Being fluent in a language is not about how well you speak the lanuage relative to someone else - it is not a comparison. Being fluent in a language relates only to the spoken form of the language, it does not include the writing/reading parts. Therefore, to me being fluent in a language is how easy or comfortable you articulate your thoughts and feelings to the person you are trying to communicate with through spoken words.
lol talking about overseas chinese ppl reminds me of this http://youtube.com/watch?v=Hk94fQW9MUY 我聽過台灣國語 廣東國語 北京話兒 還有 南方國語 當然也有ABC國語 全世界都努力學國語 lolololol
I speak perfectly fine Cantonese....my reading is a bit limited.....my writing is absolutely terrible, the word just couldn't come out!!! Being is fluent in Cantonese is hard because too many slang terms that can't find words for it...lol
I had forgotten about this topic - it seems I'm in the same boat as several of you. Though, I definitely feel more confident in my Cantonese today than when I made this topic and watching gu-jong TVB series helps. My sounds aren't quite as precise as I would like them to be, but I figure that's how it's gonna be considering I'm an ABC; however, my ears can pick out bad pronunciation. When I listened to Jin's Canto album, his Canto sounded off to me or when I watch shows like Superior Trio Show and they have guests who for some reason or other have poor Canto. So, I suppose that's a good sign. I still have trouble deciphering Canto-pop songs, but sometimes seeing the characters helps. My main gripe nowadays is that Cantonese doesn't have the same prestige that Mandarin does, which is quite annoying to me.
yea I think you would have to know how to read and write to be fluent with cantonese, just because the formal way of writing sounds so much different from just speaking. I have no idea what cantopop is saying sometimes.
Well, I guess "fluent" means that you can understand most of the things. I'm sure no one is able to understand ALL of the words of a certain language. So in my opinion, if you're able to understand most of the words, then you're consider fluent.
I am a BBC and English is my main language. I never considered myself fluent in Cantonese before, even not now...although I have been living in HK for about 2 years now. Over the time in HK I have certainly improved but I would not say fluent. End of the day my Scottish accent is a big problem which seems to mess up my pronounciation. Nevertheless I understand people speaking to me with ease, nd usually when I run into problems understanding, its usually not the words, but more the meaning of the phrase, terms, names, etc....that kind of thing. I do understand or are able to make out the songs in canto-pop songs and usually with a fair bit of guessing...but I do sing a lot and that helps understand the meanings of formal written chinese. At the moment I am studying reading and writing Chinese and that also helps a lot. Certainly I think even though I can read and write a bit, speak well, and listen excellent I am not fluent yet....maybe just proficient or something....
i think i am fluent(my standard of being fluent would be no stuttering and could be able to pronounce most of the words correctly..but i do notice tht over time some of the pronounciations tht most of us think are right are in fact wrong...learnt this through one hk program tht teaches how to pronounce correctly) in speaking cantonese thanks to listening to canto pop and dramas...esp the ancient series. haha. the power of watching series! but i don't really know how to write chinese bcoz i was never educated to write in chinese(except for my name and uber simple numbers). but as i watch more dramas, listen to more songs, i become better at it....i am on avg better than most of my friends in canto. i even started learning mandarin just bcoz i wanted to watch meteor garden XD i would understand what my friends and others tell me in conversations and i guess my mom made a good canto teacher to me coz most of the time when i don't und what phrase/word i would just ask her and she would be able to explain to me in great length(she's educated in english but was sent to chinese night class through schooling years). to me, understanding cantonese esp idioms, phrases are really fun and very important bcoz it keeps me in touch with my chinese root. most of friends converse in english(tht's why my canto is better than them coz i love to speak in canto as my english is not tht good) and i don't really have much friends to converse in canto with. some of my friends think tht conversing in canto is very uncool and by conversing in english they think they are a class higher than the rest. some even pretend not to understand canto when they certainly do coz their families do converse in canto. abit trying too hard and pathetic i think.
Fluent enough to survive on a day to day basis i suppose, but the more complex stuff will probably struggle.
well i can understand most of the chinese and read most and most of the formal canto but i would not use it while i am speaking lor
my mandarin is poo..but i can understand a bit but can't speak it... can anyone here speak mandarin good?
Hm, I think you're fluent in Cantonese when you do speak and understand it. Forget about the writing :b
