Wrong Version of Cantonese?!?!--part (1) Wrong Version of Cantonese?!?!--(1) 2011.09.11 Leaving my footprints for those who come behind me..... One who is self-studying Cantonese must rely on good learning materials for laying the basic foundation in that language, at least until one is aided by native speakers. I have combed through a number of big bookstores in Kuala Lumpur, the place where I am staying now, to find good materials for Cantonese learning. I could not find even one single Cantonese dictionary(!) and there was such a dearth of materials for Cantonese, while there were tons of materials for Mandarin. Ah, the glorious ascension of Mandarin, and such a disregard for Cantonese even in a city full of Cantonese Chinese! I finally found 'Collins Cantonese Phrasebook(Consultant Ling Song Chase, HarperCollins Publishers, 2007)' and another one of similar kind. This book is for the travellers to Cantonese regions, has a nice picture of Hong Kong on the cover, and concentrates on teaching conversations in various real-life situations. Below are few examples of some very important basic expressions and their pronunciations(without diacritics) as found in 'Collins Cantonese' and some audio materials I have been listening to for last two months,: 我是 - ngoh sih 我的 - ngoh dik 什么 - sahm-mo 不是 - bat-sih 怎么 - jam-mo After a talk with a native Cantonese speaker from Guangzhou, I was told that the correct ways to say them were as follows: 我是 - ngoh sih --> ngoh hai (I was already aware of this, but only as an alternative) 我的 - ngoh dik --> ngoh ge 什么 - sahm-mo --> matye 不是 - bat-sih --> m hai (I was already aware of this, but only as an alternative) 怎么 - jam-mo --> dim Good heavens! What kind of Cantonese was HarpersCollins publicly teaching to their countless customers! Was it Collins laboratory-fabricated new version of Cantonese? Flabbergasted and massaging my aching forehead with my shaky fingers(just a joke^^), I rushed to the net and found this list at the site below. I put in two conditioners for the search: 'level1' and 'show oral cantonese only'. http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/scripts/wordlist.htm?action=&wordtype=2&level=1&page=3 Voila! Now we have about 74 oral Cantonese expressions. (there are thousands of them under 'show oral cantonese only' at all levels) Some of them were also found in Collins, but many were not reflected there. continued in part (2)-->