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Wrong Version of Cantonese?!?!--part (2)
Wrong Version of Cantonese?!?!--(2)
<--continued from part (1)
How fortunate am I to have talked with native Cantonese speakers now, rather than 6 months or a year later!
My knowledge of Cantonese and its various dialects is very limited.
I know that I do not know.
I am not saying that 'Collins' is teaching a wrong Cantonese, but only that it and two tutors' version of Cantonese are different.
I like the later version, as they somehow seem to me to sound more like those Cantonese I had heard from Hong Kong movies.
Just the fact that there is a sizeable group of Canonese speakers in which my tutors are included, however, is meaningful enough for me to learn this 'colloqial Cantonese' and I will eagerly learn it.
Having studied Collins style Cantonese would not have been a waste of time.
I could use it at least with the authors of Colins and other materials which I have been using, and, of course, with those who have used their materials.^^
I still have a feeling that there is a usage for it beyond those, even as my common sense tells me to give the benefit of the doubt to a good brand name such as Colins, as it is not formed overnight.
.....
I am at the base of a mountain.
My head is up and my eyes are fixed on the peak.
Climbing up without sweats, challenges and efforts would not be fun and fulfilling experience, would it?
As I climb up higher, I will begin to see many things I could not see before and confusions such as these will naturally clear up, and one day, I will grin at myself for having heated up my brain over such a silly thing.
--Copied from GoldenCloud's personal writing collections. Copyright of the above materials/contents belongs to the original writer, 'GoldenCloud'.
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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)-->
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