My Second Mandarin YouTube Video: Resumed Cantonese Studies!

Good evening from Singapore!

I am pleased to let you know that I have just shot and uploaded my second video in Mandarin Chinese on YouTube.

Please check out this video:



For those of you who do not speak Mandarin, in this video I am talking about my recent decision to resume studying Cantonese, and about how I became interested in this language.

My only regret is that throughout the video I had to speak exclusively in Mandarin, because I am still way too shy to talk Cantonese in front of my viewers!

Previously, I studied Cantonese off and on for a few years, but only to a limited degree of success. Up until now, in terms of proficiency and fluency, my Mandarin Chinese is far better than my Cantonese, in which I can barely stumble along.

However, I really love learning Cantonese, not least because I love the Hong Kong pop culture, including Canto pop music, and Hong Kong movies.

Phonetic wise, I also love the sound of it, in comparison with some of the other Chinese dialects, including Shanghainese and Taiwanese. To me Cantonese sounds not only music-like, but also downright sexy!

What with my other language learning commitments and all (mainly my French studies), I had not studied Cantonese for quite some time.

But recently, I've decided to take up my Cantonese studies again, simply because I just couldn't resist the temptation!

Given my solid foundation in Mandarin (if I say so myself), I already have an advantage over other learners of Cantonese with no knowledge of Chinese, so if I really put my heart into learning Cantonese, I think I stand a decent chance of becoming fluent in the dialect in the not-so-distant future.

As for my method of learning Cantonese, I am making use of the audio podcast of RTHK's One Minute Reading column, where I can find tons of Chinese texts read aloud in Cantonese by the author of these articles. I download the related audio files from the Internet, and listen to and repeat after them over and over again to improve my Cantonese accent.

I hope my Cantonese can become good enough in the near future, such that I can gain enough confidence to shoot some Cantonese videos on YouTube. When that happens, I will make sure to let you know!

By the way, for those of you who understand Chinese, please do let me know what you think of this latest video, so I can improve myself.

Enjoy the rest of the weekend.

Talk to you again soon!