I listen to canto songs mostly, but can't understand the whole song. Maybe just bits and pieces of it... haha.
i know cantonese. ^^ but my pronouciation is not exactly all that great (since i had english influence ever since i was a kid)
If you know how to translate Mandarin into Cantonese it becomes helpful in understanding Cantonese music. If you know Classical Chinese it's even better. Cantonese music is sang in poetic form. Learning to read the news paper (which is sometimes written very formally) will also help. I use to have so much trouble understanding Cantonese music even though I am fluent. It wasn't until I took a course on Classical Chinese (文言文） that I understood the songs fully. I know that a lot of us would rather Cantonese songs be conversation like; but I think its very poetic that they still sing in that way; it adds so much more meaning to all of the songs.
i remmeber the first time i actually started listening to canto music (i was into white music for like the first 14 years of my life) i was having difficulty ujst understanding what there on about. but as time goes past and you listen to more and more you start to pickup the songs both lyrical wise and understand what there talking about. nowdays i can sing along and understand =D
yep, i always have this problem, i never seem to fully understand wat they hell they're saying, but then again, i have the same problem with the news too!
Well...Mandarin music is my fav. Cantonese music or song is ok to me. But I hardly really listen to them as they are no better than rap music. I guess because of the melody or whatever. I am not really that interested in Cantonese music. What I am listening is En, Man as well as Jap or sometimes Ko.....Very least often I will listen to Cantonese music.
Well, I understand NOTHING because sung Cantonese is pretty sophisticated Cantonese, in my opinion... ^^
The reason why it's hard for us to understand canto music lyrics is because they sing in a more formel cantonese. For example they use 不 [bat] instead of 唔 [mh] for "no/not" , they use 他 [taa] instead of 佢 [kuih] for he/her.
Its the same as written Chinese. If you know how to read and write in Chinese then its not a problem. People who are functionally illiterate (that is, can only speak Chinese) won't be able to decipher the written forms of the language as easily. Ralph
Sometimes, its probably due to not understanding some of the formalities used. I guess having the lyrics handy helps ^^
i think canto music is harder to understand because it is more formal rather than day-to-day conversational canto we are use to hearing and speaking.
