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Special: Going Native and Cantonese – The Movie
Now you can own both Cantonese – The Movie and Going Native in this special bundle. Take your Cantonese from complete beginner to an intermediate level without even trying! Let Happy Jellyfish Language Bureau take you on an adventure through all things Canto with some interesting places and characters thrown in along the way.
Going Native
You have watched Cantonese – The Movie and feel more confident about your Canto. Now it's time to crank up the action! Going Native takes you from beginner to intermediate level – again without really trying!
Warning: Contains full frontal nudity.
Stay Grounded
Would you like to travel around China but are worried about your Mandarin being not up to scratch (or non-existent)?
Now you can get all the Mandarin words and expressions needed for getting around the Middle Kingdom in this handy video which covers train and bus travel, hotel stay, eating and drinking and other situations you might find yourself in when you, like us, are going to for example Hong Kong to Kazakhstan, by train…
Cantonese – The Movie
“DID YOU KNOW THAT Cantonese has no word for YES or NO?
But… but how can this be? you're probably thinking. Without yes and no, how can you answer Yes/No questions? It's easy! Just download Cantonese – The Movie and all will be explained.
Chillies! Sichuan food made easy
Everyone who has working tastebuds will surely agree that Sichuan food is the best of all food, not only in China but in the world. Sadly, many restaurants call themselves Sichuan without being the real thing. So why not avoid disappointment by learning to cook it for yourself? It's easy!
Fortune Cookie Express
Cecilie eats her way across Americas Chinese restaurants speaking only Cantonese. If the staff don’t speak Cantonese then she leaves….unless she is really hungry.
Don’t Joke on the Stairs – The Movie
Cecilie visits China and looks at the fun side of life. More information soon.
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Bored No More
FINALLY! I had had absolutely no yam cha (afternoon tea and dim sum) since September 14 and was starting to see double. Although I had plenty of deep-fried, comforting Southern food on my blaze-through of the southern states, I missed my chives and prawn dumplings and fried bread stick wrapped in rice flour roll like… like a heroin addict misses his syringe in rehab. But yesterday, October 9th, I could finally indulge, and how.
At another table were about ten HK Chinese and a foreigner. I could hear the black-haired people talking away in Cantonese, while the foreigner was so bored I could see it from behind. Once in a while a colleague (?) leaned over to explain something to him, but for the most part it seemed that he was left to his own chopsticks.
Why would I care about some stranger? Well, I didn’t, especially not when my food arrived. But I could sympathise with him. I’d just come back from Mexico where the people I met, although very kind and solicitous, naturally preferred to speak Spanish with one another when we were at a party or dinner. The solution for me would have been to learn Spanish.
Instead of hoping, or worse, demanding, that your local colleagues will learn more English and conduct meetings and lunches in that language, why not learn Cantonese? Even if you only learn survival level Cantonese, your lunches with locals will change completely. They’ll know you’re interested in their language and will take the time to explain the ins and outs of the food, they will speak more slowly and the conversations will include instead of exclude you.
Happy Jellyfish People’s Democratic Language Bureau offers crash-courses in 飲茶 (yam cha) among other specified topics, as well as regular courses for individuals and groups.
九月 (Gau yuet – 9th Month/September)
黑頭髮 (hak tau fat – black hair)
陌生人 (Mak saang yan – stranger)
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China Toilet Groove (Contains Video)
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 →
Cantonese – The Easiest Language in the World?
When I started learning Cantonese there was no shortage of Chinese people warning me against it. At that time the most common refrain was: “It’s too difficult – for you“. OK, maybe they didn’t emphasise →
Sichuan Food … So Yummy and Right Here in Pui O!
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! →
Don’t Beat Yourself Up! (Let Me Do It)
(None of the people in the photos were quoted – or hurt – during this blog entry) Perhaps it’s inevitable when people are starting to learn Cantonese that they will feel themselves transported back to →
Ordeal of the Year
In January, okay, I admit it, I waited until the first week of February, came my annual ordeal: The visit to the vet. Why ordeal? It’s just some injections, and they’re not even on me. →
Stimulate All Your Senses on Lantau. Yes, all! Sichuan Cooking Course
Chinese New Year saw the Lo Uk Tsuen Country Club full of people coming to learn the basics of Sichuan cooking. Mature and younger, Lantau people and people from as far away as Britain – →
Congratulations, Get Rich!
It’s Chinese new year and the streets (and Facebook) reverberates to foreigners calling out to each other: “KUNG hei fat choi!” For one thing it should be GUNG hei, but hey. The tradition of spelling →
Enormous Oversight
About those language teaching videos (one Cantonese for beginners, one Cantonese for the more adventurous and, yes! I admit it! Even a survival Mandarin video called Stay Grounded) – all these years they’ve had this →
肇慶 Beautiful Siu Heng – Great As Long As You Don’t Dabble
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 →
Big Shots in China
威士忌 – Wai si gei (Whisky) 酒店 – jau dim (Hotel) 唔舒服 – m syu fuk (Not well)
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肇慶 Beautiful Siu Heng – Great As Long As You Don’t Dabble
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 →
American Odyssey
It’s a while ago now but I suddenly remembered I spent a month in the USA this summer, doing the Canto thing of course:
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to find out how you can start learning Cantonese.