The first 1000 people to use the link will get a free trial of Skillshare Premium Membership: skl.sh/jensentung12201 I tried ONLY speaking Cantonese in HONG KONG: ua-cam.com/video/KOe91ylj5tY/v-deo.html
An excellent attempt! It’d have been even better if you could pay attention to some often-neglected details, such as one should pronounce「廣」as “Gwong” instead of “Gong”. This is a mistake that many people make, even for native HKers lol. Cheers mate!
I’m a Hongkonger. I think you pronounce so well! You only learned Cantonese for 7 days, but you can say many different vocabulary. It means you already know many voacbulary from your family member, but didn’t use them before. Language is a tool, we use it to do something what we want to do. Don’t mind too much for your Cantonese is fluent or not!
This was honestly so heart warming to watch. As a CBC who can speak, read and write fluently, I’ve always found myself to purposely speak more English so I don’t seem too “fobby” bc I’ve had CBC friends who made fun of me. As I got older, I’ve realized it’s actually something I’m super proud of because it gave me an advantage at some job interviews, I can fully communicate with my non English speaking parents and I stayed connected to my culture. And seeing your video boosted that pridefulness even more bc it shows others who are trying to connect to their canto culture even when you’re so mainstream- that it’s not lame to wanna learn our mother tongue! I love these videos because it helps us connect to other parts of us that some of us may never be able to discover bc we grew up here (kinda like what your mom said about being afraid you not getting along with other kiddos if you went to Chinese school). She’s also right about Chinese school LOL. I went to mando school for 14 years and I learned all my mando and canto from hk and tw dramas growing up 😂 maybe in the future, you can try videos with a bunch of diff CBCs doing a series of tests to see how gold their Chinese is etc. (Been watching too many of those videos lately that it’s kinda getting addicting lol). ANYWAYS, after the long rant, I just wanna say keep up the good work and thank you. It really means a lot seeing our representation being put up there 😌🥰🙏🏼
Love your comment :) Growing up I hated how much Chinese I spoke at home. I ended up not learning or speaking it for five years because all the other CBC kids would bully me. I regret those years. Over the last five years I've worked hard at learning more Cantonese and teaching myself Mandarin. Like you I am also proud of the strong base my parents gave me. Though I used to hate them for making me speak Cantonese, I'm very thankful now.
Never give up Jensen! I am also Chinese American and I am lucky because my parents didn't speak English at all so I was forced to speak Cantonese at home. Now I am 30 years old and starting to learn Mandarin slowly. 加油!
The increase of ABC's and CBC's wanting to be more fluent in Cantonese is really encouraging to me. I always thought it was odd that I was one of very few kids (even in a Cantonese American community) that learned Cantonese fairly well from just growing up in a Cantonese household. Then, I realized, it was because my mom fostered a love for classic cantonese movies in me (Her fatal ways series is my favorite) and always told me that I need to reply in the language that I was being spoken to. Hopefully, they're concepts that I can pass to my kids in the future. Thanks for the entertaining video! PS. Your cantonese had amazing improvement...would just use different phrases for a more natural conversation. Cantonese is just a bunch of "you can say it that way, but it sounds better this way because no one says it like the other way."
When seeing the part of the conversation with your mum, my tears dropped as I’m so proud of you. If I were your mum, I am so touched to see my son saying Cantonese to me. Keep it going. From the one just sitting in HK over the screen.
Whoa! I just stumbled on your video and was surprised to see myself at 1:55! Kudos to you for putting yourself on this challenge and setting a goal to be fluent in 2021! I think you did great :) You touched on so many important points about why Cantonese is so difficult to learn especially for those of us who were born overseas. As someone who makes content in Cantonese, I've found it hard to find suitable resources to share with my followers. But the process has been really fulfilling, and I'm constantly learning about this beautiful and expressive language of ours. I'm really looking forward to Part 2 of this video! Liked & subscribed! 加油!
Good for you man, you seemed to have learned really well during that week! Born in Canada as well, I struggled and felt embarrased to speak Punjabi with my parents because they would make fun of my pronunciations. But, my parents' English not being the best worked out in my favor 😂. They always spoke to my siblings and I in Punjabi and we're now decently fluent in it. I can now comfortably speak to my grandparents in the language that they feel most comfortable with, which means the world to me. Keep it up! I'm sure you'll make your goal of being fluent by next year 🤗
It's so amazing how he takes some practice speaking Cantonese so fluently in 7 days, in fact Cantonese is probably the hardest language to learn and he still learnt it so well
This was so heartwarming to watch. I have a similar background to you in regards to Cantonese. It honestly hurts that I can't communicate fluently with my grandparents. Thank you for this encouragement. I want to try harder to learn Cantonese again!!
this is crazy bc im in the exact same situation in toronto!! my parents are from hong kong, and growing up they would speak to me in cantonese and i'd answer back in english (so our cantonese language skills are around the same level! im definitely trying to better my cantonese and mandarin for family and business purposes and this video has really inspired me) thanks for the great content!! excited to see your part 2 / improvement in a year!
That's pretty impressive! I am born and raised in Hong Kong, and have then lived half of my life overseas . My struggle is slightly different from yours - I can never sound native in English no matter how well I speak! Cantonese, with the tones (up to 9 tones for some sounds) is really hard to learn but I can understand what you say. It's a beautiful language that has been endangered. Keep it up bro!
Thanks for making such a well thought out video! I experienced the same issue when I returned to Hong Kong in high school. It was such a shameful experience not being able to speak the language of our home. But throughout the years having more friends who didn’t judge me I freely spoke more canto! Now I am 95% fluent so there’s hope! Thanks for sharing your experience excited for you!
so cool to see you and your mum talking together! She looks so excited for you and I can see your love for each other - good luck with your Cantonese studies!
Very impressive, I got into Cantonese a long time ago although I've always been pretty basic in my knowledge, I found everytime I went to HK it really helped my vocab and confiednce to a certain extent because as live, breath and think the language! I started out singing in Chinese and was very well known for being "The Black guy that sang Chinese" and getting over 1M views on my first Canto singing video, this is like 15 years ago lol over the past year, even more so the past few months I've really wanted to get back into Cantonese so it's very inspiring to see videos like this! well done, you did really well 👏🏾
I was born and raised in the UK and have been living in HK for 9 years but tbh I feel people here are hard to judge Asian people who cannot speak Cantonese. I don't judge anyone who can't speak English properly yet I get sh*t from some local people for understanding but not speaking even though most people like to communicate with me in English. Bear in mind I arrived in HK in my mid-20's, never had lessons and am not even Chinese! The funny twist is that I can actually speak quite OK, especially with strangers or those that have no English ability. I find the issue is with those that feel their English is good (even if it's not) or studied overseas and therefore have some snobbery over a foreigner speaking their language. Sorry, just sharing some thoughts, but I should say kudos to both you and Brittany for the great content!
I subscribe to your channel for over a year and I wonder how I missed this video earlier. I'm born and raised in San Francisco but in Chinatown so people told me my Cantonese sound like I'm actually from Guangzhou or Hong Kong where my parents came from. I hear that your Cantonese sounds great and you sound exactly like you're a fluent speaker of Cantonese to me! I still believe our Cantonese skills has to do with how much each of us were exposed to that speaking environment. I have "ABC" friends raised outside of Chinatown in San Francisco who don't speak Cantonese as well as I do despite their parents speak Cantonese natively. I strongly credit the fact that everywhere I went in Chinatown, while growing up, were all Cantonese-speaking environment that really helped me inherit Cantonese pretty well. :)
Oh man. CBC here also and my canto is even worse than your canto at the start of the video. But I believe I can learn it eventually. Simply gotta do it 😁 And your video definately gave me the motivation to start doing it!
I think you speak Cantonese pretty well. (Maybe not fluent but it feels quite accurate to me) Your mom seems very sweet and encouraging as well. I’ve always found Canadian has their own kind of Cantonese which is a little different from ours and it is quite unique.
Most important thing is, you have to believe in yourself that you can do it. Learned that lesson from a guy on youtube, who taught me how to do the most amazing haircut myself. Gotta tell you, guy was 100% right.
I feel u, I just watched some “educational” Cantonese videos and I’m already struggling. I go to mother tongue lessons but i don’t understand anything my teacher says, I just nod and act like I know what she’s saying. This video gave me motivation to learn Cantonese😺
I feel you man, I'm a BBC (British Born Chinese) and this lockdown has made me really want to improve my Canto. This video has definitely inspired me. Also your jawline is chiseled af! 🤯
As someone trying to learn Japanese my advice is consistency over quantity or quality! You obviously put in a lot of work over the seven days, but don't hold yourself to that standard of trying to put in hours everyday then also giving up after a day/week/month. Best of luck!
I'm learning Polish and recently I started learning Mandarin Chinese. I use a variety of apps for learning languages (Babbel, Busuu, Drops, HelloTalk, Falou), one of the apps I use is called Drops and they have an option for learning Cantonese. Greetings from Ontario, Canada
As a half canto, I completely felt every struggle you've listed. I never had to respond or think in canto in my household. I feel so much guilt and slow progress learning the language. I hold it against my mom for letting me quit chinese classes. I hope one day I can conquer this as well.
Same, I never felt the need to speak or learn Cantonese since my dad knew nothing and my mom just used English most of the time (other than like saying good morning). She tried to get us to learn it but didn't really make an effort into teaching or talking to us (my twin and I) in the language. I've always been scared of saying something wrong if I do learn bc I didn't grow up learning it and I don't want to awkwardly fumble my way through it especially around her side of the family so I just stuck to English. I've just decided I really want to try to get into learning it again and to not let that get to me too much because ik it's going to be slow going since 1. I'm not a child anymore and 2. I'm not a linguistic genius. Anywho, I hope you're doing well in your progress and good luck with any language endeavors ^^
As a Hong Konger living in Canada, I'm very happy to see people get interested in learning or improving their Cantonese! It is a language that is very reflective of our culture, especially our humor expressed in our play of words. Hope you can keep on going!
This is so cute, your relationship with your mom is also so cute!! Really reminds me of my and my brother's situation with our family because it's the same, haha!
This is amazing and super encouraging!!! There are so many CBCs and ABCs, including myself, who can relate. Thank you for sharing your experience and your excel sheet too!!
As someone who is probably 10 years older than you, the Chinese schools we had in Vancouver at the time were.... insufficient. Most of them were geared towards native Canto speakers who had a solid foundation in speaking but lacked reading and writing skills. So, as someone who didn't know how to speak, or know the tones, it was a weekly terror to do homework in written form, and struggle to speak on front of the class based using written grammar instead of Cantonese's speaking grammar. But, I memorize a bunch of Chinese words such that I had a solid jumping off point to learn Japanese and Mandarin rather quickly. On top of that, a lot of the lessons given were either steeped in folklore and history. It gave me a sense of connection with my Chinese identity that I could finally enjoy once the angst and anger had subsided. Anywhoo! Great video as always. Looking forward to more.
Oh my goodness. As Chinese-Filipino born in America, your situation and mine are so relatable. When I was young, I was able to speak Tagalog (Filipino) fluently, but my parents stopped speaking it to me when I started school because I ended up speaking Taglish (mix of Tagalog and English) in my class even to my teachers. I lost the ability to speak it but can understand most casual conversations okay. It's mainly a problem trying to recall words. I have always wanted to learn the language, but my parents used to discourage me because they thought the language was not beneficial and that I should learn a language like Spanish or Chinese that is more widely spoken. I am almost an adult, and this video really gave me the motivation that I need to push through "the dip" and continue on my way to master one of my ancestral tongues one day. Thank you so much!!
Canto was my mother tongue but since I started learning English in preschool, my vocabulary has remained there. Hence, it is really hard for me to communicate with people as well, especially my grandparents who cannot speak a lot of English. This video was really relatable, so thanks
I'll join you, my goal is to be close to fluent in Korean by Dec 21. I am looking for my bio dad, I hope to speak to him in Korean. I have been trying just like you, it never sticks, there are no Korean speaking friends near me.
I speak Cantonese. Fluently. Moved to San Francisco from Macau when I was 12. Forgot a lot of my Chinese because I want to be more Americanized. I played a lot of basketball and got good at it so other kids won’t make fun of my English. I now moved back to asia because i feel speaking my mother tongue is extremely important. In addition, Asia is just a much more exciting place to live. I learned my mandarin in Taiwan. I took classes but the most important thing I did was I hangout with older aunties at a breakfast shop everyday. They gossip all day and I just speak to them daily. This helped a lot. I suggest you find a coffee shop in Chinatown and just speak with the retired grandpas. Parents. The greatest gift you can give a child is language. BTW. Im proud of you for being so brave speaking Cantonese in front of camera. I have a lot of struggles when recording my podcast in mandarin!
Hello Jensen - Thank you for this video. I watched it with my half-Hongkonger (my half) and half-Irish-Scot American daughter. She is almost six and since she was born I have been trying to get her to learn Cantonese. Your experience confirms my believe that having my girl ANSWER in Cantonese is key, because this helps her learn vocabulary in ways that simply listening won't. She watched with rapt attention and was excited whenever you spoke Cantonese. I think you have inspired her to use Cantonese more! Thank you so much. A bit of information (it's not a correction): Hongkongers have actually been writing Cantonese more in the past 6 or 7 years, in an attempt to preserve the language. When I communicate with my family and friends in Hong Kong, we use written Cantonese more than anything. The added bonus is that Google or Facebook translates do not understand written Cantonese so it's really like a secret code LOL
I can't wait to watch the 2nd part in one year. Keep believing in yourself! As a Vietnamese growing up in Germany, I have also been insecure about speaking Vietnamese and received many discouraging comments, so your video reminded me that we don't need to be great to start, but we need to start to be great. Therefore, I also want to challenge myself. Thanks, Jensen!
In Vancouver, there are a lot of opportunities to use cantonese, like ordering in Cantonese at restaurants in richmond. It is always good to know more different languages!
Pretty much in the same situation as you. I'm a CBC born in Vancouver with extremely broken and basic Cantonese skills. I'd speak English back to my HK immigrant parents growing up. I'm finally trying to relearn Cantonese more fluently as a grown adult and it's a long, slow and difficult journey. I lost part of my roots when I ignored speaking in Cantonese at home and didn't think that much of my Chinese heritage. I think my parents also wanted what they thought the best for me by encouraging me to speak English as well so I'd fit in at school and into North American society in general with perfect English, that they wished I wouldn't experience as much racism as they did experienced immigrating here decades earlier. Best of luck on your journey, great to see you so wholeheartedly embracing learning the Cantonese language.
duuuuuuuuude kudos to you. Love the way Cantonese sounds. Not sure about your association method, I feel intuitively that should be more oriented towards the actual meaning of the word, but it may be hard to make more literal associations if you're just studying in one place without having a diversity of colours, sights and smells to activate memory with a piece of language. Good luck to you man, acquiring a second language is always hard but I bet it'll be soo worth it.
You are in the same situation with my nieces and nephews. They were born and raised here. My sisters and brothers speak Cantonese to them but they reply in English. But they do understand Cantonese they just can’t speak. You did well !!
Hey, love your videos. I myself also a Viet born, my mom speaks Cantonese and I am still trying to learn it day by day. Your video really encourage me! Subbed!
I lived in a Cantonese area in Shenzhen China. The more I was exposed to Cantonese the more my brain recognized some of the words you said in the video. It took my brain a second or two more to know what you are saying but...wow amazing. I have been "studying" Mandarin for 7+ years and yeah....
Your cantonese is not terrible to be honest, much better than I expected. I feel the best way to start becoming fluent is to write and read in Chinese. If you don't do this, you'll never pick up on the speech patterns and word combinations that are available. I was pleasantly surprised how you don't fully suffer from direct English to Chinese translation when talking, I think you have a good foundation to start building from.
Hey I think you're doing pretty good man, I understood everything you're saying. true some parts sound a bit funny but it's actually less than what I expected. You have pretty good pronunciation too!
Just wanted to say this - hopefully this helps a little bit. when you say I "ngoh" it sounds weird to me, I'm British Born Chinese and for me when I teach my friends who are English to speak Cantonese, I tell them to say aww~ but shorten it by a little bit to get the "ngoh" sound.🙈 Add oil 💪
@@xlartanislx It is a lazy tone but often Cantonese speakers in Hong Kong use this lazy tone, so it would be more natural than the current pronunciation he is using.
Jensen...that's so awesome that you want to learn. I feel for you, although not a CBC, I'm close enough (youngest of the family and emigrated from HK at 4 y.o.)--so like in your case, my vocabulary is what I struggle with. I can hear and understand what is spoken but my speaking and pronunciation is horrible. Keep up the learning and you have encouraged me to start.
I found this because I’m trying to learn Cantonese to communicate better with my patients, but your journey sounds exactly the same as mine has been to complete my Hungarian, which was missing in the same way and reason as your Cantonese! So, hearing your mother explain what happened was really nice.
ah amazing! congrats on your progression! i am in the same boat and trying to learn too, i picked up bits and pieces from listening to my parents speak Cantonese but could never string a sentence together myself.. even after going to Chinese school when younger. good luck with your learning, i have no doubt you'll be fluent in no time
As a teen living in since I was born Hong Kong, you pronounced very well! One tip, learn how to swear in Cantonese, it's the part we always use and it's part of the culture 😏😂
Keep practising as much as you can! I used to speak my mother tongue well as a child but between my British school and classic child-of-immigrants-identity-crisis, I forgot it all. My mother tongue is also exclusively a spoken language and often mistaken for a dialect so there aren't really any resources out there to learn it. On my last trip to Azad Kashmir though, I managed to relearn quite a bit of it and since that trip, I make sure to speak it regularly with my family. I think getting from a conversational level to fluency is really difficult though, especially as there will be some complex or technical terms that are not used often, and finding a way to practice those can be hard. Good luck with your Cantonese studies!
Hey bro great to see you again. Hope you had a great Christmas and just wanted to wish you a very Happy New year and may 2021 bring you much success, joy and happiness. Stay safe and catch up again real soon.
Glad to see people like you as descent of Hong Kong to learn Cantonese. We need to inherit Cantonese and pass the language to next generation. Actually, you speak so well as a 7-day learner of Cantonese. Keep learning. 加油!!!
I have the same problem bro, the stopping and starting mid-sentence along with stuttering my words is so fustrating and I think is due to our sub-conscious translating on the fly and our voice not keeping up. I found watching Stephen Chow films helped me the best cause it's funny, memorable and the overall the words they use are generally quite colloquial it helped me think in Chinese as well. I also found that training to speak the language at a slower-pace helped me too, I tend to speed up in Cantonese so I can reduce the time I butcher the language but i realised that speeding up makes it worse. All in all, keep going at it bro!
I identify with this so much! I’m a LABC (Latin American Born Chinese), don’t know if this term even exists, but I’ve also felt challenged to learn more Cantonese! Let’s continue this precious language on! 加油 (gaa1 jau4~ add oil)!
As a fellow abc myself, I completely empathize. I was also hoping my Canto would improve during my one semester HK study abroad, but my canto skill didn't really change either. I kind of gave up on the idea of learning Canto too. Watching your video made me inspired and curious about what studying approach you're going to do, super excited for the next episode!
For music, I would recommend My Little Airport, they are an indie pop duo and their lyrics are written in spoken Cantonese. Their songs also reflect young hongkonger’s life authentically which I love so much.
Love your determination and focus! With that mindset, you will be able to do it for sure! Learning language is all about practice. Keep talking with your parents and friends in Cantonese. 👍👍
Just found this video! Definitely relate to this. I'm ABC but my family actually spoke to me in Cantonese at home. While my parents were at work, I'd stay home with my grandma, which forced me to speak Cantonese. I didn't go to Chinese school but my grandma try to teach me in her own way. I remember I had Chinese textbooks and notebooks specifically for writing Chinese characters, but reading and writing was never my strong suit. Every few summers or so, I'd go to Hong Kong with my grandma to visit my cousin and other relatives. I spoke Cantonese around them without issue and went out in public conversing in Cantonese in stores, restaurants, etc. I even followed my cousin to a recreational school as well where the classes were taught in Cantonese. Only problem is that I could only listen and speak it, so any reading or writing I had to ask my cousin for help and he would transliterate. Eventually it came to a point where I was already better at speaking my "native" language than most of my Asian friends. In high-school and college, I've met people from the Canton district of China and Hong Kong, and I'm perfectly capable of conversing with them. That was my journey but my Cantonese still isn't perfect since I still don't know a lot of vocabulary in Cantonese. I can have a basic conversation, but my mind blanks on what to say the more technical it gets. My family says my technical vocabulary is actually pretty decent, but I still find myself turning on the English subtitles every time I watch a Hong Kong drama because I can't understand like 30% of what their saying.
To me you are fluent... In the sense that you understood what your mom was telling you and you were able to reply with what you wanted to say (quite complex ideas too!).. I feel the main goal of a language is communication, so please don't get discouraged if you don't feel like your Cantonese is "perfect", you're communicating! That's what counts! Enjoy the journey 😍
CBC now living in Germany... I'll have to give this a shot. I've learned French, Japanese, and German but Cantonese has been difficult. It's so hard to learn a language without learning the writing. Plus the learning resources available are so scarce 😢
The first 1000 people to use the link will get a free trial of Skillshare Premium Membership: skl.sh/jensentung12201
I tried ONLY speaking Cantonese in HONG KONG: ua-cam.com/video/KOe91ylj5tY/v-deo.html
From canada too i really love your content keep it up man
@@ZoeyTangCRE Just posted it in the video description!
@@Aymen2_9 Thank you!
Tip watch see see tvb :) The tone stuff is easier when you get Canto puns :)
An excellent attempt! It’d have been even better if you could pay attention to some often-neglected details, such as one should pronounce「廣」as “Gwong” instead of “Gong”. This is a mistake that many people make, even for native HKers lol. Cheers mate!
I’m a Hongkonger. I think you pronounce so well! You only learned Cantonese for 7 days, but you can say many different vocabulary. It means you already know many voacbulary from your family member, but didn’t use them before. Language is a tool, we use it to do something what we want to do. Don’t mind too much for your Cantonese is fluent or not!
Hong Kong is China!!!
@@compashinpei lol true.
@@compashinpei China is Hong Kong
@@compashinpei relax
@@compashinpei don't embarrass yourself
In HK, We write actual Cantonese when we’re texting FYI
@@kaitlynfung_ wah yuen loi gor gor dou hai gum
@@haargaan ying goi ho dor yun dou hai gum
We also sometimes use chinglish or jyut ping as well
@@kaitlynfung_ ikr so jeng
@@kaitlynfung_ D comment zan hai hou lan jeng! ngo geng yin tai dak meng hahahaha
This was honestly so heart warming to watch. As a CBC who can speak, read and write fluently, I’ve always found myself to purposely speak more English so I don’t seem too “fobby” bc I’ve had CBC friends who made fun of me. As I got older, I’ve realized it’s actually something I’m super proud of because it gave me an advantage at some job interviews, I can fully communicate with my non English speaking parents and I stayed connected to my culture. And seeing your video boosted that pridefulness even more bc it shows others who are trying to connect to their canto culture even when you’re so mainstream- that it’s not lame to wanna learn our mother tongue! I love these videos because it helps us connect to other parts of us that some of us may never be able to discover bc we grew up here (kinda like what your mom said about being afraid you not getting along with other kiddos if you went to Chinese school). She’s also right about Chinese school LOL. I went to mando school for 14 years and I learned all my mando and canto from hk and tw dramas growing up 😂 maybe in the future, you can try videos with a bunch of diff CBCs doing a series of tests to see how gold their Chinese is etc. (Been watching too many of those videos lately that it’s kinda getting addicting lol). ANYWAYS, after the long rant, I just wanna say keep up the good work and thank you. It really means a lot seeing our representation being put up there 😌🥰🙏🏼
What is CBC?
@@damien_bfg7033 canadian born chinese i guess
Being a FOB is nothing to be ashamed of - it's part of your culture
I'm born and bred in Hong Kong though so I might see things differently
Love your comment :)
Growing up I hated how much Chinese I spoke at home. I ended up not learning or speaking it for five years because all the other CBC kids would bully me. I regret those years. Over the last five years I've worked hard at learning more Cantonese and teaching myself Mandarin. Like you I am also proud of the strong base my parents gave me. Though I used to hate them for making me speak Cantonese, I'm very thankful now.
Never give up Jensen! I am also Chinese American and I am lucky because my parents didn't speak English at all so I was forced to speak Cantonese at home. Now I am 30 years old and starting to learn Mandarin slowly. 加油!
These videos are always so high quality
Thank you dude!
as a local from hong kong i can tell you its pretty hard to learn cantonese, you nailed it
The increase of ABC's and CBC's wanting to be more fluent in Cantonese is really encouraging to me. I always thought it was odd that I was one of very few kids (even in a Cantonese American community) that learned Cantonese fairly well from just growing up in a Cantonese household. Then, I realized, it was because my mom fostered a love for classic cantonese movies in me (Her fatal ways series is my favorite) and always told me that I need to reply in the language that I was being spoken to. Hopefully, they're concepts that I can pass to my kids in the future. Thanks for the entertaining video!
PS. Your cantonese had amazing improvement...would just use different phrases for a more natural conversation. Cantonese is just a bunch of "you can say it that way, but it sounds better this way because no one says it like the other way."
When seeing the part of the conversation with your mum, my tears dropped as I’m so proud of you. If I were your mum, I am so touched to see my son saying Cantonese to me. Keep it going.
From the one just sitting in HK over the screen.
As a CBC, my Cantonese sucks too 😂
We're in this together! ahaha
Same and ive been living here my whole life😂
加油，中文唔難學
@@ailo8964 ？
@@ailo8964 我唔信！
Whoa! I just stumbled on your video and was surprised to see myself at 1:55! Kudos to you for putting yourself on this challenge and setting a goal to be fluent in 2021! I think you did great :) You touched on so many important points about why Cantonese is so difficult to learn especially for those of us who were born overseas. As someone who makes content in Cantonese, I've found it hard to find suitable resources to share with my followers. But the process has been really fulfilling, and I'm constantly learning about this beautiful and expressive language of ours. I'm really looking forward to Part 2 of this video! Liked & subscribed! 加油!
Thank you for making such great Cantonese content and sharing the language and culture to the world!
Good for you man, you seemed to have learned really well during that week! Born in Canada as well, I struggled and felt embarrased to speak Punjabi with my parents because they would make fun of my pronunciations. But, my parents' English not being the best worked out in my favor 😂. They always spoke to my siblings and I in Punjabi and we're now decently fluent in it. I can now comfortably speak to my grandparents in the language that they feel most comfortable with, which means the world to me. Keep it up! I'm sure you'll make your goal of being fluent by next year 🤗
Funny how life works! Thanks for relating and your support!
It's so amazing how he takes some practice speaking Cantonese so fluently in 7 days, in fact Cantonese is probably the hardest language to learn and he still learnt it so well
Canton actually consists of 9 tones🤣but I really appreciate your endeavor, it's amazing!!!
You spoke really good Cantonese in just 7 days! KA YAU! 💪
This was so heartwarming to watch. I have a similar background to you in regards to Cantonese.
It honestly hurts that I can't communicate fluently with my grandparents.
Thank you for this encouragement. I want to try harder to learn Cantonese again!!
this is crazy bc im in the exact same situation in toronto!! my parents are from hong kong, and growing up they would speak to me in cantonese and i'd answer back in english (so our cantonese language skills are around the same level! im definitely trying to better my cantonese and mandarin for family and business purposes and this video has really inspired me) thanks for the great content!! excited to see your part 2 / improvement in a year!
That's pretty impressive! I am born and raised in Hong Kong, and have then lived half of my life overseas . My struggle is slightly different from yours - I can never sound native in English no matter how well I speak! Cantonese, with the tones (up to 9 tones for some sounds) is really hard to learn but I can understand what you say. It's a beautiful language that has been endangered. Keep it up bro!
Thanks for making such a well thought out video! I experienced the same issue when I returned to Hong Kong in high school. It was such a shameful experience not being able to speak the language of our home. But throughout the years having more friends who didn’t judge me I freely spoke more canto! Now I am 95% fluent so there’s hope! Thanks for sharing your experience excited for you!
That's so awesome! You've given me hope haha
so cool to see you and your mum talking together! She looks so excited for you and I can see your love for each other - good luck with your Cantonese studies!
Very impressive, I got into Cantonese a long time ago although I've always been pretty basic in my knowledge, I found everytime I went to HK it really helped my vocab and confiednce to a certain extent because as live, breath and think the language!
I started out singing in Chinese and was very well known for being "The Black guy that sang Chinese" and getting over 1M views on my first Canto singing video, this is like 15 years ago lol over the past year, even more so the past few months I've really wanted to get back into Cantonese so it's very inspiring to see videos like this! well done, you did really well 👏🏾
nice
I was born and raised in the UK and have been living in HK for 9 years but tbh I feel people here are hard to judge Asian people who cannot speak Cantonese. I don't judge anyone who can't speak English properly yet I get sh*t from some local people for understanding but not speaking even though most people like to communicate with me in English. Bear in mind I arrived in HK in my mid-20's, never had lessons and am not even Chinese! The funny twist is that I can actually speak quite OK, especially with strangers or those that have no English ability. I find the issue is with those that feel their English is good (even if it's not) or studied overseas and therefore have some snobbery over a foreigner speaking their language. Sorry, just sharing some thoughts, but I should say kudos to both you and Brittany for the great content!
I subscribe to your channel for over a year and I wonder how I missed this video earlier. I'm born and raised in San Francisco but in Chinatown so people told me my Cantonese sound like I'm actually from Guangzhou or Hong Kong where my parents came from. I hear that your Cantonese sounds great and you sound exactly like you're a fluent speaker of Cantonese to me! I still believe our Cantonese skills has to do with how much each of us were exposed to that speaking environment. I have "ABC" friends raised outside of Chinatown in San Francisco who don't speak Cantonese as well as I do despite their parents speak Cantonese natively. I strongly credit the fact that everywhere I went in Chinatown, while growing up, were all Cantonese-speaking environment that really helped me inherit Cantonese pretty well. :)
Awesome video Jensen! Keep grinding!!!
Thanks you two!
You have done a good job bro!
Thank you for saying Cantonese is an important language!
Hope you enjoy this language and become as better as you mum😉
Oh man. CBC here also and my canto is even worse than your canto at the start of the video. But I believe I can learn it eventually. Simply gotta do it 😁 And your video definately gave me the motivation to start doing it!
It's our time! You got this.
I think you speak Cantonese pretty well. (Maybe not fluent but it feels quite accurate to me) Your mom seems very sweet and encouraging as well. I’ve always found Canadian has their own kind of Cantonese which is a little different from ours and it is quite unique.
Most important thing is, you have to believe in yourself that you can do it. Learned that lesson from a guy on youtube, who taught me how to do the most amazing haircut myself. Gotta tell you, guy was 100% right.
Believe and you will achieve, that's the motto!
I’m casually working on my Cantonese. You’re doing a great job!
Keep it up 👍
I feel u, I just watched some “educational” Cantonese videos and I’m already struggling. I go to mother tongue lessons but i don’t understand anything my teacher says, I just nod and act like I know what she’s saying.
This video gave me motivation to learn Cantonese😺
I live in Canada and my Cantonese is pretty fluent.
I feel you man, I'm a BBC (British Born Chinese) and this lockdown has made me really want to improve my Canto. This video has definitely inspired me. Also your jawline is chiseled af! 🤯
dang, i couldnt even learn canto in 6 months HAHA good stuff fam
I tried my best! Thanks bro!
You speak Cantonese so good with 7days learning only. Its so impressive ❤
As someone trying to learn Japanese my advice is consistency over quantity or quality! You obviously put in a lot of work over the seven days, but don't hold yourself to that standard of trying to put in hours everyday then also giving up after a day/week/month. Best of luck!
I'm learning Polish and recently I started learning Mandarin Chinese. I use a variety of apps for learning languages (Babbel, Busuu, Drops, HelloTalk, Falou), one of the apps I use is called Drops and they have an option for learning Cantonese.
Greetings from Ontario, Canada
As a half canto, I completely felt every struggle you've listed. I never had to respond or think in canto in my household. I feel so much guilt and slow progress learning the language. I hold it against my mom for letting me quit chinese classes. I hope one day I can conquer this as well.
Same, I never felt the need to speak or learn Cantonese since my dad knew nothing and my mom just used English most of the time (other than like saying good morning). She tried to get us to learn it but didn't really make an effort into teaching or talking to us (my twin and I) in the language. I've always been scared of saying something wrong if I do learn bc I didn't grow up learning it and I don't want to awkwardly fumble my way through it especially around her side of the family so I just stuck to English. I've just decided I really want to try to get into learning it again and to not let that get to me too much because ik it's going to be slow going since 1. I'm not a child anymore and 2. I'm not a linguistic genius. Anywho, I hope you're doing well in your progress and good luck with any language endeavors ^^
As a Hong Konger living in Canada, I'm very happy to see people get interested in learning or improving their Cantonese! It is a language that is very reflective of our culture, especially our humor expressed in our play of words. Hope you can keep on going!
This is so cute, your relationship with your mom is also so cute!! Really reminds me of my and my brother's situation with our family because it's the same, haha!
I believe in you Jensen! (May I just say, your mom is so pretty!😍)
Thank you! I'll show this comment to my mom haha
Your commitment is very admirable my friend
Thank you brother
This is amazing and super encouraging!!! There are so many CBCs and ABCs, including myself, who can relate. Thank you for sharing your experience and your excel sheet too!!
Loved the idea and the effort Jensen! Your canto is great 💪 keep it up and can't wait to see your progress by the end of year!
I can understand your Cantonese because I’m from Hong Kong 🇭🇰
Your Cantonese is perfect
I was born in Australia, and I speak Cantonese fluently due to my parents only speak Cantonese at home
Same, I'm also an ABC
As someone who is probably 10 years older than you, the Chinese schools we had in Vancouver at the time were.... insufficient. Most of them were geared towards native Canto speakers who had a solid foundation in speaking but lacked reading and writing skills.
So, as someone who didn't know how to speak, or know the tones, it was a weekly terror to do homework in written form, and struggle to speak on front of the class based using written grammar instead of Cantonese's speaking grammar.
But, I memorize a bunch of Chinese words such that I had a solid jumping off point to learn Japanese and Mandarin rather quickly. On top of that, a lot of the lessons given were either steeped in folklore and history. It gave me a sense of connection with my Chinese identity that I could finally enjoy once the angst and anger had subsided.
Anywhoo! Great video as always. Looking forward to more.
Oh my goodness. As Chinese-Filipino born in America, your situation and mine are so relatable. When I was young, I was able to speak Tagalog (Filipino) fluently, but my parents stopped speaking it to me when I started school because I ended up speaking Taglish (mix of Tagalog and English) in my class even to my teachers. I lost the ability to speak it but can understand most casual conversations okay. It's mainly a problem trying to recall words. I have always wanted to learn the language, but my parents used to discourage me because they thought the language was not beneficial and that I should learn a language like Spanish or Chinese that is more widely spoken. I am almost an adult, and this video really gave me the motivation that I need to push through "the dip" and continue on my way to master one of my ancestral tongues one day. Thank you so much!!
Your video inspire me to have more motive to learn Cantonese in the future because i'm a huge fan of Lucas Nct , he's also from Hongkong.
Your Cantonese is soooo fluent, great job!
Canto was my mother tongue but since I started learning English in preschool, my vocabulary has remained there. Hence, it is really hard for me to communicate with people as well, especially my grandparents who cannot speak a lot of English. This video was really relatable, so thanks
I'll join you, my goal is to be close to fluent in Korean by Dec 21. I am looking for my bio dad, I hope to speak to him in Korean. I have been trying just like you, it never sticks, there are no Korean speaking friends near me.
Best of luck to you! We're in this together!
I hope you will have a good time with him, good luck with your study fam
I speak Cantonese. Fluently. Moved to San Francisco from Macau when I was 12. Forgot a lot of my Chinese because I want to be more Americanized. I played a lot of basketball and got good at it so other kids won’t make fun of my English.
I now moved back to asia because i feel speaking my mother tongue is extremely important. In addition, Asia is just a much more exciting place to live. I learned my mandarin in Taiwan. I took classes but the most important thing I did was I hangout with older aunties at a breakfast shop everyday. They gossip all day and I just speak to them daily. This helped a lot. I suggest you find a coffee shop in Chinatown and just speak with the retired grandpas.
Parents. The greatest gift you can give a child is language.
BTW. Im proud of you for being so brave speaking Cantonese in front of camera. I have a lot of struggles when recording my podcast in mandarin!
Hello Jensen - Thank you for this video. I watched it with my half-Hongkonger (my half) and half-Irish-Scot American daughter. She is almost six and since she was born I have been trying to get her to learn Cantonese. Your experience confirms my believe that having my girl ANSWER in Cantonese is key, because this helps her learn vocabulary in ways that simply listening won't. She watched with rapt attention and was excited whenever you spoke Cantonese. I think you have inspired her to use Cantonese more! Thank you so much.
A bit of information (it's not a correction): Hongkongers have actually been writing Cantonese more in the past 6 or 7 years, in an attempt to preserve the language. When I communicate with my family and friends in Hong Kong, we use written Cantonese more than anything. The added bonus is that Google or Facebook translates do not understand written Cantonese so it's really like a secret code LOL
Actually, Cantonese has nine tones, whereas Mandarin has four tones.
6 pitch with 3 extra tone
九聲六調
If 6 tones make it seemed easier to language learners, why not? Why always make it seemed like "It's hard, just don't learn it. You just can't"
@@li_tsz_fung This. In terms of pitch variation there are only 6 tones and there's zero benefit to see it as 9 for a learner
I can't wait to watch the 2nd part in one year. Keep believing in yourself!
As a Vietnamese growing up in Germany, I have also been insecure about speaking Vietnamese and received many discouraging comments, so your video reminded me that we don't need to be great to start, but we need to start to be great. Therefore, I also want to challenge myself. Thanks, Jensen!
while you're learning Cantonese, I'm learning English from your videos 😂
Love it!
In Vancouver, there are a lot of opportunities to use cantonese, like ordering in Cantonese at restaurants in richmond. It is always good to know more different languages!
Pretty much in the same situation as you. I'm a CBC born in Vancouver with extremely broken and basic Cantonese skills. I'd speak English back to my HK immigrant parents growing up. I'm finally trying to relearn Cantonese more fluently as a grown adult and it's a long, slow and difficult journey. I lost part of my roots when I ignored speaking in Cantonese at home and didn't think that much of my Chinese heritage. I think my parents also wanted what they thought the best for me by encouraging me to speak English as well so I'd fit in at school and into North American society in general with perfect English, that they wished I wouldn't experience as much racism as they did experienced immigrating here decades earlier. Best of luck on your journey, great to see you so wholeheartedly embracing learning the Cantonese language.
Almost perfect!!! If I were to comment one thing, you should have said 多謝 instead of 唔該晒 at the end
duuuuuuuuude kudos to you. Love the way Cantonese sounds. Not sure about your association method, I feel intuitively that should be more oriented towards the actual meaning of the word, but it may be hard to make more literal associations if you're just studying in one place without having a diversity of colours, sights and smells to activate memory with a piece of language. Good luck to you man, acquiring a second language is always hard but I bet it'll be soo worth it.
You are in the same situation with my nieces and nephews. They were born and raised here. My sisters and brothers speak Cantonese to them but they reply in English. But they do understand Cantonese they just can’t speak. You did well !!
strongly support, keep it up Jensen!
Who was the cantonese speaking youtuber at 1:56? I'd like to start watching some and the jyutping being there would make a huge difference
Cantonese with Brittany!
As someone born and raised in HK, your cantonese is actually very nice especially when especially you learned this within 7 days. Keep going!
His new year present: 廣東話
Hey, love your videos.
I myself also a Viet born, my mom speaks Cantonese and I am still trying to learn it day by day. Your video really encourage me! Subbed!
i'm early! i'm looking forward to part 2 haha
Time for me to get to studying LOL thank you!
i was born in new mexico and my grandmother never spoke english so i had to learn cantonese im glad it worked out that way
I lived in a Cantonese area in Shenzhen China. The more I was exposed to Cantonese the more my brain recognized some of the words you said in the video. It took my brain a second or two more to know what you are saying but...wow amazing. I have been "studying" Mandarin for 7+ years and yeah....
Your cantonese is not terrible to be honest, much better than I expected. I feel the best way to start becoming fluent is to write and read in Chinese. If you don't do this, you'll never pick up on the speech patterns and word combinations that are available. I was pleasantly surprised how you don't fully suffer from direct English to Chinese translation when talking, I think you have a good foundation to start building from.
Hey I think you're doing pretty good man, I understood everything you're saying. true some parts sound a bit funny but it's actually less than what I expected. You have pretty good pronunciation too!
Just wanted to say this - hopefully this helps a little bit. when you say I "ngoh" it sounds weird to me, I'm British Born Chinese and for me when I teach my friends who are English to speak Cantonese, I tell them to say aww~ but shorten it by a little bit to get the "ngoh" sound.🙈 Add oil 💪
Im told that aww vs gnor is lazy tone.
@@xlartanislx It is a lazy tone but often Cantonese speakers in Hong Kong use this lazy tone, so it would be more natural than the current pronunciation he is using.
@@asianbejealous My mom would hate it if i a said awww, annn gang, au yok. She would disown me.
Awesome video from a fellow Canto!
Good job, keep at it.
I'm glad I can speak three Chinese dialects and now learning Vietnamese. You are never too old to learn.
Jensen...that's so awesome that you want to learn. I feel for you, although not a CBC, I'm close enough (youngest of the family and emigrated from HK at 4 y.o.)--so like in your case, my vocabulary is what I struggle with. I can hear and understand what is spoken but my speaking and pronunciation is horrible. Keep up the learning and you have encouraged me to start.
I found this because I’m trying to learn Cantonese to communicate better with my patients, but your journey sounds exactly the same as mine has been to complete my Hungarian, which was missing in the same way and reason as your Cantonese! So, hearing your mother explain what happened was really nice.
ah amazing! congrats on your progression! i am in the same boat and trying to learn too, i picked up bits and pieces from listening to my parents speak Cantonese but could never string a sentence together myself.. even after going to Chinese school when younger. good luck with your learning, i have no doubt you'll be fluent in no time
From one cantos to another, keep up the good work
Thanks man!
As a teen living in since I was born Hong Kong, you pronounced very well!
One tip, learn how to swear in Cantonese, it's the part we always use and it's part of the culture 😏😂
Keep practising as much as you can!
I used to speak my mother tongue well as a child but between my British school and classic child-of-immigrants-identity-crisis, I forgot it all. My mother tongue is also exclusively a spoken language and often mistaken for a dialect so there aren't really any resources out there to learn it. On my last trip to Azad Kashmir though, I managed to relearn quite a bit of it and since that trip, I make sure to speak it regularly with my family.
I think getting from a conversational level to fluency is really difficult though, especially as there will be some complex or technical terms that are not used often, and finding a way to practice those can be hard.
Good luck with your Cantonese studies!
ROFL! You didn't reach the dip just after 3 days. That's just called slowing down. The dip happens much later.
Your mum is a sweetheart
Hey bro great to see you again. Hope you had a great Christmas and just wanted to wish you a very Happy New year and may 2021 bring you much success, joy and happiness. Stay safe and catch up again real soon.
Glad to see people like you as descent of Hong Kong to learn Cantonese. We need to inherit Cantonese and pass the language to next generation. Actually, you speak so well as a 7-day learner of Cantonese. Keep learning. 加油!!!
Jensen, thank you for your every effort in learning my mother tongue. Cantonese is a beautiful language. Let's use it and keep it alive.
加油！you can do it Jensen 😊
Thank you for the support!
You speak very well. Appreciate your effort.
All your videos are so good man! You're gonna get the silver play button in 2021 I already see it
I have the same problem bro, the stopping and starting mid-sentence along with stuttering my words is so fustrating and I think is due to our sub-conscious translating on the fly and our voice not keeping up. I found watching Stephen Chow films helped me the best cause it's funny, memorable and the overall the words they use are generally quite colloquial it helped me think in Chinese as well. I also found that training to speak the language at a slower-pace helped me too, I tend to speed up in Cantonese so I can reduce the time I butcher the language but i realised that speeding up makes it worse. All in all, keep going at it bro!
I identify with this so much! I’m a LABC (Latin American Born Chinese), don’t know if this term even exists, but I’ve also felt challenged to learn more Cantonese! Let’s continue this precious language on! 加油 (gaa1 jau4~ add oil)!
As a fellow abc myself, I completely empathize. I was also hoping my Canto would improve during my one semester HK study abroad, but my canto skill didn't really change either. I kind of gave up on the idea of learning Canto too. Watching your video made me inspired and curious about what studying approach you're going to do, super excited for the next episode!
Really cool video man! Hope you become viral. 👍
I’m very proud of you!!! I’m so happy 😁 like I’m ecstatic to hear you speak 🗣 keep going mate you are amazing
I actually think you did very well!! At least you realize it and want to learn the language. Well done to you, Jensen 👍🏻👌🏻
For music, I would recommend My Little Airport, they are an indie pop duo and their lyrics are written in spoken Cantonese. Their songs also reflect young hongkonger’s life authentically which I love so much.
I love these videos of you speaking Cantonese. Brings me the best laughter
Wow, hats off to you! You spoke very well with your mom
Love your determination and focus! With that mindset, you will be able to do it for sure! Learning language is all about practice. Keep talking with your parents and friends in Cantonese. 👍👍
Just found this video!
Definitely relate to this. I'm ABC but my family actually spoke to me in Cantonese at home. While my parents were at work, I'd stay home with my grandma, which forced me to speak Cantonese. I didn't go to Chinese school but my grandma try to teach me in her own way. I remember I had Chinese textbooks and notebooks specifically for writing Chinese characters, but reading and writing was never my strong suit.
Every few summers or so, I'd go to Hong Kong with my grandma to visit my cousin and other relatives. I spoke Cantonese around them without issue and went out in public conversing in Cantonese in stores, restaurants, etc. I even followed my cousin to a recreational school as well where the classes were taught in Cantonese. Only problem is that I could only listen and speak it, so any reading or writing I had to ask my cousin for help and he would transliterate.
Eventually it came to a point where I was already better at speaking my "native" language than most of my Asian friends. In high-school and college, I've met people from the Canton district of China and Hong Kong, and I'm perfectly capable of conversing with them.
That was my journey but my Cantonese still isn't perfect since I still don't know a lot of vocabulary in Cantonese. I can have a basic conversation, but my mind blanks on what to say the more technical it gets. My family says my technical vocabulary is actually pretty decent, but I still find myself turning on the English subtitles every time I watch a Hong Kong drama because I can't understand like 30% of what their saying.
To me you are fluent... In the sense that you understood what your mom was telling you and you were able to reply with what you wanted to say (quite complex ideas too!).. I feel the main goal of a language is communication, so please don't get discouraged if you don't feel like your Cantonese is "perfect", you're communicating! That's what counts! Enjoy the journey 😍
CBC now living in Germany... I'll have to give this a shot. I've learned French, Japanese, and German but Cantonese has been difficult. It's so hard to learn a language without learning the writing. Plus the learning resources available are so scarce 😢