What do you guys consider fluent? I'm sure a number of us can speak fine. I myself can speak it and can hold a conversation as long as it remains "informal." But is that being fluent? Wouldn't being fluent encompass understanding the formal and informal? What about understanding? There's such a difference between written and spoken Cantonese. For example, sometimes when I listen to Canto-pop, I have no idea what some of the lyrics mean. Some of the terms are just never used when we speak. Then there's the writing, would being fluent in Canto mean you can read and write the usual characters used by all dialects and the characters that are Canto-exclusive? I'm asking all this because, sometimes I wonder if I can really consider myself fluent in Cantonese.
i would not think that my chinese or cantonese are fluent because when i hear that word i would think of a person be able to read, write, understand what each word in chinese mean. and i do think that the youngster cant do that because most of the parents never even bother to teach them chinese.
i don't think my cantonese is fluent since when i talk to my mom or dad i stutter on my words (as a result my mom and dad don't know what i had said) and i mainly speak english to my brother.
hum... yea... i suck at formalities... my parents won't really teach me either, they just tell me go to go watch more chinese stuff
Haha, sometimes I wonder about that myself too. I don't consider myself a fluent Canto speaker; in fact, I'm ABC so English is apparently my primary language. I was raised speaking in Canto with my parents, but gradually, as I started attending school where American English was greatly emphasized upon, I began to pick up on my English rather than continue to improve on the latter. So now, I am able to use basic, conversational Canto with parents and others of the older generation, but when it comes to listening to TV news in Canto, I don't really understand much of what the reporters are saying because they often use difficult words/phrases that are scarcely used in informal, conversational Canto. Same thing with Canto-pop songs; I mostly don't understand what they are singing since they use the written form of Cantonese for the lyrics. And when this happens, I get to the point that I become discouraged and disappointed that even though I'm Chinese, I can't speak or even understand the language proficiently enough. It is then that I realize that the only language I'm actually proficient/fluent at is English. Following that, I often have to reassure myself that, on the other hand, as an ABC, my English is fluent, accent-free, and far more advanced compared to those born in China/HK. It is only then that I start to feel a little better about myself... For me, I consider fluency as encompassing both the formal and the informal aspects of a language (in this case, Cantonese). To be fluent is to be familiar with speaking and understanding a language inside and out, right-side up, upside down, backwards and frontwards. Being fluent means being able to speak, read, and write with ease and being able to do so readily just like I typically am with the English language. I'm in no way fluent in the Cantonese dialect. I consider myself able to speak Cantonese, yet I am not to the point of proficiency yet. But I've been trying to practice more nowadays so I could at least improve a bit more.
To me fluency is all about spoken language. So to be fluent in cantonese, I think you should be able to have a conversation with any other person who speaks cantonese, without difficulty, that may incompass formal language too. Whilst I dont get all the formal words, if i listen to the news, i can certainly understand what the story is about, but some of the more technical words may pass me... Songs I can understand now thanks to reading the lyrics as well as just understanding writen chinese to spoken cantonese I do consider myself fluent, just not to the standard of someone born and raised with canto
I lcan understand and hold a good conversation in cantonese, i have been living in hk for a wghile now so my Canotonese has got a lot better. Still don't know a lot of names and idioms and stuff so i don't consider myself fluent. I can speak well to my colleagues and friends though
im the new sensation and you can be my sidekick -clapclap haha if you can have a formal conversationthan you can understand fluent cantonese. i can talk and understand slang. but real formal shiznit aint my best side
i consider myself fluent at an elemetry level, not business level meaning i can hold conversations, but once you start getting into fancy terms and 4 word phrases i'm so lost
An 8 year old in HK has a bigger vocabulary Cantonese than I have.. :S But I can manage in HK... Do think that knowing the written language is a very big part in understanding the formal Cantonese as in news/canto pop or even in the tvb drama's played in "gu doy"
I think you've nailed it right there Yong-Shi, and I admire how you're very honest about your struggles as an ABC, as I am also an overseas Chinese myself (CBC). - It really bothers me when lots of other overseas Chinese I know consider themselves "fluent"... but "fluent" compared to who? Fluent in the sense that you're able to tell your parents and grand-parents that "you're hungry" or "want to go shopping"? Fluent in the sense that you can tell your parents "how your day was"? That is not fluency to me, and some CBCs are so cocky about that. I have heard them speak, and that is the extent of their fluency - basic, conversational words. If you were to ask them to express themselves the way they express themselves in English... O嘴 - no reply. I always have discussions about this and I think that other overseas Chinese people just haven't met what real Chinese is. I mean, as an overseas Chinese... who/when/and how much do you speak Chinese on a day-to-day basis - your family, and extended family, perhaps. I used to think that I was fluent, but until I met and became friends with many HKers in the past 2 years, I realize the true extent of my proficiency in Chinese..... If you think about it... if you are a typical overseas Chinese, you will speak Chinese for the majority of your life up until elementary school. Then it decreases. Now, think about the vocabulary that you accrued when Chinese was your dominant/primary language.... basic nouns, verbs, adjectives. Now fast track 10 years, can you go up to a random HKer and tell them about your 生活上既心事. Of course, there is Chinese school. For 3 hours a week, "reading" non-practical garbage from dumbed down textbooks, but does that really help? So, I agree with your definition of what "fluency in Cantonese" is. Keep working at it~ -rockon
Yup, I agree with you too. I think a lot of overseas-born Chinese only talk in Cantonese with their parents and relatives, and their skills in the dialect are mainly limited to minimum usage such as talking in the kitchen, and their parents or some other people might ask them, "So how is the food?" or "Would you like some more rice?" Or they might also ask them basic questions such as "How was your day at school?" and things like that. And yes, my Cantonese is probably only up to that level in which I can adequately respond comfortably in that sense. (When I was even younger, I would respond to my parents all in English while they talked to me in Cantonese.) But if you tell me to give a full autobiography of myself or to give you my opinion on certain political or controversial issues facing our world today, I would probably struggle with doing that, and I would have a lot of pauses and hesitations inbetween to think of how to put my thoughts and feelings into words. And vocabulary is another thing - if you lack the vocabulary, it'd be somewhat more difficult to express yourself and you would often have to use English for back-up (in other words, I'd be speaking Chinglish, haha). It wasn't until I started attending college (where there are a lot of international students) and I befriended some people who were studying abroad from HK. They influenced me to realize the significance of my own heritage and what it really means to be Chinese. And with that came my developing interest to improve upon the dialect as well. Even though I was born in the U.S. and my English became my primary language, Cantonese is still my first language that I picked up from my parents ever since I was a baby. And so I realized the importance of being able to speak the mother tongue and I began to develop the interest in improving upon my existing skills in Cantonese. So right now, I've been trying to train myself on expanding my own vocabulary and to speak more often in Cantonese with, not only my parents, but people outside as well. For example, I would go to a restaurant to order in Cantonese or if someone in Chinatown asks me a question about directions and how to get somewhere, I would respond to them in Cantonese too. I think watching movies and TV shows (esp. TVB) would be especially helpful. Unfortunately, I don't subscribe to TVB at home, but occasionally, there would be shows in Cantonese on the Chinese channel (even though most of the shows are in Mandarin), and I often watch movies and series on crunchyroll.com (and if you haven't heard of it, it's like YouTube, but there are entire Asian dramas/movies on Crunchyroll in their original, undubbed versions - but also with English subtitles). Thanks for your support; I can totally relate to your own experiences too. I'll continue practicing and working on it. You too (and everyone else who's practicing as well)! And yeah, I agree; if you keep on practicing, fast-track 10 years and you can go up to a native Cantonese speaker and, like you said, tell them about your 生活上既心事. Haha. ^^ Thanks for your post. It made me really happy to know that there are other overseas Chinese who think alike and also have a similar interest to improve upon their Cantonese as well. I really appreciate these types of people who are willing to learn. 總之你有學習嘅態度, 我肯定你會進步. As long as you have the attitude to learn, I guarantee you will definitely improve. -cool
@Yong-Shi and HKM> Your definition of "fluency" is perhaps a wee bit severe for non-native speakers, but true. I do think that, not only oversea Chinese, many so-called natives Chineses (Hong Kong born in particular) fail your defition since formal usage of the language is beyond their capabilities. Of course that isn't the majority case in a Chinese/Cantonese dominant society like Hong Kong, but the number is not as minuscule as one would think. I have had acquintances who do not know/comprehend some commonly used "proverbs", which is unacceptable to me for a fluent speaker of Chinese/Cantonese. It may not seem practical, but many times, that's one of the most effective way to improve your comprehension, and thus formal language skill.
Hmm, I suppose that's true, but I didn't think that there would be so many native-born HKers who wouldn't be able to grasp the formal usage of the language. True, I do have an HK friend who, when I asked her the meaning of a formal word in written Cantonese, didn't know that such word existed. I hadn't said it improperly or anything, and I gave her an example as used in written context too; it's just that I found it odd that she didn't know. Anyway, learning Cantonese in particular is totally different from the experience of learning another language. Many languages like English and Spanish are pretty much the same with spoken and written contexts (although the spoken form may also have informalities with slangs and slurs). On the contrary, Cantonese is a dialect that involves colloquial informalities that are only used in spoken context, and when written at a professional level, totally adheres to the written standard of the Chinese language in general. So it's not surprising that many non-natives could only understand/speak colloquial Cantonese and don't know how to read or write, much less understand some of the formal words/phrases that are used. I guess it depends on the eye of the beholder. For some, their perspective on fluency (with Cantonese in particular) is to be able to at least communicate with others and get their messages across comfortably without stuttering or getting their tongue twisted in the process of speaking. That's the most important thing that matters to them. The overseas-born, especially, would probably not feel the need to pick up on more advanced Chinese (or to learn to read/write), and they wouldn't be using much Chinese anyway since they live in a society dominated by the typical, mainstream language - which in our case, is English. So according to them, their perspective on fluency encompasses being able to understand and communicate well with others in the least. Of course, from the Hong Kong perspective (or from any other community primarily dominated by Chinese), their perspective on fluency would involve not only knowing how to listen and speak well, but they would also need to learn to read and write formal Chinese since that's the standard of education in HK - it's what's required of any HK student studying there in order to advance further and communicate professionally with more advanced concepts when the time arrives for them to go out into the career-world and compete with others. But we're talking about the overall level of the standard of fluency among the HKers in this case. If some do not have the capabilities of understanding the formal usage of the language, then yes, they would fail to meet up to that overall standard. So yes, my own standard of what's considered "fluent" may be a bit off the top for certain non-native speakers, but I'm observing this from a different viewpoint other than that of the typical, overseas-born Chinese, but rather, that of which the actual native speakers themselves would deem to be fluent. (My implication is that I don't want to succumb myself down to that lower standard of fluency, and if I did, I might as well consider myself fluent too.) In saying so, my own Cantonese skills are nowhere near fluency, and I don't consider myself to even have reached the level of proficiency yet even though I am able to communicate in basic Cantonese with others and talk regularly in social settings. I'm not saying that the standard of fluency among non-natives is incorrect; I'm just pointing out that everyone has a different level of judgment, and depending upon their own self-defined standards, that's how much they would push themselves accordingly if they ever want to attain that level of fluency.
Fluent in cantonese is when you can talk about any subject without hesitation or needing to think too long for specific words. You should be able to just pick up anywhere in a conversation in cantonese without thinking about it. Should be like an automatic process. Recognizing and understanding slangs, double meanings, jokes, sarcasm, and common phrases is a must. I always think if a person can debate on any topic fluently and logically in a language, then he or she should be quite fluent.
