I'm not cantonese, but I can speak cantonese, cause I love to watch the canto series. since I was a kid I watch it, so I learn cantonese by myself. but I cant read or write, just know some characters.
i'm totally like u. i know how to read a lil bit but that's about it. i wanna learn how to read/write but too lazy to do that
its not hard to speak chinese if ur young but when u get older n wanna learn it will be kind of hard. once that u know how to speak, then when u watsh tvb series everything is writen under so its esay to know what they saying n just remember n practice, that how i learn to write n chinesse
booohooo yeh i can speak chinese well just about hehe... ermm i can read very lil words like the super bascis hehe but thats about it =[
same here! I also can speak cantonese (quite fluent) but cant read and write. I am going to study Mandarin (reading, writing and speaking) from october on. I think it will take me 2-3 years to speak it well...
If you speak Cantonese fluent enough, it shouldn't take you THAT long to be fluent in Mandarin as long as you don't mix up the terms/slangs... And having Mandarin-speaking friends to practice with really helps too -^_^
I also speak cantonese well, I cant write but I can read some chinese words even though I havent been taught it.
i am english educated but my whole family speaks cantonese at home. The only way i actually get to learn any mandarin(speak,write,read) is by watching a lot of those mandarin speaking program on the tele...especially those from taiwan where normally subtitle is provided. i think i started from age 14. after one year, i can read chinese comic (aka jap comic, think jap's JUMP and Shounen translated into chinese) no problem. I kept on reading the comic and i find it really helps me in understanding the whole mandarin language, KTV helps a lot too. If u love a song, u wont mind spending time reading each word by word. I am now 20 years old. After 6 years, i can say that not a lot of chinese character i can't recognize (althought sometimes pronunciation may not be the most accurate but either way i will get the meaning), i can write letters used in our daily routines. The speaking part is a bit of a prob. Whole family speaks cantonese and school all speaks english. But i think in a mandarin conversation i get through ok. All that with just 6 years of watching and learning from Taiwan TV variety show (think Guess guess guess, Entertainment news etc) and lots of comic. Whoever sent their children to tuition or any class sure is burning their money. Improvisation rox
i'm english ed, grew up speaking canto... never thought that not knowing mandarin would turn out to be a big deal for me...till i was posted to study somewhere else away from my hometown, for my tertiary education (whereby the majority speaks mandarin and hokkien)!! was having a very difficult time at first...but gradually i picked up (the environment forced me too)! now i can understand and speak simple basic mandarin, but not really on reading and writing yet. i'm really thankful to have a bunch of friends who are patient enough to help me (sometimes i feel that i annoyed them when i asked too much questions-whenever i don't understand what's being written in the chinese newspaper or what's being spoken on the tv) LOL!! **tips- if you wanna learn to speak mandarin fast, the best way (my opinion) is to listen to lots of chinese songs... it works very well for me
i oni know how to talk cantonese since age of 10 but doesn know how to write and talk mandarin. I am grow up in the situation where my parents also doesn know how to write and talk mandarin. But now i am learning mandarin at my own university where they got offer mandarin class
u need to noe howta speak it and write it, daz da shit. itz not called, y learn chinese for? wen u step into a restaurant, itz like shit...i onli noe 'chow fan' and 'chow meen' lol diu lay la so useless
Yup one of them. =) However when i speak to someone they always like to ask what part of China did you come from. I always give them a look of huh? and told them i was born in the US. Then everyone gets so surprise just because i am born here and be able to speak cantonese fluently.
