ("not that there's anything wrong with that"). My decision is to avoid listening to those for now.

[Kobo-Daishi]

There aren't very many Cantonese learning material.

What are you using to learn?

Kobo.

[querido]

To Kobo:

I should be asking the questions, and I will, but I'll share what I've found. One doesn't need a dozen different elementary sources, so it isn't too bad really.

1) My tutor. I spent four years on my own in Mandarin before getting a tutor - regrettable arrogance or timidity or whatever. Now I have this same tutor (whose native language is Cantonese) so there's no adjustment period and there's no question that we can work together, and I have her from day one. It's worth a lot! She urges me to be less bookish and more oral/aural/conversational and I try to obey. In fact, when I try to stop and put a number on a tone etc. she says over and over just to imitate her; to her (easy for her to say) hitting the "note" is what counts and what some academic calls the note bears no weight; I think it vaguely annoys her because her speech is automatic and I guess she thinks mine should be and can be too! (Of course, I feel I simply must write it down to be certain that I'm hearing it right, so I do that at home and flashcard everything as I always have, and she approves of this.) She is building our glossary as we go, just chatting. But she has suggested that I get started on cramming some practical words. She actually first suggested the glossary of Complete Cantonese Teach Yourself (the latest edition of Teach Yourself Cantonese), about 1000 words. The reason is to reach "daily conversation" as quickly as possible. (This initial cramming corresponds to some of the best advice here about learning Mandarin too.)

No recording, coming from a speaker, can come close to hearing the sound coming from a mouth in front of me that I can see, of a person who can adjust the sound as I need on the fly, emphasizing the detail that I'm missing until I catch it. And when the teacher arranges for a little conversation to evolve around what we're actually doing as it happens, it must be worth something precious that is hard to measure. (Did you out there, who can afford a tutor but don't want to risk it or trouble yourself, hear what I said?)

2) CantoneseClass101 (I'm not stating a preference for this over other highly regarded podcasts or websites; I'm only sharing what I've stumbled upon so far.) The glossary here will also serve my tutor's request, above. So far halfway through the Absolute Beginner level the number of words is about 250. The total vocabulary of this website is, I think, only about 2000 words but the Advanced level lessons sound pretty advanced to me. This course starts with 50 to 100 lessons of minimal-level chit chat, which appeals to us, while the following book gets heavy very quickly.

3) Teach Yourself Complete Cantonese (with CDs). It's in Yale. No problem. The sound is great. I bought this book first, when I thought I would use Yale (because the Yale in this book reflects the High Falling tone, unlike Jyutping). But 1) it looks like Jyutping is the better choice for typing and using the available and evolving computer tools (correct me if I'm wrong) and 2) although CC101 uses Jyutping I noticed their #1 female actually speaking the High Falling! and 3) Pleco said here recently something about being able to support Jyutping better. These three sealed the deal for Jyutping.

I don't have time to write more now, but the above will likely be my main sources for at least a year.

Later can come 1) the Greenwood Press books and/or maybe 2) real native material.

I put off the SanZiJing and Tang poems for so long that I can now hope to learn them in Cantonese. Of course, I've already collected them! e.g. http://www.hktaoist....ic/tangshi.html :-)

[Meng Lelan]

I remember what Cantonese sounded like to me before I started studying Mandarin. It sounded like a martial arts movie, as that had been my main exposure to it (and very little exposure at that).

Heh. When I was a kid I watched those martial arts movies all the time. Didn't know it at the time, but I was hearing Cantonese not Mandarin. A real surprise to me when I started formal study of Chinese (Mandarin of course) when I realized I was hearing something else.

[carlo]

Glad to see this thread. I've lived and breathed Mandarin for over a decade. I recently moved to HK and Cantonese has become a priority. I previously dabbled briefly in it but then realized that it's almost impossible to learn without the environment. Now I've got the environment, so no excuses!

My objectives for the year:

1. Learn the Cantonese pronunciation of the most commonly used characters. I think about 3000 will do. I have a list of common words (The Right Word in Cantonese, Commercial Press) to go through regularly.

2. Learn the most common colloquial expressions, ideally by going through the latest edition of 廣州話方言詞典,CP)

3. Do a lot of listening every day, even if I don't understand much.

Goal is to get to a stage where I can follow TV shows and understand about 70-80% of what I hear. Maybe it's overambitious, but I can already follow the news to some extent, as the vocabulary is closer to formal Mandarin and context helps. TV dramas on the other hand are totally beyond me.

I find tones kind of easy after Mandarin. I think of 1 and 3 as two different "high tones", like 高 said by a Beijingren and a Dongbeiren respectively. 4 and 6 are both in the area where Mandarin 3rd tone is, with one falling and the other flat. Certain vowel pairs, on the other hand, drive me nuts (eg. a vs aa, 街市o的雞好過百佳o的雞).

Anyone interested in a Cantonese pronunciation thread? I can record something when my son is not around (or you wouldn't be hearing anything).

[abcdefg]

Thanks for the explanation. Since I don't really plan to study Cantonese, I probably won't be following this and related threads very closely. Nonetheless, I wish you Cantonese-learners great success.

I have my hands full with Mandarin. If I lived in Hong Kong, it would probably be different.

[querido]

Carlo, I hope to post in this thread as regularly as I did in the corresponding Mandarin goals thread for several years, as I thought it helped me.

[Michaelyus]

Would like to keep up and refine my Cantonese (as I am doing with my Mandarin). Need to improve my listening and get more in tune with 粵語-specific idioms, dialectal variations, and HK-specific slang. Trying to eliminate my Cantonese to Mandarin auto-convert thing (as a heritage speaker based in Mandarin, that's what has allowed me to survive Chinatown, but it's now become a crutch).

[querido]

To Meng Lelan:

You asked where I found Cantonese-speaking friends. It's my Mandarin tutor and her family whose first language is Cantonese. She is a much harder teacher in her native language.

To carlo:

If you start a thread like that I will participate, a little later. If you don't start one I will, soon.

My first monthly progress post:

I want to be functionally conversant with everything as I go this time.

This can't be measured in flashcards and I hope to never have large numbers of cards due.

One honest measure might be to post snippets from sessions with my teacher. The best ones. :-)

Today I pointed at a random bird and said "roast goose" in Cantonese, which amused my teacher; if I really wanted roast goose I would be in better shape than someone who can only point, eh? :-)

That's my progress report this month. Bye! :-)

Here's a link to an interesting document: "Lessons learned from fifty years of theory and practice in government language teaching", from the FSI and DLI people. It seems reasonable to me.

[querido]

1. CantoneseClass101
I've flashcarded everything below beginner (words, and sentences with audio), and also put all the dialogues into foobar too, as usual. The vocabulary of that is only 400 words. I think this was an easy way to get started. I printed out the words, sentences and lessons for my tutor, and she tries to make conversation with me from those notes. I have 100+ words that she gave me too, so my vocabulary is at 500 words.
 
2. FSI
I'm in lesson 2.
My tutor and I both like Chris Parker. He shows off his Mandarin here, and he talks about how, after four years of Mandarin, he approached Cantonese here.
He suggests beginning with FSI. I let my tutor see and hear the materials and she approves.
FSI is a severe challenge that I avoided in Mandarin. Knowing that I need to do something different this time, I intend to try to finish it. Wish me luck.
 
3. Using my Mandarin
I also collected the videos and the first two books that Chris Parker suggested: 实用广州话教程 and 粤语新手快速上口. I showed the books to my tutor and let her listen to the audio and she approves. And so - answering a question I had thought about for a while - I will be using my Mandarin to study Cantonese, as well as I can. I wanted to tell you more of my thoughts about this but I have no more time tonight.

 

Edit: All the materials in part 3 are in simplified. Also, those two books use different Romanization systems, and neither is either Jyutping or Yale!

[abcdefg]

I know nothing about learning Cantonese, and it doesn't fit my personal situation to try learning it. But when I read item three of your last post, I had the random thought of asking whether there are textbooks, podcasts, and other tools for learners of Cantonese in which the language of instruction is Mandarin. Wonder if using one or more of those, in conjunction with what ever else you've found to work, might be a way to help maintain at least some of your hard-won Mandarin progress while tackling this new task.

[querido]

Yes, abcdefg, that's what I meant to highlight with #3; those books and videos are for Mandarin speakers learning Cantonese.

 

It's a little hard to talk to my tutor about materials, methodology and tools, so when she lights up with approval I'm happy about it. She immediately started asking me to give answers in the other two languages (e.g. when defining a Cantonese word give Mandarin and English). I assured her: if I know a word in both Cantonese and Mandarin there is (practically speaking) no chance I don't know what it means in English. This is highly convenient, as it means I can continue with Chinese-only flashcards, for example, which is where I was in Mandarin.

 

I no longer fear mixing my Mandarin and Cantonese, and I have more to say about it but no time right now.

[abcdefg]

I understand. Apologies for not pursuing the Chris Parker links before (prematurely) posting my question.