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дима: Ты лучше всех!
I’ve just come back from another Russian lesson with the excellent Dimitri. People: You think Cantonese is difficult – try Russian. Every word, I mean noun, adjective, verb and adverb, has hundreds of different forms. Even numbers change wildly according to what comes after them. In Cantonese, dollar(s) have only one form: 蚊 (man) . In Russian there are three ways to say “ruble” depending on how many there are. In Cantonese, if you can count to ten and know the words for hundred, (百） thousand (千）and ten thousand (萬） you can basically count to as many millions as you want, using the same one-syllable words. In Russian, between 1 and 100 there are probably 50 different pronunciations with the number 40 suddenly taking off from the pack and having nothing to do with the number 4.
Then there are the genders of course, and every bloody word veering off to the left and right with only the first syllable (if you’re lucky) known to man. Endings, beginnings, things depending on whether there is one, four or more than five of the bloody thing … It’s like mathematics.
When I’m in the room with Dimitri I go into a kind of trance and can kind of communicate with him by remembering the first few syllables of words and mumbling the rest. When I stand on the pavement outside, shaking lightly and not knowing which direction to walk, I think: What was that all about? If you’d held a gun to my head I wouldn’t be able to remember what had gone on in that room three minutes ago.
So students of Canto: Embrace the Canto. It really is SO easy! When you know ten words, you actually know a hundred words. Whereas in Russian those words will be 1,500 different-sounding words which you have to memorise one by one. I’m just saying.
And the buffalo? Well, that’s a Russian bear with horns.
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A Pox on Sunny Vision and all their Descendants
I was hoping I’d never have to write this (again) but here it is: My blog www.chinadroll.com has disappeared from view, and it’s SO not my fault. I was a customer of theirs for 3 1/2 years, paying them shitloads of money, did what they told me to do and generally shut up and put up.
Two weeks ago I wanted to move my blog to a different, better and much more reasonably priced host; the one that’s hosting this website in fact. (For during the 3 1/2 years Sunny Vision has been hosting me, they have shown themselves to be staffed by … possibly orangutans? And not the one million ones that together could hammer out Shakespeare either. The orangutans that were thrown off the Ark for being too ape-like.)
I sent an email to Sunny telling them to bill me for whatever it costs to move to a different host, as well as giving me the password etc to pass on to my computer guy.
They shut down my blog that minute. That’s right, couldn’t even keep it there for a couple of hours while the excellent Stephane worked his magic.
There is a post about this from two years ago on my other blog, which is currently floating up there in the stratosphere somewhere, waiting for permission to land. Meanwhile I’ll just have to rely on text messages and nailbiting.
WHATEVER YOU DO, never go into ANY kind of economic partnership with Sunny Vision! They should be called Sunni.
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Learn Cantonese, Dammit!
The other day, one of my Cantonese students said to me (no name; in fact there are depressingly many people who now have the same mindset, which helps the misconception to become true) “Well, it’s →
A Movable Feast (But not very far)
Saturday night! What a brilliant night. Above is the table just before the hordes (12 people) started pouring in. I hosted, cooked Sichuan food for and expressed my life through the medium of dance (optional) →
Love Craft Beer? Love Buffaloes? Come to Pui O!
Interview with Chris Riley, owner of the excellent Water Buffalo restaurant in Pui O. Now you don’t have to travel to Inner Lancashire to experience real English food, and ale, and pale brewish ale and →
Bunk Demythed! I Mean Myth Debunked!
Last weekend a group of three ecstatic revellers hopped on the ferry to Jung Saan (Zhongshan) and got straight in a taxi at the ferry pier and darted into the hinterland. In the lovely, slightly →
Guangdong Province! The Best Province with the Best People. It’s Yuge!
Guangdong is the best province in China, and not because of Cantonese! It’s got the friendliest people and the best hovelage. And today I’m off to savour her charms again! I just thought I’d share →
Hainan Highlights and Playing on a Swing
Last night I had a wonderful time in Central with my friend formerly known as J. Yes, I said ‘formerly’! For that was her name in the many South China Morning Post columns she appeared →
CantoNews 8!!! Live from Garden Cafe (With Sandwiches)
What does this photo of an excellent and ridiculously inexpensive haircut have to do with CantoNews? Nothing! I just like it. In this segment, the venerable Cassette and I visit the Garden Cafe in Pui →
Wild Shenzhen Extravaganza
I always have a good time in Shenzhen’s famed Lo Wu Shopping Centre, even after several hours of “missy missy looking, you buy sunglass okay.” Still, I could really do with less nagging. My student →
CantoNews: Cecilie and Nick Venture Forth to Graze
… all the way to the throbbing metropolis of Mui Wo – La Pizzeria to be exact!
Farewell, Dave Swarbrick
My heart didn’t stop exactly, but I had to swallow hard a couple of times last night when I read the Sunday Times from June 12 (carried around in my handbag unread for two weeks) →
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The War Against Cantonese – Now They Are Using Children
I spent last weekend in Zhongshan, birthplace of Sun Yat-sen and the original bastion of Cantonese. Not sure about the numbers but an incredible amount of immigrants to the various gold and hard-work slave-conditions hellholes →
The Uses of Cantonese
I’m SO glad I can speak Cantonese! Here is one of a million reasons: I just took the MTR from Central to Tung Chung and as usual there were no taxis although it’s about 200 →
Cantonese – The Movie Episode 32!!!!
The simplified characters menace is growing. Businesses all over Hong Kong are falling over themselves to accommodate mainlanders only, showing in a not very subtle manner that they’re not interested in local customers: by using →
Rare Article Sympathises With Cantonese
First of all: Please buy my latest book and second: You’ll never guess where I ended up this week! HKTDC!!! Which I have no idea what stands for. Some magazine. The article is quite sympathetic →
Our Favourite Professor is Back!
Thanks to Eleanor Levett, the mad professor is back on the screen is all his mouth-frothing glory! Hong Kong people are thieves and dogs! We should all speak mandarin and shut up! Yes, this interview →
Mainland Charmer Sugarcoats Words:
So this is how the common or garden mainlander sees HK people… No. of course not. This geezer is just an army of one. A rabid minority misunderstanding his own nationality. Oh, and a professor →
New Canto Film!!!!!
It’s been a year but finally more Cantonese. If you want to be in a film, give us a shout! This one wasn’t as easy to make as normally, logistically. But with iMovie and some →
Last Product Placement – Today
So I’ve made this two-hour Cantonese learning DVD as I’ve mentioned once or twice. Here is a short excerpt giving you a little glimpse into Going Native. It’s only HK$100, including shipping inside Hong Kong, →
Next Year’s July 1st
So, last Friday, July 1st, I went to Victoria Park to check out the action and also make a podcast: Happy Jellyfish’s Outcast at 1st of July Extravaganza 2011 Oh, it was great. The carnival-like →
PODCAST!!!! Warning: Contains Interview With Longhair!
Friday I went to Victoria Park to see what the people are against this year. Many of them were very against Stephen Lam (林瑞麟）Lam Seui Leun, who they called a (something) dog. Not running dog, →
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