Cantomania 2

Why can't Caucasians learn Cantonese? It's genetic, innit! Everybody knows that. Illuminating documentary from Happy Jellyfish People's Democratic Language Bureau (part 2)

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• Norwegian Cantonese
• Cantonese language
• Hong Kong

[miriams76]

Is this woman Cecila Guttman from the Naked Cantonese podcasts? Haha! This is video is so true! I remember when I was trying to catch a taxi and I asked the first guy in English to go to the American school. He told me to go to the next cab. So I tried three more, asking all of them in Cantonese. Finally, the fifth cab driver understood my Cantonese perfectly well and answered in Cantonese. If you don't look Chinese, some people get really flustered when you speak it even if they understand.

[Cantocourse]

@miriams76 Hallo! Cecilie Gamst Berg, but close! It is I.

[Cantocourse]

@Felicity1247 I don't care what wikipedia says. Hong Kong and China's Cantonese speaking people follow the same writing *style* as Mandarin, but it's not "same writing, different pronunciation." Or would you say 你而家去邊，靚仔 is exactly the same as 帥哥，你現在去哪裡？ Cantonese is a language.

[bokualec]

Just say you're not American and don't understand English! I do this when needed and it makes people stop speaking English very quickly.

[bradcto]

Support our mother language ! Don't let the PRC government destroy the real Chinese Language.

[EliteOfTheRad]

I'm glad to say that it's rare that I run into these types of situations. Typically, people who don't know me will compliment my Cantonese, but they'll do so in Cantonese. I live in Shatin and I often go to Ma On Shan, where very few shop owners speak much English.

[EliteOfTheRad]

@Felicity1247 furthermore, the issue of "dialect" or "language" is entirely political. would you call Urdu a language? or do you regard it as the same thing as Hindi, but with a different writing system?

[EliteOfTheRad]

@Felicity1247 being a speaker of a language and understanding that language are two entirely different things. ask a native english speaker to explain anything at all about english's history or inner workings, and most will embarrassedly stare at you with wide eyes. hell, i'd be surprised if there were many english speakers that knew most of our words come from latin and french!

[SaieyOrZoiying]

@Cantocourse Thanks so much for supporting our "LANGUAGE". Indeed it is Cantonese a language but it is not derived from ancient chinese?

[SaieyOrZoiying]

@nnokki then we must try to change it. Cantonese is also an important language and there are still people who love to learn it. So try to to understand the feeling of these people who love our language and just help them to speak it. We must be really happy to have such people eager to learn our Cantonese.

[nnokki]

to cantocourse:

I am sorry about your feelings. But remember that English is still one of our official language. and sadly hk ppl still feel awkward to speak in cantonese with a caucasian...

[nnokki]

it's stupid to categorize cantonese as a 'chinese dialect'. Mr/Ms felicity you may be you are 'cantonese' or 'chinese' but you understand nothing about your language...P.S. I am hongkonger. BTW even on wikipedia it saids '在語言學分類上，中國學者與及西方学者間存在分歧。在中國國內­，大多數漢語方言研究者將粵語作為漢語的一種方言看待，並認為現­代漢語是單一語言；另一部分中國國內學者和西方語言學學家則認為­粵語是一門獨立的語言。兩者各有其語言學的依据