American trying to Speak Cantonese!

[Pokarface]

Hi! I've learned Chinese Mandarin for 2 years...

and Cantonese for 1 month, lol

 

My first month learning Cantonese

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIxK7DoLOdY

 

Vs.

 

My first month learning Chinese

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJx7qcOgJjE

 

This is how I currently sound when I speak Mandarin Chinese, 2 years studying  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBj6zbBA8pA

 

PD: I speak English, Spanish, Portuguese, and Esperanto as well  

 

What do you guys think? Hehe x-D

[Flickserve]

Your Cantonese is better than your Mandarin at one month. ;-)

[Pokarface]

Hahaha. My 1st month learning Mandarin blows x-D

Thank you!

[stapler]

Do you always sound so excited when speaking Mandarin?

[Shelley]

It looks like you are reading what you are saying in the Cantonese one, are you? You seem to be more fluid as if you are reading.

 

As stapler says you sound excited, kind of throws off your tones a bit and is distracting to listen to.

 

But well done for putting it up for people to hear.

[Pokarface]

@stapler. I mostly sound excited when I speak English on a daily basis, so yeah. The same happens to Chinese Mandarin.

A coworker asked me if I was high or gay. Apparently you can only be 100% excited when you are on drugs or are gay, lol 

 

@Shelley Yes, I wrote that I was reading on the Youtube description.

Yes, it's true that I throw off my tones since this is my progress of just 1-month learning Cantonese. Plus I still learn Mandarin so some of the words are so similar but with different tone or consonants, and my background in Mandarin also affects how I pronounce the Cantonese tones.

Thank you. I've been posting videos of my Chinese progress for two years. It felt natural doing the same for Cantonese    (although I'll stop learning Cantonese soon to keep studying Mandarin only)

 

Studying Cantonese is like having an affair. Curiosity makes you do it, It's fun for a while, but then you don't know if you should keep doing it or go back with Mandarin, or keep both!! Then the affair affects your current relationship (with Mandarin, lol). I still love both!

[abcdefg]

Studying Cantonese is like having an affair. Curiosity makes you do it, It's fun for a while, but then you don't know if you should keep doing it or go back with Mandarin, or keep both!! Then the affair affects your current relationship (with Mandarin, lol). I still love both!

 

Haha! Well said! Every now and then I play at learning Kunming dialect, but it is a fickle romance, never lasts more than a couple of weeks.

[querido]

After my Mandarin left me I married her sister.

[Christy]

Your Mandarin seems to have the accent of Chinese people in the South, probably you learn Chinese in the South China...  Because sometimes some pinyin has "h", but I can't hear it... Personally, I advice you learn Mandarin harder, you can speak Cantonese for fun, but don't try to learn more, otherwise, you might mix them...   I can hear some Mandarin in your Cantonese, but you can speak not bad because you have only learned it for one month, bravo! 

[Hofmann]

It's expected that learning another Chinese language will be accelerated if you've already studied one.

 

Where (or from whom) are you learning Mandarin phonology? You seem to have a certain native but non-standard accent.

[Flickserve]

Haha! Well said! Every now and then I play at learning Kunming dialect, but it is a fickle romance, never lasts more than a couple of weeks.

every so often, I wonder about picking up a few phrases in hakka and hokkien to surprise my family. I had a bit of exposure to these two dialects when young (<10yo) which I didn't have with putonghua.

[Pokarface]

@abcdfg That's what life is all about. Experiencing new things =-p

 

@querido  ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

 

@Christy I learned Mandarin mostly by myself .

My favorite learning resources are Assimil Chinese with ease,

Colloquial Chinese by T'ung & Pollard (the MP3 is legally available for free in the publishers website. You have you buy the pinyin and characters edition. They offer both: simplified and traditional)

and Beginning Chinese reader by John DeFrancis (MP3 is legally avaiable for free) 

My favorite App is Pleco, and now they licensed Cantonese dictionaries as well!! So it only keeps getting better and better =-)
 

I've also had a total of 30 classes with www.speakupchinese.com/
 

http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/47682-1-month-of-free-online-chinese-lessons-for-20-people-giveaway-from-speak-up-chinese/  << The original post where the classes were offered for FREE!!

 

9 classes were given away for free to some people in this forum including me!!(I wonder how good the other ones got in Mandarin and how many still study Mandarin) Then I bought 10. Time passed on until one day they had a really good promotion and I bought 10 more.

Yes, I learn Mandarin for fun. I also wanted to learn some Cantonese phrases for fun this month =-p

In fact, what I like more about Chinese languages is the amount of "impossible" things I've said while learning. This can be pronunciation, grammar, Chinglish, twisted logic phrases. It's so fun making mistakes in this language and that keeps me motivated to want to learn more since I actually Speak 5 languages and never study the other ones anymore. They are too "easy" and the few mistakes I make in them are not as cool as the ones I make in Chinese languages. I speak English, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, and Esperanto. I wouldn't consider myself a Cantonese speaker since I was just doing it for fun, lol.

 

 

@Hofmann Read my reply I wrote to Christy =-p
Some Chinese-Americans have said that when I speak I sound like them (Chinese-Americans who learned Mandarin in the U.S.), but not like a native. This comment popped up during dinner and one of the girls that claimed this told me and a Caucasian American that for example, if he ( the Caucasian American) said something in Mandarin, they would quickly realize he is an American speaking Chinese, but if they were speaking with me on the phone, they would think I was a Chinese-American but not a native Chinese. The Caucasian just laughed and said, "Well, I guess I sound too white, lol!". By the way, my ethnicity is Mexican-American; nationality, U.S. citizen.

 

@Flickserve DO it!! I also learned this bit of Cantonese just for the Lulz, but I can't think of a better way to describe how it feels to learn another Chinese language when you've been learning Mandarin for quite a while than the "affair" example, lol.

[陳德聰]

Yeah I also found that you don't have the same exaggerated accent when you speak Cantonese. You actually sound more comfortable in Cantonese despite saying things wrong.

[Joana]

So great you are!

I am Chinese,somtimes speaking two dialects is also not easy.

Come on!

[Pokarface]

@陳德聰 Hehe, I don't know why it happens.

 

@Joana 謝謝      唔該 .

[aristotle1990]

I'm in the same boat! Freaking love this damn language. Check out my Cantonese playlist ;-)

 

https://www.youtube.com/c/ariinbeijing

[Pokarface]

@Aristotle1990. Your 普通話 accent though, swag!! 

Hahaha, yes it's like an addictive drug 

[889]

Your Mandarin pitch is far too high; actually, Chinese friends have said the same to me, that my Chinese voice sounds like it's a half-octave above my English voice. Try to lower it, so that your Chinese voice and your English voice are pitched the same. For some reason, your Cantonese voice is more naturally pitched, so it sounds better.

[Pokarface]

@889 You know how much your Chinese sucks when people tell you that your 1 month studying Cantonese sounds better than your 2 years studying Chinese   (yes, Chinese friends that used to tell me before that my Mandarin rocked are now telling me that I might be able to learn Cantonese faster since it souds good. They don't even speak Cantonese, lol)

Well the accent shouldn't be a problem soon since I got a job offer in 新北 and from the looks of it, I'll sign it. 

Granted I'll have a very Taiwanese accent after living there for at least 1 year, lol. I really don't care since I thought I would never do anything with my language skills. 

[Christy]

Thanks your sharing, aha, I also know Assimil Chinese with ease, they have lots of conversation in different situation, it could be a good book for starters...

Anyway, it's really good that you found the motivation to learn Chinese. 加油！I really think the motivation is very important to learn a new language well.