Should I learn Chinese characters if I don't speak Chinese?
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- čas přidán 21. 08. 2022
- Hi there!
Should I learn to speak Chinese (Cantonese) before attempting to learn to read and write Chinese characters?
Let's read a sentence in Standard Written Chinese, then read it again in spoken Cantonese, then translate it to English and see what you think at the end of it!
Yup, it's a video talking about my character course, and I promise I'll be back to spoken Cantonese and mahjong videos soon, but am having such a good time teaching the character class that I want to reach as many people as possible who might benefit from having doors opened and connections made by learning characters.
So if you or anyone you know could benefit from learning traditional characters in Cantonese pronunciation, please head on over to www.cantolingo.com and check out all of the courses !
Hope to see you soon, and happy learning!
Sue Marguerite
For course details, visit: www.cantolingo.com Thanks!
I think learning written Chinese helps ground and retain learned Cantonese, helping connect a sound to a character. I didn't grow up speaking any kind of Chinese but was surrounded by Cantonese when with family. During high school, I took Mandarin Chinese and was surprised to find learning the sentence structures (although in Mandarin) helped me remember what certain phases meant in Cantonese. Because of this, I was able to retain/remember Cantonese phrases spoken by my family and friends.
My experience may not be right on the nose with this video but I felt that having written Chinese tremendously improved my Cantonese a lot!
That's awesome! I'm so glad to hear it helped -- even in Mandarin. Likewise, I've learned basic Mandarin; and some words -- especially the question words -- now make so much more sense in Cantonese just knowing how they are used in Mandarin -- words like 為什麼？and 怎麼樣?
Thank you for sharing
You're welcome! :)
@@CantoneseCorner 😊😊😊😊😊😊
Awesome Sue!!!
Thanks! How've you been? Long time no see!!
Thank you Sue.
You're welcome! Thank you for watching, commenting and supporting! 💞
At least it is advanced to learn the meaning of each Chinese character, even don’t speak Chinese.
Agree! Talking about the radicals and the meaning behind the characters is so cool and interesting. I could spend hours on cantonese sheik looking them all up lol :)
In this video,
teacher speak cantonese are very very good.
and i will share this with other people.
Thanks for your supporting to cantonese.
Thank you so much!!! I really appreciate that -- the more who know and support, the better it will be! 💞🙌🙏
Hi Sue, I am a Cantonese-speaking HK student who has just recently moved to NYC for pursing a master degree. I am a fan of your channel. I thought I might have seen you (or someone look very similar to you) around the Columbia University area today but I wasn't too sure about it. If that was you, please forgive me as I was too timid to say "hi"...Anyway, I hope you find you peace and enjoy your life in the US! Cheers
Hi! Welcome to the USA!!! Is it your first time to come here? How cool to be in NYC and I hope you have a really great time there. I'm not there, but I wish I were and how cool to know that someone who looks like me is! :) Thank you for the well wishes .... and same to you! Good luck with your studies! 💞
Sue, thank you for your introduction on learning Cantonese and Chinese characters.
I think it should base on the usage when you are the new learner. For those who do not have any concept in Chinese, spoken Cantonese will be a starting point to keep on the interest. If you have basic concept on spoken Cantonese, then written Chinese should be learned for reading Chinese.
You're welcome! And thank you so much for sharing your thoughts -- I'm sure it will help people who are just starting out decide whether or not to add characters right away or stick with spoken until their ready to learn to read. But I have to say one thing -- learning characters is fascinating and so interesting! I'm actually never worried that people will lose interest learning characters -- I mean, I get what you mean -- they may learn interest because they're not really learning spoken conversation per se, but they are learning all about the characters and how cool they are! :)
Thanks! 十卜十卜!
You're welcome! :)
Oh I understood the spoken but not the writen version. Thanks.
Also a link to your course in the description would be awesome. Thank you.
You're welcome! And oh, I forgot!! Will add it now. Thanks! ❤
狗狗好可爱
He acts and looks like an old man most of the time ... but he's really only 2 years old 😂
@@CantoneseCorner 😂😂😂😂😂😂
to me, yes. I understood 0 Cantonese a couple years ago but I speak Japanese and Hokkien. i could read written Cantonese and picked up the spoken language pretty quick.
👏 👏 👏
I speak Cantonese and I went to Chinese school every Saturday for 10 years.. I did not learn how to read Chinese at all because the teaching was remember these poems, no explanation what these words mean..
Oh, that's so sad because they're so rich with meaning! I hope you got a chance to learn them as you got older.
Hi teacher
Hi! 😁
I WANT TO LEARN HOKIEN////I SPEAK CANTONESE////HAKKA///PONTI///A little of Toisan/////
I could be wrong, but I think Brittany Chan over @cantobritt has a few videos on speaking Toisan :)
The biggest problem for a foreigner to learn Cantonese is that HK people are not taught Cantonese in schools. Whereas in mainland China students are taught, pinyin, tones AND English so if I goto China a local can explain to me how characters are spoken and written and the correct tone. My HK friends here have no idea of jyutping, tones or even which character they use for a certain sound aaarrggh. You do a great job Susan, I think it might be easier to learn written Cantonese (not Chinese) outside of HK.
Thanks! And yes -- I hear a lot how frustrated Cantonese learners are with their native Cantonese tutors in HK because while a native speaker knows how to speak Cantonese, most don't know how to teach it because they don't know phonetics or how it actually is learned. But really, it's amazing how long Cantonese has lasted being just passed down basically word of mouth or at least not taught in schools. Astonishing, actually! Mad respect for the tenacity of the language ... and the people! ❤
@@CantoneseCorner absolutelly spot on! Even my late father's mother tongue Welsh is easier to teach lol.
I recently read a very good book from Tai Po library called Cantonese as a Spoken language. It explained in detail the history of Chinese and the evolution of Cantonese etc. It is worth reading. It mentions that many characters are used for the spiken word depends on the whim of the author. It also explains that the spoken written form was looked down upon and was only seen in comics, pulp fiction and horse racing papers.
@@taipo101 So I just looked up Welsh and spent about 10 minutes listening to YT videos on pronunciation! 😂 So interesting and really amazing how many people still speak it. I have to say some of the alphabet pronunciations sounded like an angry cat LOL but very cool to hear it being spoken fluently. Thanks for the recommendation of "Cantonese as a Spoken Language" -- I'm adding it to my reading list! 🤗
@@CantoneseCorner let me try and find ISBN for you. BTW every sylable is pronounced in Welsh, no hidden letters so what you see is what you hear
I was actually just thinking "it'd be really funny if I learned Cantonese from an non-native speaker (even though she's better at it than I am)". I guess I'd have a better understanding of the grammar and the pronounciation of words if I were to learn it this way vs going to a Chinese school once a week. I have a similar experience with Chinese schools as the person in the comments up here.
I enjoy watching your videos @Cantonese Corner . Much appreciated!
It’s like learning two languages simultaneously.
It is! (Just adds to the fun ☺)
Thank you so much for promoting Cantonese...the Gov't is trying to get rid of it little by little and I fear the day may come that we can't use it anymore 😔😔
It's SO sad!! 😭😭😭
In my humble opinion, you insert literary character into this fresh beginner course will make the syllabus complex
Eg. "He" 佢. As a beginner one should only know keoi2佢. For 他ta1 student only learns in later level when they need to write composition in literary language, or in common usage "other"其他. Same with 唔. Fresh student should learn this not 不。else student end up learning useless characters in relation to their level
I know you follow some university syllabus but these uni dont even teach Cantonese character which is their very own mother tongue. This is how Cantonese get degraded to dialect. Some Cantonese speaker just dont respect/value Cantonese character such as 佢 唔. My opinion and sorry if it offends anybody
Thanks so much for commenting and giving this very useful perspective that I think it will help total beginners decide what makes the most sense for them. Because you're right ... it IS complex ... but I guess if the desire to learn and put in the work is there, it can be done and it can be quite rewarding to know it all -- even if only to make subtitles and song lyrics make sense right from the start. :)
OMG////_