So Many Ways To Learn Canto!

As imperial-Mando encroaches on our linguistic liberties, it goes without saying that more and more people who don’t like to be dictated to, want to learn Cantonese.

But many are concerned about time, commitment, pain, the violence ( 63% less than in other courses but still not insignificant.) And many are quite simply physically not in Hong Kong! Those are often the people who buy a book or CD-rom, thinking that owning items pertaining to Cantonese will miraculously transform the owner into a fluent speaker.

Unfortunately, that’s not how it works. However, for people who for some reason can’t or don’t want to take regular lessons,* there are still many ways to learn Cantonese the Natural Way – from a Norwegian.

• Family Yam Cha Want to learn Cantonese but feel you should spend Saturdays with the family? Take the Cantonese mini-course with food! You sign up for four sessions, to be taken within two months. You and your family spend one and a half hours learning to order food and drinks, some taxi lingo and other important stuff necessary to navigate Hong Kong on ground level. With four sessions and some dedication, as well as enough course material including the learning DVD Cantonese – The Movie, to last you a lifetime, you will be well on your way to study on by yourself. That’s right, by daily conversations with HK people.
• One week activity Cantonese If you’re just about to start a new job but have a few days to spend wisely before you knuckle down to the 14 hour day, take the intensive, zooming around Hong Kong while learning Cantonese course. Three hours per day for a week, including shopping, getting around, eating and arguing with taxi drivers, including the above course material and DVD. It’s all you need to put you firmly on the path to linguistic glory.
• Skype Now you can live anywhere in the world and still have the benefit of the Norwegian touch! You get all the course material by email and the rest is like having me in your living room with the added bonus of the violence being zero. You pay for four sessions to be taken within a month and a half, and you’re away. Literally.
• Guerrilla Cantonese Learn everything you need about drinking in bars and getting around, then immediately rush out on a bar crawl to practise.
• One Day Crash Course It’s four hours, tops. That’s all you need to  bring you from “zero Cantonese” to “quite a lot of Cantonese.”

Yes, there is something for everybody here at the Happy Jellyfish People’s Democratic Language Bureau.

* normal weekly lessons are still a possibility – they take place in Honolulu Coffee Shop, 33 Stanley street, Central

• One week activity Cantonese

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Good Weather Likely

A lovely day has begun in the lovely city of Guangzhou and after yesterday’s torrential rain people are pouring out in the streets again.

Just outside the hotel I saw this guy relaxing with a newspaper and it struck me that he looked exactly like the statue he was sitting on (but of a slightly different colour.)

When I quickly took a photo, he leapt up, thinking I was taking a photo of the statue and didn’t want him in it.

When the misunderstanding was cleared up we had a good old chat about the weather that had just been. 落狗屎呀！ (lok gau si ah! – fall dog shit (raining cats and dogs).

好似 (hou chi – look like, similar to, just like, seem like, seemingly, probable)
聽日好似會落雨呀 (teng yat hou chi wui lok yu ah – tomorrow likely will fall rain ah)

But what do I care? I have my enormous, sturdy cockroach umbrella to defend me.

Cockroach: 曱甴 (gat jaat)
Umbrella: 雨遮 or just 遮 (yu jeh)