Tue 6 Apr 2010
I know tons of foreigners that think that if they kept listening to Cantonese, they will eventually pick it up - no matter if its the radio and it all sounds like gibberish.
I have probably done around 80% input (listening) to about 20% output (speaking). This means, you don’t speak your way to fluency…. you listen your way to fluency. You can’t output what you haven’t inputted.
In my journey to learn Cantonese as fast as possible, I have learnt the most important principle in learning languages - You need to understand the input, which is one of Stephen Krashen’s principles of 2nd language acquisition.
- Repetitive listening to content that doesn’t make sense will not mean you will eventually get it.
- Listening to incomprehensible content very loud and clear will not mean you will understand it better
- Listening to incomprehensible content super slow over and over will not make you understand it better
So how can you understand the input? Take a look at Stephen Krashen as he explains the most important factor in learning languages.
The fastest way to learn Cantonese is by
- Learning as much vocab as possible. You can’t speak what you haven’t learnt, and you can’t guess your way through conversations as you’ll just look stupid when you do the wrong thing.
- Forget the grammar. You will notice it naturally after huge input. You’ll simply notice that’s the way they do it.
- Understand what you are listening. My method is to translate each “new” word into Jyutping, then into English and listen over-and-over to the Cantonese until it becomes natural.
- Learn the tone number with every new word and memorise it. Otherwise, you’ll sound like a broken record.
To the know-it-all foreigners and to to locals that preach Cantonese has no grammar, the big news is that CANTONESE HAS GRAMMAR. Though for all learners, I suggest you don’t learn it until you are quite good. You don’t need to learn it because you’ll never speak smoothly when sentences need to be filtered through a wall of grammar rules. You’ll start figuring out that time and verbs go in certain places. You’ll notice the ending particles after you listen to them being said in context.
April 7th, 2010 at 10:10 am
Hmm, I recently got a masters in teaching English to speakers of other languages (TESOL) and Krashen is a major theorist we had to study. I like the way you have applied it. I have been focused on grammar and forming sentences lately and frankly have been hitting a wall so your advice feels very timely for me. I am going to go back to learning more new vocabulary. Thanks.
April 9th, 2010 at 8:12 am
This theory is a very good theory. I have always known that if you wanted to learn, the most important part is vocabulary. Grammar is just the glue that holds everything together. Unfortunately, my parents thought that simply throwing me in front of the TV and watching TVB and movies will enable you to learn. I find this method ineffective since there’s not much comprehensible input for me to digest.
I will say that this method of learning has a very slow start up time, since there’s so much to take in, but once you get going, it’s a great system to continue learning by.
April 10th, 2010 at 7:09 pm
Hi Milan,
Thanks for providing the method for learning Cantonese. I would however like to know how your suggested method compares with Steve Kaufman’s methods and suggestions? Is it the same or have you modified his method in anyway?
Cheers,
Simon
April 10th, 2010 at 7:17 pm
Simon,
Steve Kaufmann’s method is basically a derivative of Stephen Krashen’s. Its all basically the same thing and from what I’ve noticed that nearly all the polyglots learn using the same method, but argue differences such as having “fun” in the language to keep motivation etc.
Thanks
April 25th, 2010 at 7:56 am
I know a little Cantonese but can speak Mandarin to a reasonable level.
If really annoys me now when people say that Chinese has simple grammar, sure some bits are a breeze, but the problem is they are trying to apply European grammar rules (derived from Latin and Greek I guess) to different language, so those words that serve multiple purposes (for grammar) and those bits that are “derived from context” in Chinese are really just a new type of grammar that has no convenient English words to describe.
That “derive from context” can be much much harder for a learner than deriving from context would be in some languages.
May 12th, 2010 at 4:01 am
Thank you so much for providing this blog for people to read! I am a native Cantonese speaker with a husband that wishes to learn Cantonese and your blog is giving me some good tips on teaching him. Thank you so much and keep up the good work!
June 22nd, 2010 at 6:34 am
“…. you listen your way to fluency. You can’t output what you haven’t inputted”
I like it
Neil
June 28th, 2010 at 9:27 pm
Hi, there. I agree with what you’ve written above and have been a fan of Krashen’s ideas about comprehensible input for a long time. However, it’s been a bit hard to put into practice.
I’ve spent the past 6 days in Hong Kong, and have made a sincere effort to pick up what Cantonese I can, but other than getting a few basic phrases from youtube videos or picking up words that sound very similar in other languages I’ve studied, I haven’t been able to find much comprehensible input.
I’m talking like 請問尖沙咀hai bin dou a? kind of level. I’ve tried dragging my ipod with me to 7-11 to record basic phrases like “do you want a bag”, but unfortunately, I’ve mostly been getting asked in English.
How did you get started? What source did you mine for vocabulary? Are there any kids books with pronunciation annotations such as the 注音符號 used in Taiwan or the 拼音 used elsewhere?
Any ideas would be greatly appreciated!
July 16th, 2010 at 3:44 am
Heh, this is the way that things are going for me with Mandarin at the moment using the material from www.imandarinpod.com.
I listen to those mp3s over and over again in the car and find that I am understanding more and more and even tuning in to bits and pieces now and then. This strengthens my understanding.
I wish that there was a similar resource for Cantonese.
October 2nd, 2011 at 12:45 am
I have studied the Pimsluer Cantonese lessons so thoroughly that I know all 30 lessons like the back of my hand. This took me 30 mins a day for about 2 years. I then wrote down everything they say in engligh and combine different sentences and say them in Contonese. It’s a start. And once you do this you can say quite a lot of things. I then try out my new sentences on the folks at the laundrymat down the street. I’ve noticed that Pimsleur style is pretty much what Mr. Krashen is saying.