the shapes of words are different here
I remember my early impressions of tones in Mandarin. I was very intimidated, and it took a lot of listening to people speaking slowly in recordings before it really started to sink in, so that I wasn't thinking "Oh this tone moves upward in that way so it's second tone" so much as "this feels like second tone", which eventually leads to hearing 学 in a sentence and thinking "learn, study" and knowing it's not "snow" without having to think about it. Which is a lovely feeling.
And now I've been tossed out of the boat again and I'm swimming, and feeling that way again. Because Cantonese tones seem to start out familiar (1st and 2nd), but then they start getting interesting. And there are six... or so. And it's not as much about learning pitch as it is about learning how words feel in relation to each other. At least in my head.
So last night I watched Needing You... again. I saw it a couple of years ago, probably listening to the Mandarin audio, but this time I put it on Cantonese and listened closely. I just wanted to feel the shapes of sounds, how sentences rise and fall. To start trying to get used to how the language feels as it moves. I've learned a few words now, but still don't have anything to grab onto, really, in dialog.
Because the lessons I've studied so far reveal other things. I'm still not clear on the spoken/written distinction, except that it's possible I need to really put Mandarin out of my mind for a bit. It seems like yes you can see 的 and 是 and 怎麼, but in the spoken language you'd more likely have 嘅 ge3 and 係 hai6 and 點 dim2? I'm still confused. Maybe I should keep things simple for myself while starting out, and that means focusing on listening to the spoken language.
And there are a couple of different romanization systems I'm seeing (Yale and Jyutping), which is making note-taking a bit complicated.
This is the part where I'm getting my feet wet. It's very interesting, but I need to figure out how I want to simplify all this information while starting out, so that I'm not overwhelmed.
On the other hand, I have all these cdrama box sets that have Cantonese audio I can listen to any time...
And now I've been tossed out of the boat again and I'm swimming, and feeling that way again. Because Cantonese tones seem to start out familiar (1st and 2nd), but then they start getting interesting. And there are six... or so. And it's not as much about learning pitch as it is about learning how words feel in relation to each other. At least in my head.
So last night I watched Needing You... again. I saw it a couple of years ago, probably listening to the Mandarin audio, but this time I put it on Cantonese and listened closely. I just wanted to feel the shapes of sounds, how sentences rise and fall. To start trying to get used to how the language feels as it moves. I've learned a few words now, but still don't have anything to grab onto, really, in dialog.
Because the lessons I've studied so far reveal other things. I'm still not clear on the spoken/written distinction, except that it's possible I need to really put Mandarin out of my mind for a bit. It seems like yes you can see 的 and 是 and 怎麼, but in the spoken language you'd more likely have 嘅 ge3 and 係 hai6 and 點 dim2? I'm still confused. Maybe I should keep things simple for myself while starting out, and that means focusing on listening to the spoken language.
And there are a couple of different romanization systems I'm seeing (Yale and Jyutping), which is making note-taking a bit complicated.
This is the part where I'm getting my feet wet. It's very interesting, but I need to figure out how I want to simplify all this information while starting out, so that I'm not overwhelmed.
On the other hand, I have all these cdrama box sets that have Cantonese audio I can listen to any time...