Interesting thread, thanks MikeWill. I've learnt some Cantonese; each word has a mixture of tones and lengths and it can go badly quickly (9 variations of tones/lengths). For example, the words gas, dog, the number 9 and a slang word for a penis are all the same, just different tones. But like I'm seeing on this thread, the locals are incredibly forgiving for mistakes and normal 'get' the context. When I moved to Hong Kong I did a course and it quite simply didn't work for me. The teacher was way too interested in teaching phrases, without considering the fact that I had zero chance of understanding the reply. I quit; I had discussed with the teacher and she would not change her style. I looked at other language centres and I couldn't find one that taught in a way that many people of this tread are advocating, so I just stopped, and a little frustrated. I can order lunch ask simple questions and I can understand around 10% of what is said to me, and that is sometimes enough to 'get' the context. For comparison, my French is okay, I can understand 40-70% of speech and I probably know 40% of words/grammar so can normally do a decent job of replying. This is why I can't make progress in Cantonese, I simply don't know enough words. Last week I downloaded some basic Cantonese and Mandarin lessons, and have started on them. Funnily enough, the style is much more akin to that book by Becker mentioned earlier in the thread, and some of the stuff is more akin to a child's style of learning. Mandarin has 4 tones, so ought to be a bit easier. I'm fairly musical, so recognising the differing tones isn't too difficult for me.
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