In this last semester of studying Cantonese, I admit I’ve been quite a bit more lackadaisical in reporting progress than I was in my Arabic study.  There are good reasons for that.  First, the study itself has been somewhat more lax than Arabic was.  This is both good and bad.  While I readily admit that I could be considerably more gung ho about my studies, at least it’s not elevating my blood pressure like Arabic class did.  Arabic was high stress and took a lot of work.  Cantonese has been a free-time pursuit, devoid of testing and any sort of outward motivations to improve my performance.  I always recommend to people who want to learn a language to join a class or a club or something that will give them some pressure to perform, because internal motivation usually will only carry you so far.  While this hasn’t become problematic for me thus far (i.e., I’m still quite enjoying the language — it hasn’t become “work” yet), if I were continuing my studies to a much higher level, I assure you that I would be in some sort of a formal learning environment.

As is, my classroom structure is thus: I’m learning from a DVD series + a grammar book that a friend got me for my birthday.  Every Saturday, a friend from Canton comes over and we go over the DVD dialogues together, and he quizzes me on vocabulary, and generally helps me along in my studies.  Of course, the fact that I already speak Mandarin has greatly accelerated my Cantonese studies, so instead of learning the entire language structure, I find myself essentially mapping the new Cantonese words to the Mandarin structures I already know (of course, taking note of areas where Cantonese grammar diverges from Mandarin).  I can’t call myself conversant, by a long shot, but I already find myself understanding a lot.

A few complaints about the DVD series that I’m using: while in general it’s pretty slick (if somewhat 1970’s-ish in appearance), I am a little annoyed by the fact that the Chinese character version of dialogue scripts are written in formal language (think Mandarin), which diverges significantly from what the characters are saying in Cantonese.  I realize that, being produced mainly for English speakers, the Chinese character version scripts are probably considered gratuitous, but it would make much more pedagogical sense to simply transcribe the dialogue — unique Cantonese characters and all.  The fact that written Cantonese “looks wierd” to most educated Chinese speakers is besides the point.  If you’re trying to learn the language, it’s important to reinforce the language as is via writing and speaking whenever possible.  My other complaint on the DVD is that it features exactly three actors, who play more than three characters.  Actors are filmed in what looks like a sound studio (against a black curtain), so there are no context clues to what’s happening in the dialogue.  Really!  How much more expensive would it have been to film the dialogues in the supposed locations, to have some actual acting, and thus to allow students to ascertain the meaning of dialogues from the context.  As is, I’m honestly unsure how students are supposed to be understanding it.  Personally, as I read Chinese, I just read the Chinese character version of the dialogue to discern meaning.  I suppose students are meant to use the English translation function, but it translates words literally, so getting the meaning of sentences from that function could still be difficult from time to time.

Nevertheless, I’m happy to be studying Cantonese, and I’m pleased with my decision to forego taking the class at the university, as I’m convinced that my friend makes a better instructor than the university-hired “tutor” would have been.  I look forward to continuing these studies at least through the spring, although it is likely that I will go ahead and buy the 2nd year materials to keep up my studies, as I’m hoping to someday get a job at a university in Hong Kong or Macau (and thus, some Cantonese proficiency would be tremendously useful).

I received the following link (to a newspaper article) recently:

Hong Kong seems to have an unspoken rule about the local dialect being impossible to learn for foreigners. Caucasian foreigners, that is. I never see Indians, Pakistanis, Filipinos, Thais or Indonesians having any trouble with it, nor those ubiquitous American Mormon missionaries. So it cannot be the case that only Chinese have the ability to speak it. Indeed, local Chinese expect the above-mentioned, as well as overseas Chinese of any distinction, to be able to fluently speak Cantonese after a certain amount of time, or upon arrival. Thus it is not the dialect itself that is “too difficult” but locals’ and Caucasians’ perception of it.

Mind you, as I’m studying Cantonese at the moment, this struck a chord. To wit, Cantonese hasn’t yet struck me as being even “very hard” — let alone “impossible,” but, of course, as someone who already speaks Mandarin and Taiwanese, I’m probably not the most representative Caucasian learner of Cantonese. Still, I’ve heard this schtick before in many many places, talking about languages as varied as Japanese, Dutch, Hungarian, and Navajo. There is a constant assumption that there is something “special” about certain languages that makes them “more difficult” or “impossible” for outsiders to learn. This is demonstrably false, as there are inevitably foreigners from all background who do, indeed, learn those languages, and often even some high-profile media personalities will be non-native speakers. As the article points out, there is a certain sense of having a “club-language” — inaccessible to outsiders — by certain locals. This is often evidenced by the open hostility some show towards those foreign residents/visitors who do effectively learn the local dialect.  Like the author in the article, I’ve personally experienced some rather “painful” conversations with people who, despite extremely poor English skills, steadfastly refuse to speak their native language to me — despite clear evidence that 1) I can speak/understand it; and 2) it would make the conversation a lot quicker and easier on both sides.

Still, the flip side to this sentiment is a sense of entitlement often held by Westerners, which convinces them that they simply shouldn’t be expected to learn local dialects. In essence, the attitude is: “I am a Westerner… No matter where I am, you must serve me in English.” The pure asininity of this position should be clear, but it has always amazed me just how many people swallow this attitude instinctively, and are indeed aided and abetted in their endeavors to not learn a language by locals whose own bigotry gives them a vested interest in promoting the “impossible language” myth.

As I mentioned last spring, after being warned off of continuing my Arabic studies for the time being, due to restrictions on free time availability as I undergo the comprehensive exams this month, I got informal permission to take a Cantonese class.  Now, I knew from the start that this class was more of a “class” with fingers up-in-the-air-in-scare-quotes from the outset.  The program at my school for teaching languages not offered by existing departments basically encourages a form of self-study combined with arranging “tutors” (as opposed to “teachers”) who are usually undergraduate native speakers of the language.  They don’t “teach” so much as allow time for some consistent review.  While I could see the value for such reinforcement if one didn’t know anyone offhand who spoke that particular language, the fact is that I do have several good friends who are Cantonese natives.  I decided to keep (and add to) the course text, save some money by withdrawing from the program, and prevailed upon a friend to offer me weekly support/instruction.

The advantages: cheaper, easier (in my own house), and more tailored to what I already need and know (my friend is consciously building off of and relating it to my Mandarin skills where appropriate).  Additionally, while I cannot fault the skills of the official course tutor, I was rather alarmed at her low level of meta-linguistic awareness in that she stated point blank that Cantonese “had no tones.”  This rather bizarre statement flies in the face of facts (stated even in our text) — Cantonese, actually, has 6-9 tones, depending upon local dialect.  Now, for the benefit of the doubt, she might have just been trying to reassure nervous students that this wouldn’t be “too hard,” but, quite frankly, I didn’t want to be patronized, and I certainly want some feedback to ensure that I am pronouncing things correctly.

Disadvantages: I get no course credit, and there’s no way of proving to future employers that I have, in fact, studied some Cantonese (unless they are able to independently evaluate my abilities).  Additionally, without any test pressure, it’s going to require a lot more conscious effort to “stay on the ball” with my studies, and to not slack off.  This will ultimately become a test of my own intrinsic motivations…

Next time: Why Cantonese????