… yes I know I have an accent and made some tone mistakes, but hey, I don’t actively learn it anymore nor practice much

EDIT: I deleted the link from facebook because someone said they couldn’t understand 1 word I said What a blow to my confidence!

The above video introduces how to type Cantonese. The method I use is Jyutping from http://cpime.hk - it will allow you type easily type all those fancy 啲 and 嘅 characters directly from Windows.

By VERNA YU
Published: July 22, 2010

HONG KONG — I had always presumed that speaking to your child in your native tongue was the most natural thing in the world. Apparently not everyone thinks so.

When we held a birthday party for our two-year-old daughter several months ago, I had a bit of a shock.

The first sign came when a four-year-old Chinese boy looked annoyed and frustrated when I asked in Cantonese what snacks he would like from the table.

“No, no, no!” he yelled in English. His mother promptly translated what I said into English.

This baffled me. The boy was born and bred here in Hong Kong, and his parents are both native speakers of the dominant Cantonese dialect, but they speak to their children only in their less-than-perfect English.

It turned out they have a simple reason: They want their children to get into a prestigious international school.

They worry that if their children speak Cantonese at home they will not learn enough English to pass the interview.

The mother is delighted with her achievement. Her son has been accepted by an international kindergarten and her younger girl’s first words were all in English.

I quickly realized that she wasn’t the only one who thought like this. I noticed that several other parents at the birthday party were also speaking broken English to their children.

“I will show you how does it work,” said one father in heavily-accented English, showing a toy train to his 19-month-old son.

He admitted with slight embarrassment that his English pronunciation and grammar were not great, and trying to communicate with his toddler in a language he himself is struggling with has led to problems.

“One day I was trying to tell him this is how you button your shirt,” he said, switching into Cantonese. “But then I couldn’t say it in English, so I had to ring up a friend and ask.”

I asked: Doesn’t he think it is better to talk to his toddler in the language he is most at ease in?

“I think you’ve lived abroad for too long — you don’t understand what parents here have to think about,” the boy’s mother said. “Competition for international schools is fierce. If we don’t make sure he speaks English now, he won’t pass the interview.”

I looked at her very cute toddler, who was busy chasing a ball on the floor, and felt a bit sad.

The boy is not yet two, and he was still babbling away in baby words. Yet in this competitive world, it is considered better for him to be exposed only to English, a language that his parents are not confident speaking but one they believe is more valuable than their native tongue.

More and more, ambitious parents in Hong Kong are giving their children a head-start in English by putting them into English-speaking play groups, kindergartens and international schools. At these elite institutions, Mandarin Chinese is sometimes taught as a second language.

As for the local Cantonese dialect, who cares?

I am saddened. What will happen to those age-old nursery rhymes our grandmothers taught us, the songs we sang at kindergarten, those Tang-dynasty poems that every preschool child was taught to recite?

And surely the classic tales of the “Twenty-four pious sons” — the stories that the Chinese have used to teach their children about the Confucian virtue of filial piety since the 14th century — can’t have the same cultural resonance when translated into English.

Besides, Cantonese carries echoes of ancient Chinese that no longer exist in the official Mandarin. It is a lively language full of colorful expressions.

It is our heritage, and if we don’t pass it on, who will?

When these children are not taught to speak the language of their ancestors, a connection with their native culture is bound to be lost.

And when they grow up, how will they see themselves? Will they still have a sense of belonging to Chinese culture? Will this society’s future elites be international in outlook, yet somehow rootless in culture?

Perhaps I’m being alarmist, but I wonder whether there will be a day when we in Hong Kong come to regret the decline of our language. By that time, it may be too late.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/23/opinion/23iht-edyu.html?_r=1&_r

I hate when people tell me “your Cantonese is very good” but say it in English. Finally, all my built up frustration over the years can be explained by this video…

A while back, someone on the Cantonese learning forum described:

There are two Hong Kong’s.

Hong Kong (香港,香講) and Hong (m) Kong (香唔港, 香唔講).

“Heung Gong” (香港,香講) is “the HK that speaks to you in Cantonese”. You’ll make friends and speak Cantonese with them. Heung Gong (HK) people mostly live in Kowloon, the New Territories, Shenzhen and Guangzhou.

“Heung (m) Gong” (香唔港, 香唔講) or H(m)K is the HK that won’t speak in Cantonese to you.

Heung (m) Gong (HmK), is mainly located in certain parts of Central and in the offices of foreign capital firms. HmK’ers generally speak Cantonese among themselves. You’ll hear them joke, smile, laugh, greet and talk in Cantonese. But not to you.

They’ll speak “about” Cantonese in English. But not “in” Cantonese to you. To everyone else, yes, but not to you.

Some when they speak “in” English “about” Cantonese, will claim they’re speaking “in” Cantonese. You’ll notice it after a few experiences. Don’t get fooled.

“Heung Gong” (香講) people will accept you, speak Cantonese to you and welcome you. It’s heaven. Many can’t speak English and have no interest in English at all. They’ll talk “in” Cantonese. There’s no problem, no insults, no exclusion.

Iranian American Speaking Fluent Chinese (both Cantonese and Mandarin) Started learning Chinese at 19 and now speaks perfect Chinese in both Cantonese and Mandarin, and what’s more incredible he has never been to China or Hong Kong.

I think he is naturally gifted in languages and speaking in general. He didn’t even have one “ummm” or “ahhh” in his entire video. Even in English I cannot speak for this period of time without needing to think or hesitate to some extent.

I don’t normally watch Pearl, however, I unintentionally came across a great video of Greg Smith who has lived in Hong Kong for 2 decades. After watching it on TV, I downloaded it from RTHK website, and then uploaded to Youtube for your enjoyment. Coincidentally, I think he looks like 大山 a famous Beijing Westerner.

The other day I went to MacDonald’s and ordered the usual Double Cheese Burger and Strawberry Milkshake. The 40 or so year old man took down the order and spoke Cantonese. Though after that he proceeded to say in English “Your Cantonese is bad, don’t speak it”. This suddenly shocked me and probably it is the first time in years to have someone say this to me taking me back to the very early days.

I suddenly blasted attacks in Cantonese which actually made me just as bad as he was. I lied and told the manager he said 死鬼佬 sei2 gwai2 lou2, all I wanted was the burger and he discriminated against me etc.

Now I’m feeling depressed and unhappy about what I have achieved. I used to think I was pretty good, but after watching other non-Chinese Cantonese speakers such as Michael below; I realise my vocabulary is way too elementary. Even though I can understand what’s on TV without much problems at all now, I listened to Michael’s speech and immediately needed to look up 10 sentences or phrases. If this was a real conversation, I would be incredibly annoying to the speaker for not understanding.

So seriously this year, its time to pick up my game and learn Cantonese. I’ll put up an MP3 of my current Cantonese within the next day or so. What I can say now is that I promise to master Cantonese no matter what it takes!

Michael has excellent Cantonese and has studied for 13 years in Canada. He also has advanced writing skills too - http://faailok.spaces.live.com/ which is even more impressive.