WordPress database error: [Expression #1 of ORDER BY clause is not in GROUP BY clause and contains nonaggregated column 'cantehk_wrdp1.wp_posts.post_date' which is not functionally dependent on columns in GROUP BY clause; this is incompatible with sql_mode=only_full_group_by]
SELECT DISTINCT YEAR(post_date) AS `year`, MONTH(post_date) AS `month`, count(ID) as posts FROM wp_posts WHERE post_type = 'post' AND post_status = 'publish' GROUP BY YEAR(post_date), MONTH(post_date) ORDER BY post_date DESC

Author Archive

« Previous Entries
Next Entries »
Wednesday, November 8th, 2006

Mini Podcasts

I thought it would be quite beneficial to start uploading mini-podcasts for additional audio stimulus for my blog visitors. Though, I doubt I’ll ever make a Cantonese Chinesepod.com in the near future, I do believe these dialogues would be useful for some people. My wife made the recordings and I sourced the content […]

6 Comments » - Posted in MP3 - Monologues by 馬先生
Monday, October 30th, 2006

Steve Kaufmann - how to study languages

Steve Kaufmann who can speak 9 languages fluently is interviewed in both Mandarin and English about learning languages.

Part 1: 08:16min

Part 2: 09:56min

Part 3: 09:32min

 

Very informative interview (English part), however, I couldn’t understand any of the Mandarin.

3 Comments » - Posted in Learning by 馬先生
Thursday, October 26th, 2006

Dodgy Pinyin

How can a school be teaching dodgy romanisations of Cantonese characters? I often see junk like “Ngorr maai boujee” and “lay haai joong gock yaan” all over chat sites or forums. Its actually amazing that people are able to read this rubbish, but the worst is a school that teaches made-up romanised words. […]

2 Comments » - Posted in Cantonese by 馬先生
Thursday, October 19th, 2006

粵講粵啱 - Better Cantonese

I found on RTHK, a programme about promoting better pronunciation of Cantonese in Hong Kong. I’ve noticed my listening skills improving greatly, as I was able to understand much of the show. After watching the programme, I corrected some of my pronunciation mistakes. I hope you enjoy.

Part 1: 06:11min

Part 2: 04:35min

Part 3: […]

2 Comments » - Posted in Language by 馬先生
Tuesday, October 10th, 2006

Non-Chinese Cantonese Speakers

Found some interesting HKATV documentaries on Non-Chinese people speaking Cantonese in Hong Kong:

Norwegian

Part 1: 03:24min

Part 2: 07:17min

Part 3: 09:39min

 

Indian

Part 1: 04:38min

Part 2: 06:01min

Part 3: 09:49min

 

New Zealand / Australian

Part 1: 09:17min

Part 2: 05:30min

Part 3: 05:14min

 

American

Part 1: 09:25min

Part 2: 05:29min

Part 3: 05:20min

4 Comments » - Posted in Cantonese by 馬先生
Tuesday, October 3rd, 2006

Teaching broken English

I know it’s none of my business, but I just want to rant about something that disgusts me.
I once caught a Sydney train back home from work and witnessed a Chinese woman speaking extremely broken and beginner level English to her children that were about 5 and 7 years old. This normally wouldn’t cause […]

1 Comment » - Posted in Language by 馬先生
Friday, September 29th, 2006

Learning Grammar Patterns

I guess I’m lucky to live with a native Cantonese person; my learning of Cantonese has improved extremely fast. Since starting my Cantonese studies, I have learnt and can recognise hundreds of fixed grammatical patterns. These are so important because they are frequently used in communication. These grammar structures remain fixed, while you […]

3 Comments » - Posted in Learning by 馬先生
Friday, September 22nd, 2006

Why I love Cantonese

I am quite often asked by people why I love Cantonese so much. I grew up in a small city called Canberra and studied at the Australian National University. Prior to entering University I knew nothing about Chinese people. I remember how much I hated seeing Chinese people not speaking English in public thinking […]

4 Comments » - Posted in Cantonese by 馬先生
« Previous Entries
Next Entries »