I’m a Hong Konger living in Canada.
About half a decade ago, I met my now husband in Hong Kong, a Chinese born Canadian that didn't speak a lick of Chinese, both Mandarin and Cantonese. He was interested in finding out his heritage and culture, he embarked on a journey to learn Hong Kongese and asked for my help.
I certainly don't claim expertise in Cantonese, although I have spoken Hong Kongese my entire life. Granted, my background is in English. I have an M.A. in Literary Studies (English). You all know that being a native speaker doesn't make you good at that language, but teaching it certainly helped me with my own understanding of Cantonese. At that time, I didn't know where to start. We purchased a lot of calligraphy exercise books, he was learning Chinese on Duolinguo. But here is the thing, in my frank opinion of teaching, Chinese and Cantonese are their own languages. Some experts' opinions might differ because officially Cantonese is a dialect. But, let me tell you here, learning Chinese certainly doesn't help you converse in Cantonese. In fact, if you speak your Canto like you have learned in your Chinese lessons, most Cantonese speakers will have a hard time understanding you.
So when I discovered there aren't a lot of books or resources out there to help people learn Hong Kongese, not that there are no resources out there but their approaches tend to be a Chinese learning approach. I have decided to do it my own. I wanted to find a way to approach this complicated language using the understanding of English Linguistics for English speakers. Being an interpreter for English and Cantonese certainly helped me a lot in spotting out interesting things you don't normally notice in a day-to-day pure Cantonese conversations. On this site, you will find many materials that guide you to becoming a near native Hong Kongese speaker. You will find out the differences between Chinese Chinese, Cantonese Chinese and subtle differences between other Cantonese Dialects and Hong Kongese.
These are the fun ways I have created to help you, & my hubby will be going through this journey with you all to learn Hong Kongese, as well, to learn some Chinese Chinese and other Cantonese Chinese along the way.
I hope by doing this, people like my hubby, will be able to feel closer to their own heritage. People who are attempting to learn Cantonese regardless of their background will be able to find meanings in these small but trivial lessons. Yet, the big dream is to be able to draw some patterns, help unify the Cantonese language a bit, and preserve and witness the evolution of this beautiful language.
Enjoy this chapter of your life!
