A Missionary’s Experience Learning Cantonese Part 1
What languages did you learn while growing up?
Hello! My name is Mark. Growing up in Nova Scotia, Canada, from a young age, I only spoke English. When I went into secondary school, I decided to take a French immersion class in school at the age of 13. I learned French for around 6 years. French is only used in specific areas and with specific people groups. But I didn’t have any friends that spoke French so I only spoke the language in school.
Learning French had its challenges but it became fairly natural to me. The biggest challenge at that time was learning the French accent. I didn’t understand that the accent was such an important part of learning the language.
It’s been different in various seasons of my Cantonese learning. I think early on, learning Cantonese opened the door for me to connect with locals. It was a way to break the ice in different situations. Whenever I would met local people in Hong Kong, I would ask them to teach me Cantonese phrases. If they were shy about English, they could see that my Cantonese was not that good. It would bring us to the same level. There are many silly and easy-going ways to connect with locals!
FOOD IS IMPORTANT IN HONG KONG’S CULTURE.
I started to see some cultural differences that were apparent in the language. I think one of them was the importance of food in Hong Kong culture. One obvious phrase is 食咗飯未呀? [sik6 zo2 faan6 mei6 aa1] “Did you eat yet?” which is like “How are you doing?” with a literal meaning of “Have you eaten rice?” That’s very unique, compared to my Canadian culture, as we are more direct in English. There is a cool cultural connection to food and rice specifically!
“LET’S EAT TOGETHER!”
When I first came to Hong Kong and joined an English youth camp, some of the youth were teaching me some phrases. Before the meal, we say the phrase 大家食啊 [daai6 gaa1 sik6 aa1] which means “let’s eat together”. I was learning the importance of food. Food is a shared experience. We weren’t just there for a meal, but to connect with each other. Even the way they eat meals is very unique - which is called “family style” in Hong Kong. In the west, everyone served their own plate of food. In Hong Kong, everyone gets a bowl but is served with different dishes in the middle.
SO DRAMATIC BUT SO FUNNY!
I think Cantonese is a very dramatic language! Learning certain slang phrases like 笑死我 [siu3 sei2 ngo5] which means “I’m laughing so much I’m going to die”. These are funny local phrases that I hear a lot when two local people talk. It’s a lot of fun learning Cantonese slang and idioms.
OVERCOMING SHYNESS AND FEAR OF MESSING UP.
Growing up I was very shy! While learning Cantonese, I learned to get over my shyness and fear of messing up. Overtime, whenever I would mess up, I thought to myself “it’s not a big deal”. It’s better to try it and go for it! If I got it wrong, I’d laugh with my friends about it. Changing my way of thinking, I was able to learn quickly. Overcoming shyness carried over into other areas of my life and learning that it’s okay to be wrong, to have a good attitude, and learn from it!
CANTONESE TONES: “OH YOU MEAN THIS!!!”
I remember a moment when I overheard a specific phrase repeated. I kept hearing people say that phrase and in my mind I was like, “I think it means this”. I repeated the phrase with certain tones but my local friends had no idea what I was talking about. A friend goes on to ask another local. They don’t understand me at all. Suddenly, one of them will say “OH YOU MEAN THIS!!!” and the tone is slightly different. To my ear, we are both saying the same thing, but to them it makes no sense. Coming from English, where there are no tones and it’s pretty straight-forward, this doesn’t make much sense. There’s a little change in the tone to a certain word, and then you are talking nonsense. It can be so different from what I am used to.
I VALUE COMMUNICATION A LOT.
I value communication a lot. It’s something that is very important to me. As I have been learning Cantonese, it is more apparent. Ever since I first came to Hong Kong and started making friends, I’ve had the desire to learn the language and communicate to my local friends in their language. When we speak in English, I feel that I am missing out on a part of their lives because of their heart language. It is worth learning a language to communicate with people in a way that they naturally express themselves. It’s been one of my motivations in learning this language. I’ve been wanting to have a deeper level of communication with local people in Hong Kong.
Check out more of Mark’s language learning experience in the next blog post!
