Learn Cantonese/Mandarin Here

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Cantonese people in Guangzhou (used to called Canton, where People speak Cantonese) felt very depressed recently because the government suggested that they need to use Mandarin for news on their major TV channels. Many of them took to to street to protest.

We Cantonese love our own language while we are glad to learn Mandarin, or Putonhua 普通話, the official Chinese language. However, Cantonese, the most influential Chinese dialect in China and around the world, need to keep alive for its important value. This beautiful language has the longer history than Mandarin and most of us found it more colorful, rich in its cultural background and root. ChineseBay.com began as a site to teach basic Cantonese, now started to help all Cantonese-speaking people to keep this language alive.

Interestingly to mention, Channel 26 (KTSF) in San Francisco, give the prime time to Cantonese news (at 7pm) instead of Mandarin news( at 10pm). So you can see the high status of Cantonese language among us overseas Chinese. Cantonese, Yeah!

I happened to find a very good Cantonese learning video by MissYau’s Asian-SuperAsian Channel.
We can learn these “Scary” Cantonese expressions:

1. 你玩嘢啊?（lei wan yeh ah?)  Are you kidding (me)? Playing games?
2. 你买定棺材啊你！（lei mai ding goon choi ah lei.)  Put a down payment on your coffin. Or get your coffin ready. It’s a threat or curse.  Are you scared yet? Watch this fun video.
3. 唔好煩啊你 （Mm – mo – fan – ah – lei. ) Don’t be a nuisance. Or “Stop bothering me.”

Please note that she does not use Jyutping.  For Jyutping, it is like this:

1.

简体	你	玩	嘢	啊
繁體	你	玩	嘢	啊
粤拼	nei5	waan4	je5	aa4
Yale	nei5	waan4	ye5	aa4

2.

简体	你	买	定	棺	材	啊	你
繁體	你	買	定	棺	材	啊	你
粤拼	nei5	maai5	ding6	gun1	coi4	aa1	nei5
Yale	nei5	maai5	ding6	gun1	choi4	aa1	nei5

3.

简体	唔	好	烦	啊	你
繁體	唔	好	煩	啊	你
粤拼	m4	hou2	faan4	aa1	nei5
Yale	m4	hou2	faan4	aa1	nei5

More and more people are using “lei” instead of “nei” for 你(you), even for people older than me.

Is it SCARY Cantonese or not, but it’s basic Cantonese, or colloquial Cantonese. It is Cantonese youtube, or Youtube Cantonese lesson. Way to go MissYau!

Maria Wong created a great food channel in Youtube. Unlike others, her videos are all made with her heart and we really love it.

This week she teaches how to make “Fried Prawns in spicy sauce”:

You don’t need to understand all the Cantonese she speaks here, but at least the first sentence:
大家好， 今日廚師介紹做過“幹燒大蝦”。
Jyutping:daai6gaa1 hou2 gam1 jat6 cyu4si1 gaai3siu6 zou6 gwo3 gon3siu1 daai6 haa1
Hello everyone, today the chef introduce (teach) how to make a “dry burn big shrimp (Fried Prawns in spicy sauce)”.
She repeated “daai6 haa1″ (prawns) or just “haa1″(shrimps) many times.

Stay tuned, we will help to learn Cantonese as well as Maria’s cooking. She is from Hong Kong and lives in Germany.

This is an advanced Cantonese lesson, which trains your listening comprehension, but the beginners can pick up some basic phrases from her speech too.

As we mentioned earlier, Anki is a

great tool to create Chinese Flash Cards

Here’s another example using Anki.

The deck of these Chinese flash cards was generated with the Anki Pinyin Toolkit and a word list from another open source Java program: Flashcard for Chinese Characters.

The pinyin, English definitions and sounds were all automatically generated from Pinyin Toolkit. Send me a list of Chinese words, and we can created a new deck for you to download.

Files You Can Download:
1)Anki Chinese Flash cards: Grade1 (323) ( You need to download and install Anki first if you haven’t)
2)Anki - the Best Flashcard tool (2146)

Anki is a great flash card system that helps to remember things easily. It is a great tool for Chinese learners!

We have just started a video series “Learn Chinese With Anki”, you may just watch and learn and then download the software for your computer( Windows or Mac or iPhone, Google Phones) and use it for your self study too.

Here’s lesson One of “Learn Chinese with Anki”:

Now here’s the link to download your copy of Anki:
http://ichi2.net/anki/ (It is a dofollow link to promote this great web site)

Although Windows comes with Chinese fonts and IME (input method) that you may optionally install from your Windows CD, we still prefer online Chinese input like the one we have here at Chinesebay.com.

How to Input Chinese in Windows XP using Pinyin

Youtube has a great video to show you how to set up the Chinese input from Microsoft Windows XP by geekannex.

Microsoft Pinyin is great if you use Windows a lot. I love it myself before Google Pinyin and Soguo Pinyin came out.

We also have a good video tutorial on how to use our online typing without the trouble of installing anything. And it is compatible on most OS system.

How to type Chinese Online

How to Say and Write “I Love You” in Mandarin

wo3 ai4 ni3 = I love you

You can see our learning video posted on Youtube

Learning to write Chinese helps you master the language faster and remember the character better when you see them.

Flash Animation On this Site (open in New Window)
Related articles:

How to write “I love you” in Chinese Mandarin/Cantonese different Chinese fonts in graphic/image

How to write “ai4=Love” in Chinese -the animation

Pinyin or Hanyu Pinyin is the official Chinese romanized phonetic/pronunciation system. It’s been around for over 50 years and has been helping Chinese learners a lot. More Info Here

How do you type the Pinyin tone marks with your keyboard? It’s pretty tough without some tools.
You can do it easily with This One
(Try to type in this han4yu3 pin1yin1 and you will get hànǚ pīnyīn )

It is great that you can find lots of video to learn Chinese on Youtube. But searching could be time consuming and only some video clips are of good quality and whith while.

Here’s a list of good ones you may find worth your time:

1. Learn Mandarin Chinese Lesson 1 – Introduce yourself:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OX9fFh5O_Lw In this lesson, you can learn these words in Chinese Mandarin: Hello! My name is Joe Smith.
I am a teacher. Nice meeting you.
Good-bye!

2. Learn Mandarin Chinese Lesson 2 – Greetings

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8arzzQ6ATM0 In this lesson, you can learn how to say these in Mandarin: Good morning! Good afternoon, Mr. Smith.
Good evening! Good night. See you tomorrow.

3. Learn Mandarin Chinese Lesson 3 – Airport

In this lesson, you can learn these in Mandarin:
Where are you from? I am American. Welcome to China.
Thank you! Please take me to Beijing Hotel.

It’s a pitty that live-tutoring.com is down and work no more. But you will sure find more useful learning materials and resources on Chinesebay.com! We will find you more great video. Until next time!

I got the words from a friend:
群星 – 北京欢迎你
词：林夕
曲：小柯 Read the rest of this entry »