I started learning Cantonese back in the mid-90s. Every morning I would take the 07:00 ferry to work and play cards with the swearing workers. I realised this was the best and fastest way to →
Come with, come with on a Cantonese language seminar to Guangdong province! Before it disappears.
A Nog, bored with being from Norway Who wanted to be born in Galway Bought dog collars green From an Aussie colleen And went to the St. Patrick’s ball, wei! What kind of poem is →
What do you do in Bangkok? Look for Chinese food, obviously!
羊年， yeung nin. Year of the sheep, goat, ram, lamb, ewe, sow What? Why not keep it simple? Cantonese is simple and easy. YEUNG! Start taking Cantonese lessons with Happy Jellyfish People’s Democratic Language Bureau →
Today: Switzerland 瑞士 Soi si
I took up the banjo partly to understand what it’s like to learn something new, better to sympathise with my students. Now more than ever I see the importance of practise. I have been practising →
Learning or even speaking Cantonese is no game for the timid. It is, quite frankly, something of a never-ending fight with frequent setbacks and few triumphs. The other day I was in the Holly in →
Ah! Yam bui! Here are some of my students taking a good slurp of 鐵觀音 (tit gun yam, a famous tea) on my roof. Yes, Lantau people, there are still some morning/early afternoon slots left →
No one can call me a Luddite anymore! Only 7,000 years after the invention of the computer I’m doing screen grabbing!
I’m looking through my two Cantonese teaching videos Cantonese – The Movie and Going Native to find scenes I can grab (for I know how to screen grab, unlike Luddites!) and use as covers. I don’t like the old covers. So wave goodbye to them, they will be gone from January 15th.
Now I’m trying to find images that will seduce people to spend the measly amount of HK$100 for a good two hours of intensive Cantonese teaching. But unlike they like old guys with moustaches (or the women playing them) I don’t have much hope. It’s old, old, moustache, moustache, hour after hour.
Anyway, on the teaching video for absolute beginners, Cantonese – The Movie, I found a film that I thought was particularly funny. I actually LOLled and am not afraid to say it! And the moustache ratio is kept to a minimum.
Yes, I can now wholeheartedly recommend these two videos. Tomorrow I’ll show you screen grabs from the second one. For I can screen grab, oh yeah, baby. Advice: When you’re invited to a romantic dinner for two with your girlfriend, don’t bring your wife. No, I mean: Don’t commit adultery!
包二奶 (bou yi lai – have a concubine)
戲 (hei – film)
笑 (siu – laugh, smile)
Yes, that Public Security Uncle, he does get around a bit.
Unfortunately an unfathomable tragedy happened: He lost his badge in a shrubbery incident just outside Santa Fe.
Good thing he had his trusty deputy Bronto with him, on holiday from his day job at YMCA:
It’s up and running on Radio Lantau – CantoNews 2! The sequel! No, just the second programme in Cecilie and Nick’s Cantonese course, the finest course currently available on cassette. http://radiolantau.com/programme-archive/cantonews/C/7-cecilie-gamst-berg/4-cantonews/60-cantonews-2 This time we discuss →
Do you live in Hong Kong? Have you lived here for a number of years? (Any number higher than, say, one?) Then you must already be starting to get sick of people leaving. Now it’s →
This week my first specialised crash course kicked off, with two excellent and fast learners, working titles ah-Lei and ah-Ga. In only two and a half hours, they learnt enough Cantonese to go into any →
Chinese characters (normal, not simplified) are beautiful, aren’t they? Even ordinary words like ‘toilet’ look somehow elevated to a higher sphere when they’re written with a brush, or printed for that matter. Not that the →
Everyone who travels in China for more than, say, five minutes, has something to say about her toilets. But I stand by my column (above) – they are nothing! Nothing, compared to only a few →
There are as many types of Chinese food as there are people in China; approximately 1.3 billion different dishes at last count. That's more dishes than you and I go through in an average month! →
Oh China. I love you so much. This is Siu Heng, the town where, on top of the many scraggy crags, there are signs (signage) exhorting people not to “parapet”. No Parapeting! the signs say →
Here is an excellent way to practise and learn more Cantonese: Going to the market with your very own Happy Jellyfish People’s Democratic Language Bureau. This is how it works: First we sit down with →
The Mandofication continues at breakneck speed. I’m sure the “great” idea of making Hong Kong simplified character-ised to “adapt” and accommodate the 700,000 mainlanders currently living here so they’ll feel more at home, has already →
I’ve finally got my new website up. According to my web guy, it will help sell my two Cantonese teaching videos Cantonese – The Movie and Going Native. I have just watched those two videos →
