dunmovin

when I tried to learn cantonese my chinese mate told me "there is one word(mm goi) that means please, thank you and excuse me. But this Hong Kong...you need to learn that!"

want2b_in_Manila

tagalog is quite easy

Inselaffen

no she didnt learn her own language (Kazakh) because it wasn't encouraged back then and she went to a Russian language school.

coolerkingcooler

I grew up in HK and went to a RC Chinese nursery (oh, talk about strict!) they were supposed to speak English but that stopped once my folks had gone then it was Cantonese. Most of my friends were Chinese and I did not know at the time that people spoke other languages as I could understand everyone! Sadly, we left when I was about 8 and I have lost it all now.

My advice to anyone with kids in far off parts is to get them lessons in a local language - they reckon if you speak it up to the age of 16 that you never lose the ability to pick it up again.


Cooler

penguinsix

I've met many Cantonese speakers who are very worried about their language long term, feeling (and not entirely unjustified) that Mandarin will eventually be pushed upon them by Beijing, either by formal edict or just by encroaching everyday use. Under the terms of the handover, Cantonese is protected as an official dialect (or something like that) but who knows in a few generations what will be the case. I know several folks in mainland China who feel 'we had to drop our accents / dialects and speak Mandarin, the Cantonese speakers should do so as well'. It gets to be a bit of a flame war on some message boards.

My general advice is to learn Mandarin, unless you are looking at a full time permanent relocation to Hong Kong or the surrounding areas in which case Cantonese would be good to pick up. If you are going part time to HK you really only need to speak English plus know how to say the name of your building in Cantonese to tell the cabbie how to get home. Some swear words are fun but you'll usually mispronounce them and get funny stares from people.

Written Chinese is helpful, sometimes, in Japan. For example there were some things on a dinner menu that we could figure out, like 'Pork' or 'Beef' etc. That it was pork brains was something we kind of missed.

Foxy_fromCanada

You are right - written Chinese can be helpful in Japan. The problem you'll run into with Japanese is that it uses 3 different alphabets. One of those alphabets is Kanji, which is based on Chinese characters. But in between the Kanji are Hiragana and Katakana which can sometimes add those important details (like brains to pork, LOL!). And you really need to know all 3 alphabets to truly understand what is being said/written. Lots of memorizing...

fionamw

Back to the question of a 'world' language, would Chinese people (speaking whichever indigenous language/dialect) find it easier to learn English? Spanish?...... (Arabic?) If the answer is English, then my OH reckons this means English will ultimately become the world's most accepted/spoken language.

racvian

I'm Chinese from Malaysia, I found it was kinda difficult for us to learn English in the beginning as our first language is not English. Anyway, you need to put on more effort to learn anything/ any language but not only English. By the way, nice to meet u guys

Father Jack

I can understand that, but for most speakers of Mandarin, no matter where they are, it's a second language for them, and has been for generations. There are of course people in Beijing and Taipei who speak no other dialect of Chinese, but the great mass of people speak their own language first, and then Mandarin as a second language. I think in the case of Hong Kong, they are simply pissed off about All These Mainlanders Coming to our Country Stealing our Jobs Takin' our Wimmin etc etc and there is a nose out of joint thing. If you travel to Dong Bei and Fujian and Yunnan and Shanghai and all that you'll not find the same insecurity I think. That incomprehensible gobbledegook they speak in Beijing isn't proper Mandarin either, so I would even class Beijing Hua'r as a separate dialect.

Is it still the case that in Malaysia and Singapore the kids all learn Cantonese from films and songs and rabbit away to one another in that Canto-Mando-Anglo patios they ised to when I was there about 15 years ago?

It never ceased to amaze me listening to Malaysian friends of mine switching effortlessly from Malay to English to Hokkien to Hainanese to Cantonese to Mandarin and so on. I never met a Malaysian Chinese who spoke fewer than four languages. Incredible.

fionamw

You too, hi!......but do you know any Chinese who learned Spanish AND English and which did they find harder/easier to learn?

Kooky.

Aaaaargh, Cantopop One thing I don't miss. The apartments backing onto our house in Geylang were full of Chinese students (and working girls...and working girls masquerading as students...) and Cantopop became my wake-up call. Well that and the hawking up.

Hi racvian Good to get the perspective from the other side.

Mipik

Show off mode on...

I've done a long stint in China and speak Mandarin, can also read and write.
Done a few years in Guangzhou (Canton) so know a fair bit of Cantonese.
In addition to my native Polish I also speak English (obviously) and Russian.
Bits and pieces of other languages as well.

Show off mode off...

OH is Chinese so our daughter is fully bilingual (English and Chinese) goes to Saturday school to get formal Chinese lessons. In year 3 in school she will start Spanish.

These Saturday Chinese schools are in every place where there is a bit of Chinese population (I think here in Adelaide there are 3 or 4). They are sponsored by Chinese government, run a good curriculum and accept kids from non Chinese background (adults too, there are at least 3 white Ausiess studying in my daughter school with their kids).

Kooky.

You're obviously very fluent as for some reason I'd assumed you were Chinese.

Mipik

I am what they call an egg.
As opposite of banana.

I lived there almost half my life so have a pretty good understanding of how the place ticks.

Kooky.

Pretty useful state to be in, I would say.