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Wed 28 Nov 2007
Posted by 馬先生 under Cantonese
I was interviewed a week or so ago by Gary Choi of SBS Radio Australian Cantonese Radio station in Cantonese as part of the Happy Paradise Children’s Program.
Please let me know how I sound now? Remember this wasn’t scripted and I didn’t know the questions before answering.
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November 29th, 2007 at 12:32 am
Milan, you sound very fluent.
One word I often hear foreigners mispronouncing is 睇 (tai2). They often pronounce it as taai2. Not sure why.
I kind of feel sorry for your wife, because she has no chance to maintain her English level. It is hard to maintain it in HK.
November 30th, 2007 at 4:16 am
You sound great.Good job! As a matter of fact, I think you sound much better than in that RTHK radio programm. I have the impression that you’were much more relaxed and comfortable this time, whereas last time you’re quite uptight.
December 9th, 2007 at 5:54 pm
Yes, much better than your piece on RTHK.
A lot more relaxed. A bit strange though that you degrade yourself by announcing that you are gweilo. I never hear Chinese ppl say, I am a ‘chink’ when they introduce or talk about themselves. This aspect aside, a good attempt this time.
December 9th, 2007 at 6:50 pm
Yes, better than the first time on RTHK - although I didn’t hear you speak much the first time. I’d say it has a lot to do with how comfortable you were at the time. Obviously now you are more comfortable and confident with speaking the language and that is why it is more smooth. I notice everyone speaks Cantonese so fast - does anyone in HK speak it slowly?
December 11th, 2007 at 1:25 pm
Thanks everyone. I didn’t think “gweilo” was that bad since Ho Kwok Wing called himself that in one of his interviews. Though personally I don’t like people calling me it since I am mixed and no Caucasians have ever accepted me as Caucasian.
Actually everyone in Hong Kong seem to speak Cantonese relatively fast. Even my wife speaks to me quickly. When I played the radio interview to some of my colleagues they were surprised that the interviewer spoke Cantonese slower than me.
Now-a-days, I spend more time on authentic conversations then sitting down acquiring vocab through reviewing dialogues or non-stop listening to MP3s. I’ve already spent 2 years on building up my vocab, so I need to take a break and just work on natural usage. I think in January I’ll do a heavy vocab build-up by using Edwin’s Cantophilia site and Marcelo’s Canto Stories. This combined with my Reading and Writing Class in Wanchai (Everyone is Native Speaker) and Cantonese immersion, should improve my level considerably I hope.
January 16th, 2008 at 9:33 am
Ha, brilliant ‘you don’t hear Chinese refer to themselves as Chinks!’ I love it.
gwailo is definitely derogatory. The proof of that is that if you find someone that is really polite they will always use saiyan.
Plus one time I was arguing with someone and he said ‘it’s not a bad term’… then went on to say ‘and besides, if you think about how the English treated the Chinese at the time of the Opium Wars, you’ll realise what sort of gwai the English are’.
On top of that, it’s we who should determine what we are called. We don’t insist on calling Chinese chinks - if you don’t like we respect that. But Chinese don’t seem to respect our right to complain about what words they use for us.
The only reason it’s accepted is because English have all the good jobs in Hong Kong so they can laugh about it - if the English were cleaning the toilets there would be punches thrown everytime the word were used.
January 25th, 2008 at 9:05 am
Wow…lots of debate about the “gwailouh” comment.
I have to admit that I also find it very disrespectful. I prefer to introduce myself as a “saiyan”, but that is very difficult to bring across over the phone (and on the radio). I had that experience working in customer service over the phone.
Sometimes people won’t accept the fact that I am American ( Maybe, “Because white people could never learn Chinese”, is a common assumption)…so I have used the term “gwailouh” to emphasize that I am a white American with no Chinese heritage.
I thought you did a great job Milan! You sounded very natural.
June 12th, 2008 at 11:58 pm
I think you sounded very good. Of course you could tell you had a saiyan accent but intonation and phrasing wise you had a mixture of colliqual and some very “polite” Cantonese. As for the hosts speaking slowly for you, I don’t think that was the case. It is a Children Programme so naturally they would speak at that pace plus on radio hosts will need to speak in a more distinct way. Overall you came across as someone who is well versed in Cantonese. Good job!!
August 1st, 2008 at 5:21 pm
well,indeed “gwailouh” or “gwailou” is not that bad or disrespectful as what you guys thought. Is all about misinterpreting.
Let me start in this way, in mandarin we called foreigner as “wai louh”. “wai” means outsider and louh is refering to a person. And for some reason Cantonese pronounce it as gwai louh.
I know that you guys must be thinking that “gwai louh” if translate to english it means Ghost. But the truth is, we said wai but slowly it becomes gwai and the pronunciation have also changed. This causes many confusion and also unsatisfactory among whitie - english person as people translate it as gwai loh which they refering to ghost.
Look i don’t think this is as bad as you guys thought is all about mispronunciation and misinterpretation. You must disagree with me but in this case do ask people who speak only mandarin or those who speak teowchew, hokkien or hakka. They might be able to give you some answer.