Learning Cantonese
It seems my passion for language learning still holds true. And although Cantonese was never on my list of languages to learn it seems stupid for me to not learn it while working with native Cantonese speakers. I am at an extremely basic level right now and currently have the conversation built up to:
Zou San (pronounced Jhoe San) – Good Morning
Nei Hou Ma – How are you?
Ho Ho – Good
Yes. That’s right I said basic. I’ve also gone as far as to start learning their character set printing out flash cards which are thankfully made easy by: http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/flashcards/index.htm
Cantonese course is beginning to have some good stuff on it too. They only have one less currently, but I hope to see some more soon. Their videos are pretty hysterical. They have an affinity for the mistaken identity…and Monty Python?
Cantonese Pod has created some good stuff too but it looks like they’ve gone on vacation since the middle of 2009: http://cantonesepod.com/
As far as learning the Chinese Character set There are some really great tools out there.
To learn the character strokes Arch Chinese, here is an example worksheet to print out.
The single most useful system for learning the characters is the online flash cards with matching audio files: check it out. I feel if I could spend an hour on that page a day along with practicing their brush strokes on the worksheet above I will start making some serious progress.
Lastly, there is wordpress page called Cantonese Everday that has fantastic stuff like this:
- how nice.
