Learning From Life (Cantonese Edition)

If you’ve been studying a language for awhile, you might experience the joy of breaking away from textbooks and venturing into the world of real-life materials. Of course native speakers don’t consider them learning materials; they are just parts of life. But for a learner, everything and anything can be your new textbook. It is both exhilarating and a little overwhelming. I’ve been studying Cantonese for over a decade (definitely tortoise mode), and I have learned a thing or two about selecting content to learn from. 

Most beginners need to use learner-specific materials. We need the slow voices, the simple vocabulary, the bilingual text (or in the case of Canto learners, romanization). When I started learning Canto, these materials were few and far between. The ones that did exist often were unhelpful. I would start a new learning program only to quit in frustration over ridiculous romanization or content that mixed together Spoken Written Chinese and Colloquial Cantonese (spoiler alert: you sound ridiculous if you are a learner and try to speak that way). 

Thankfully, Cantonese learning materials have come a long way! It is a great time to be learning Cantonese as there are more and more great resources out there. Instagram and Youtube, in particular, have many new teachers making interesting and accessible content. Hooray! 

After you reach intermediate level, you’re kind of ready to spread your wings and use content created for native speakers. But what kind of content is the most helpful? 

I skipped to using native content relatively early because of my frustration with learner-specific content, but I am not sure if that is the best way to do things. When I started learning to read, I would just use Pleco to translate messages from a Whatsapp group I was in. I also read through 男人唔可以窮 (laam4jan2 m4 ho2ji5 kung4, Men Can’t Be Poor). It was an online story published on the Hong Kong forum Golden. It took me ages to get through, but after I did I watched the movie version, so that was fun. 

I have always watched a lot of movies and Youtube to get more exposure to the language. One mistake I made was watching mostly action/triad/war type movies. While I enjoy those stories and I don’t necessarily regret it, later on I realized they are not the best way to support my learning. As you might imagine, the kinds of situations and vocabulary that comes up in those movies are not necessarily practical for me. 

Recently I was talking with a few other learners and locals, and one of the locals recommended his favorite fantasy manga. While tempting, I decided fantasy isn’t necessarily the best route to take at this point in my learning journey. Years ago when I was working on Spanish, I tried reading Harry Potter. I decided that it was not a good idea to spend my energy deciphering words like “muggle” and “expelliarmus.” 

These days, I try to find content that is natural and has more real-life situations. Rom-coms and family dramas are great as well as certain reality shows. ViuTV has a lot of great content. I have watched 35+ Love (a dating reality show) and Be A Man (a boyfriend bootcamp reality show) and learned so much useful vocab. Right now I am rewatching Single Papa (暖男爸爸, nyun5naam5 baa4baa1). As you might guess, it’s about a single father who is raising a young son. I am getting much more out of it the second time around and am really enjoying the show. 

I also like to follow different content creators on Instagram so that I can get a bit of practice in when I am doom scrolling. Two accounts I enjoy are pov.filmprod and water_wild_month. The former does a lot of real-life situations and asks the audience what their take is on it. For example, they might show the conflict between a more practical, future-oriented boyfriend and his idealistic, dreamer girlfriend who likes to live in the moment. The latter channel does a lot of shorts. It kind of reminds me of Arm Channel’s earlier stuff (RIP). 

Speaking of which, I still think Arm Channel’s street interviews are hard to beat and often go back to watch them. Let me know if you have any other Cantonese street interviews to recommend, especially ones that use Cantonese subtitles! 

On the Christian side of things, I try to read my Cantonese Bible for ten minutes every day. Of course I listen to the sermons every week and always learn new words. Sometimes I will watch the Bible Project’s Cantonese videos. Those are definitely a stretch for me, but it’s nice to have a challenge sometimes. It’s also nice that they have the English version as well, so I can compare the two. 

When you are learning a language, the world is your playground, but it’s important to find the corner of the playground that fits your level and needs. Happy playing!