I’m learning more! I modified my first post to include more Instagram links and removed the “resources I want to try” (they didn’t pan out). Below I embed a few videos from creator Adam Tan that I enjoyed because they encapsulate the subtleties in learning Cantonese — things that I haven’t seen explicitly stated elsewhere, even in some of the resources I’m already using to learn.
Cantonese
Cantonese Learning Resources
Howdy! Since the pandemic I’ve put a little more effort into learning Cantonese. I didn’t learn growing up but was surrounded by it on my mom’s side. This first table is the resources I’ve found so-far that are pretty helpful:
| Resource | Link | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Jyutping | https://jyutping.org/en/ | Learn the romanization scheme |
| Mango Languages | https://mangolanguages.com | Might be free with your library! It is in Chicago. Good for phrases and hearing pronunciation, plus they explain cultural differences. |
| Pleco | https://www.pleco.com | Dictionary app |
| Flashcards Deluxe | https://orangeorapple.com/Flashcards | I can setup the flashcards in Google Drive and then it’ll sync |
| Cantonese Keyboard | https://github.com/yuetyam/jyutping | Keyboard app that uses Rime-Cantonese as a backbone |
| Drops | https://languagedrops.com | Good for vocab, learning characters and hearing pronunciation |
So far I think the trick with a lot of these apps is a) making sure I’m using vocabulary and phrases that a native Cantonese speaker would use, and b) learning in such a way that I can write both by hand and by typing. The former comes with any language, and the latter comes with the day and age we live in. A big part of learning anything at a later age is getting over making mistakes and trying to be a perfectionist, so it helps me to write out these challenges explicitly so I can hopefully overcome them as obstacles.
Also to address the former, I follow a bunch of creators, many of whom I found via CantoTok. Here are some of the ones I could easily find: