Learning mandarin from cantonese

[Flickserve]

Roddy gave me a few suggestions on topics that I could wrote about.

 

This one I can do quite succinctly.

 

 

My background is London english accent but I was exposed to an eclectic mix of accents when growing up - Mancunian, Yorkshire and Malaysian English.

 

I came to HK knowing hardly any cantonese but with some imprinting in my brain waves from around 1 to 4 years old after which age my family spoke solely in English as it was the fastest means of communication. I did do a bit of mandarin school in my teenage years. But being a lazy and disinterested teenager more intent on sports, it was not interesting learning about birds, cows, fields as were the textbooks of the day. Strangely enough, I did come away being to do stroke order of characters and an idea of saying the tones.

 

Learning cantonese was tough in HK. Because I look the part, everybody would assume I could understand the conversation (which was wrong assumption no.1). Second wrong assumption was that HKers thought language was picked up by a process of diffusion. They advised me to watch the local HK soap operas but I can't even stand ones in english - I didn't do Neighbours (even though bombshell Kylie was in it), Eastenders, Coronation Stret...etc.

 

I eventually took cantonese lessons which helped tremendously but never really worked at it after that. I would say I can get by in ordinary conversations knowing about 80% of what's said. But my accent is far better than a westerner trying to learn cantonese. I never really worked properly at the tones but sometimes it sounds natural and sometimes its off.

 

So now, I try mandarin after a very long break. It's been an interesting experience and a challenge. I don't remember tones being so difficult before. My third tone frequently sounds like a second tone but it's quickly corrected if I am following the instructor.

 

I also have too low a pitch on the first tone. I wonder if that's a product of my change of english accent when I came to HK. That time, I found people had difficulty understanding my english and I was working in an environment where people did not hear english much in their daily lives. Thus, I had to tone down my english accent and spoke a bit flatter toned which had a lot of success. Now it is very neutral.

 

One thing that is really killing my progress is the words that are similar in sound but different tone.

A typical one would be 医院. I am having a lot of problems with this one as the cantonese tone comes out.

 

Some of the consonants are pretty bad; z - zh is one that needs a lot of practice. I don't know if I could do it when I was young but I certainly can't do it now. An instructor said I sound like a HKer trying to pronounce it. I don't know if this is considered better than a native english speaker trying to pronounce it!

 

One of my lofty aims is to improve my accent to be better than the average HKer. It's proving quite a task but I consider it similar to learning a new skill or technique in sports - you learn it, get the feedback, practice a bit, come back, learn it again, use it and it will come better and better. Whether I can get good at it at this late stage of my life is another matter. It's an interesting experiment.

 

 

[Michaelyus]

Practise the Mandarin fourth tone. Don't be content to get by with a Cantonese third tone in its place: the Mandarin fourth tone should start relatively high (sometimes even higher than Mandarin first tone) and should certainly fall in pitch appreciably. The fourth tone is the most common tone, so it is essential to get it right.

 

Third tones: they map quite well to Cantonese second and fifth tones, but resist the urge to "raise" their pitch where unnecessary.

 

For the first tone not-high-enough problem, that's a relatively well-known effect of a southern accent in Mandarin. Cantonese 1st tone can vary a lot more in pitch than Mandarin first tone. Keep it high and clear, and don't let it drop (Cantonese speakers are known for this, which conflates Mandarin 1st tone with Mandarin 4th tone).

 

As for preventing interference (apart from 背呗!): work on your glides. Especially the yu- of yuan (and xuan, juan, quan) series. Cantonese is very very light on glides and rising diphthongs; English will of course help, but it lacks that "ü" /y/ sound. Hence the sound of 院 differs between Mandarin and Cantonese in tone, in glide, and possibly in the strength of the y- initial (in Mandarin, it is often starts with the vowel without any y- sound, and that's the official pronunciation; in Cantonese it is more common to hear a light voiceless y-type sound).

 

Fellow Londoner over here!

[Flickserve]

thanks for the reply, Michael.

I only took ten sessions of Cantonese which somehow set me off on the right track for self learning by asking around and exposure.

I honestly cannot remember a system for the Cantonese tones so if you say 5th Cantonese tone, it's way past my comprehension. :-)

The bit about 1st tone being affected by Cantonese is good insight.

And thanks for the tips on yuan and de-emphasis on the Y- . I shall try it out.

[Lu]

It sounds like you never really had to sit down and study to learn a language, but picked up most of what you know (both English and Cantonese) on the go. Knowing one Chinese language is an advantage in learning the next one, but not having a system for learning a language is a disadvantage. (Or perhaps your system is actually fine - take a few lessons and learn the rest on the fly - but you haven't found a good way of putting that to use in learning Mandarin.)

Having said that, not sure what I can advise you. Perhaps try and find massive amounts of Mandarin to listen to. You don't like soap operas, so find something you do like and listen to a lot of that.

[Flickserve]

That's true. I didn't have an organised strategy to learning Cantonese.

There are a new software aids to learning. It takes time to work out how best to use them. Especially how to customize anki.

[Lu]

Be careful not to fall into the trap of learning how to use the various aids (and developing new ones) instead of just using them. You can probably spend a fun year learning the million ways you can costumise Anki, but you can also learn the basics in half an hour or so and spend the rest of the time just studying. An older version of this trap is the search for the perfect textbook. A mediocre textbook you're actually studying from is still vastly superior to the perfect textbook you haven't found yet.

[Flickserve]

Thanks. Definitely agree with you. It's like browsing forums on how to learn mandarin without actually learning any..LOL.

Trying to work out two things in anki - how to flip the card (which doesn't work in the advanced chinese template). And why doesn't a picture show up when reviewing a card in a deck (to help the memory association) either on the PC or on android.

[Flickserve]

Well, I still haven't worked out anki.

 

I feel that I have enough lessons so far but haven't worked on remembering the vocab already covered enough.

 

Recent quick assessment from the teacher is pronunciation is generally ok but the 1st tone is still too low. The recent trip to China for a few days did me a lot of good. First, it gave me immersion (although I couldn't speak much whilst there). 2) It gave me something topical to talk to the teacher about.

 

It just struck me now that talking for an hour is incredibly difficult for me. I rarely talk for an hour in English so how am I supposed to do it in Mandarin to a disembodied voice pretending to have the same interests as I do?

 

I reckon I am boring the pants off the instructor.

[querido]

I'm glad you updated, Flickserve. 

 

When I was surveying English>Cantonese learning materials I discovered that the market in Mandarin<>Cantonese learning is much bigger. If you can shop at Amazon.cn you could check that. Also, Glossika has appeared since then. If I'm not mistaken they would assemble Cantonese>Mandarin for you.

[Shelley]

I reckon I am boring the pants off the instructor.

 

That's what you pay them for

 

To have something to talk about has always been a problem for me when it comes to practicing speaking, so I started making up stories. Drawing on something that had happened to me or friends and turning it into a little story. As long as it is clear that this is the case you won't come across as fibbing.

 

This was suggested to me years ago by one of my teachers who said tell me what you did this weekend?, and I said not much, so she said well what would you have liked to do? She then went on to explain that for the purposes of the class it doesn't matter if its true as long as I can talk about something.

 

I also do this when i write so that I can have something to write about.

[Flickserve]

I'm glad you updated, Flickserve.

When I was surveying English>Cantonese learning materials I discovered that the market in Mandarin<>Cantonese learning is much bigger. If you can shop at Amazon.cn you could check that. Also, Glossika has appeared since then. If I'm not mistaken they would assemble Cantonese>Mandarin for you.

thanks for the suggestion. It's difficult to use those resources as they are written in Chinese and I do not read chinese to the required level. Even now, I sometimes get tones wrong in cantonese (because most of it was picked up as I go). I was rather lazy and not diligent enough.

This tone problem is happening in mandarin though I try to pay more attention this time round. I am also trying to learn a more of the simplified characters - I recognise traditional characters more easily!

It's all a bit mixed up but I guess I will muddle my way through. :-)

[Flickserve]

That's what you pay them for

To have something to talk about has always been a problem for me when it comes to practicing speaking, so I started making up stories. Drawing on something that had happened to me or friends and turning it into a little story. As long as it is clear that this is the case you won't come across as fibbing.

This was suggested to me years ago by one of my teachers who said tell me what you did this weekend?, and I said not much, so she said well what would you have liked to do? She then went on to explain that for the purposes of the class it doesn't matter if its true as long as I can talk about something.

I also do this when i write so that I can have something to write about.

I will try! I am just unused to talking to a stranger about the unimportant and boring details of my life.

I noticed most of the teaching advice is to get the student to speak as much as possible. For me, I think I am more of a discussion type conversation person - the two way interaction is my style. Not really accustomed to the spontaneous chatty style. I mean, if I try to rattle on in my mandarin, does the teacher actually understand me if there is silence on the other end of skype? Or is the silence a tactic to try and get me to speak more? I can't quite believe my accent is accurate enough not to require correcting...!!

[Flickserve]

@Michaelyus

Just revisited your post above.

Despite your great explanation, I still get it wrong.

What happens is I can repeat the teacher fairly quickly and easily. But the memory of the tone fails to internalize.

I still listen to the mandarin radio passively for around half an hour a day.

Pretty worried about internalising the wrong tone permanently.

[Michaelyus]

Is it perhaps a problem of connected speech? Hearing the tones in speech at normal speed, and being able to produce the tones at your natural speed, is a certainly a step up.

[Flickserve]

Practise the Mandarin fourth tone. Don't be content to get by with a Cantonese third tone in its place: the Mandarin fourth tone should start relatively high (sometimes even higher than Mandarin first tone) and should certainly fall in pitch appreciably. The fourth tone is the most common tone, so it is essential to get it right.

Sorted. I feel I make a decent 4th tone.

Third tones: they map quite well to Cantonese second and fifth tones, but resist the urge to "raise" their pitch where unnecessary.

Done.

For the first tone not-high-enough problem, that's a relatively well-known effect of a southern accent in Mandarin. Cantonese 1st tone can vary a lot more in pitch than Mandarin first tone. Keep it high and clear, and don't let it drop (Cantonese speakers are known for this, which conflates Mandarin 1st tone with Mandarin 4th tone).

Still working on this. This is one can be quite hard to maintain

As for preventing interference (apart from 背呗!): work on your glides. Especially the yu- of yuan (and xuan, juan, quan) series. Cantonese is very very light on glides and rising diphthongs; English will of course help, but it lacks that "ü" /y/ sound. Hence the sound of 院 differs between Mandarin and Cantonese in tone, in glide, and possibly in the strength of the y- initial (in Mandarin, it is often starts with the vowel without any y- sound, and that's the official pronunciation; in Cantonese it is more common to hear a light voiceless y-type sound).

I had not realised the importance of this tip. Will try again. And yes, I have been having continual problems with 院 - it may well be related to the y-

Thanks again!

[Flickserve]

Back again. A fresh perspective from another person is good. Whilst my spoken mandarin (minus the umms and ahhs ) is said to be decent by Hong Kong Chinese, I still have a problem with tones.

I haven't really been concentrating on them recently. However, last week, I discovered some severe deficiencies.

The first tone is proving tricky. I start off with the correct pitch but don't realise it drops when coming out of my mouth exactly how Michaelyus describes. It is particularly noticable when the second character of a pair is a first tone.

Generally, I can be understood. Whether I can be consistent in speaking better is going to be interesting.

[Flickserve]

Back again with another update.

I got a bit fed up with overthinking speech intonation which resulted in many umms and ahhs. So, I just decided to talk to a few people in Mandarin and to hell with thinking too much about tones. The fluency got better and the old bad habits still remain. I can hear when I am going wrong a bit better (probably as a result of more real conversations in putonghua, albeit simple ones) and self correct the tones if familiar with the word.

One of the things I do is guess a word in Putonghua that I have converted from Cantonese. For example, 效果 is a word I know in Cantonese and hearing it in Putonghua is quite easy. When saying it, I can use it in a sentence but the tone is influenced by the Cantonese. I think what is happening is that I create Cantonese sentences in my head and convert them into Putonghua as opposed to thinking of a sentence in Putonghua and speaking out in Putonghua. Cantonese both assists and restricts me.

Because I do use Cantonese daily as a second language with little Putonghua around me, I have to accept many spoken errors are simply always going to happen. I notice native Putonghua speakers can understand me most of the time fairly easily unless the tone is way off or I have tried to translate from English to Chinese in my head (from not knowing an expression) and then get completely mixed up in my grammar. As towards the level of communication, it would be near B1 for some topics and A1-2 on others.

So what next? Now that I have more insight to when I speak a wrong tone, I definitely feel more comfortable in myself. Increasingly, my vocabulary is the limitation to conversations. Thinking forward, I have been reviewing the threads in this subforum to realign my learning strategy. Need to do some vocab drilling. All in the name of fun

I am surrounded by Chinese characters everyday so reading and copying characters are not as difficult as for some other people.

[calibre2001]

How are the Mandarin lessons with the teacher structured?

[Flickserve]

I say a sentence, get it wrong, teacher notes down the really bad ones. Then last 15mins, we work on pronunciation. Frequency of lessons varies.

[Flickserve]

Double post