Art by @PokeNerb #114

The artist explains in the caption of her post here. I believe the comic is an early version where she collects and tries to articulate her feelings.

https://www.instagram.com/p/Db_Oiv6iaRS

Hi all, I’m a hispanic, fluent speaker of Cantonese. My partner’s family is from Zhongshan, very close to HK and Macau, and I have studied the language for around 8 years at this point. I learned it because it was the lingua franca of the city and basically required for daily life. I last visited 3 years ago and noticed very few kids could speak it, as a consequence or govt policy and migration, but it was still very much the day to day language used by adults everywhere here unless you went to a bank or govt office.

I came back this summer, and it’s a totally different world. I’ll detail exactly what happened but the language is practically dead here when it used to be the primary form of communication just 3 years ago. I basically need to use google translate in a place where it was unthinkable not long ago.

The main thing that changed is that Mandarin is now the assumed default everywhere for basic, low stakes interactions. When you enter a shop or interact with a market vendor, everything is in Mandarin, even if both speakers are local Cantonese natives. They claim the reason if they don’t want to inconvenience others in case they might be from outside regions and don’t know how to speak the language, and even my partner believes it. I ran a social experiment where I would exclusively speak Cantonese and here’s what happened.

Low skill workers / shopkeepers / vendors

All of them Mandarin speaking only unless above age of 40. Above 40, usually only one person in the shop can understand Cantonese but cannot actively speak it. Fruit vendors, convenience store cashiers, street cleaners, all Mandarin. These were 100% Cantonese speaking in 2023.

Any new malls, buildings, modern shops

All Mandarin. No kids speak it, no adults speak it. Only 1 or 2 out of 20 can understand it.

Old town markets and restaurants

Older ladies serving dim sum can speak it 50% of the time. Shocking to be in a dim sum restaurant hearing Cantonese music and you have to try hard to find anyone who speaks it among the staff.

The remaining speakers are left hidden within crowds, within older clientele of restaurants. It’s completely dead among anyone young.

Playgrounds

We met a lot of elderly grandparents, taking their grandchildren to playgrounds around the area. However, we noticed none of the children were replying to the grandparents in Cantonese even if the grandparents were 100% Cantonese speakers when I brought this up, they mentioned that it’s because their schools are in Mandarin and there’s no way to fix it. I told him that it’s really important to preserve Cantonese and they agree but they said there’s nothing they can do. This was shocking to me because the easy solution is to simply speak to the kids in Cantonese and tell them you don’t understand when they speak to you in Mandarin that way it forces the kids to actively produce it however, it seems none of the kids can say even a single word.

Conclusion

Overall, I felt a big sense of entitlement from people to force me to speak Mandarin even though we’re in the Guangdong region of China. Even Cantonese speaking folks would tell me wow you don’t know how to speak Mandarin in a sneering way and had no response when I said, isn’t this Guangdong? it’s completely reversed. Language change is non-linear and happens very fast, especially when the low stakes social interaction conversations are all in the new language. Workers have no incentive at all to learn and kids have no desire to even enunciate a single word. Only HK will preserve Cantonese.

On two different instances today at different times I had interactions with mainlanders/mandarin speakers. context, I live in canada.

I’m at the supermarket and in a queue, a guy passing by says something in mandarin. No one answers him, so he asks again. I think he’s asking what the queue is for. I say the only phrase I know in mandarin. “I’m sorry I don’t speak mandarin.”

He angrily replies “You’re speaking mandarin right now.” ffs. So should I just ignore or just reply in english?

In a line again and the person I’m with begins speaking cantonese, assuming this woman speaks canto. The auntie repeatedly asks “are you even chinese?” I’m pretty sure they know cantonese is being spoken, unless they aren’t even familiar with what cantonese sounds like.

I was pretty offended by her question tbh but I admit it. Even though I was born here, the early chinese settlers were from south china toisan. They endured lots of hardships so that people could run. (it’s a saying). So the fact that alot of mandarin speakers who are immigrants, want to disregard that we even exist (or that cantonese exists) is insulting.

Guangzhou's mayor has officially committed to protecting the Cantonese language, identifying it as a vital component of the region's cultural heritage in a government work report

https://www.thestandard.com.hk/china-news/article/322131/

The report stressed the importance of preserving Cantonese as the "living carrier of Guangfu culture." This initiative is part of a larger effort to enhance the city's status as a national historical and cultural center, which includes promoting traditional arts like Cantonese opera.

The government aims to use the broader Lingnan culture as a significant link for overseas Chinese to strengthen their connection to their cultural identity.

Hi everyone! 👋

I'm Sun, a Hongkonger living in Australia and the creator of Koala Chinese 樹熊認字.

I have two young daughters born here in Australia. Like many overseas Hong Kong parents, my wife and I want our kids to grow up speaking Cantonese and learning to read and write Chinese.

That's actually why I started building Koala Chinese. It began as a little personal project for my own kids, with Cantonese pronunciation, Traditional Chinese characters, and English translations.

As the project grew, I also added Mandarin and Simplified Chinese to support families with different learning needs, while keeping Cantonese and Traditional Chinese at its heart.

The app is now live on the Apple App Store, and I'm still actively developing and improving it.

I'd really love to connect with fellow Cantonese speakers, especially parents raising children overseas. What are your biggest challenges when teaching your kids Cantonese or Chinese? What features would you find useful in a learning app?

If you're interested, please give Koala Chinese a try! I'd genuinely appreciate any feedback, suggestions or even criticism.

Thanks for reading and supporting an independent developer! 🐨❤️

Cantonese doesn't appear in the drop-down menu when you add a spoken language to your LinkedIn profile. This wasn't an issue as you could still type in "Cantonese" manually.

Now, it seems you can only select languages from the drop-down list. "Chinese" is an option, but it doesn't reflect spoken proficiency in different Chinese varieties.

Does anyone know of a workaround, or have any ideas on how we could raise this issue with LinkedIn?

English version is at the end of this post.

前幾日有個貼文（广东小孩不会讲粤语 父亲生气了），大家普遍覺得係家長喺屋企唔教粵語。

其實根本冇咁簡單。

你 sub 大部分訪客都係身處英語環境嘅地區，有呢種諗法唔難理解。但廣州啱啱相反，廣州本身係粵語區，天然存在粵語語言環境。呢種情況下依然出現「廣州人唔識講廣州話」呢種事，責任顯然唔完全係喺家長度。

我喺廣州街頭見過呢兩種情況：

1. 一名中年女性帶住自己嘅囡囡同阿媽喺條街度行。嗰個女睇落係上幼稚園嘅年紀。兩個成年人之間嘅對話係廣州話，細路女用普通話要求兩個成年人嘅對話改成用普通話講，因為佢聽唔明粵語。中年女性用普通話話畀女仔知，聽唔明就要學嘛，學下學下咪聽得明囉。
2. 喺學校門口，家長同學生之間嘅溝通好鬼離奇。家長講廣州話，學生講普通話。如果有熟人問點解學生唔講廣州話，多數會得到呢種回答：学校要求讲普通话，讲普通话才是文明人。

「讲普通话做文明人」呢種 slogan 已經存在咗幾十年，佢係 CCP 嘅推廣普通話嘅洗腦話術之一，由幼稚園開始就灌輸。呢句 slogan 嘅潛台詞係，「講地方語言（粵語）嘅都唔係文明人」，明顯帶有歧視意味。喺江澤民卸任前嘅兩三年，CCP仲加強咗配套措施，懲罰喺學校講粵語嘅學生，學校全面普語化。

更弊嘅係，由於大量普通話人群湧入（俗稱「洗人口」），廣州人講廣州話反而會畀人歧視、受到侮辱。「普通話警察」早就周圍都係。真係「妹仔大過主婆」。

喺噉嘅洗腦通同埋打壓之下，好多學生唔願意學粵語，抗拒學粵語。

前幾年就已經有媒體報道，廣州小學生親口表示「唔願學粵語」。呢種情況下，家長想教都冇辦法教。

以下係媒體報道同埋討論文章(WeChat)：

“我是广州人，不会说粤语，也不想学”

还记得去年，一个《我是广州人，但不会广州话》的小视频刷爆了广州人的朋友圈。

镜头里，这个00后的小学生说：“我是广州人，不会说粤语。”

其实这样的年纪不会说粤语也没什么大问题，只要多花点时间去学去说就可以了。

但是，当记者问到：你想学粤语吗？她的回答是：我也不是很想，感觉叽里咕噜的。

这个回答，带给我的只有心酸：新一代的广州人，都不会说广州话了吗？

之前网上也做过一个《6-20岁能熟练使用方言人群比例》调查，发现已然有30%左右的人不会说粤语。

广州人在广州，被剥夺粤语权利，母语变无语

甚至还有，在广州讲粤语被骂秀优越感、被说歧视外地人

清汤大老爷啊，我们广州土著本来存在感就低，讲粤语又做错了什么？那可是我们从小说到大的母语啊！怎么就变排外了？

English Version:

A few days ago, there was a post where the general consensus seemed to be that parents just aren't teaching Cantonese at home.

In reality, it is far from that simple.

Most users in this sub live in English-speaking environments, so it’s understandable why you’d think that way. But Guangzhou is the exact opposite—it is inherently a Cantonese-speaking region with a natural linguistic environment. When the phenomenon of "Guangzhou locals not knowing how to speak Cantonese" still occurs under these conditions, the responsibility clearly doesn’t lie solely with the parents.

I have personally witnessed these two scenarios on the streets of Guangzhou:

1. A middle-aged woman was walking down the street with her daughter and her mother. The daughter looked to be about kindergarten age. The conversation between the two adults was in Cantonese. However, the little girl demanded in Mandarin that they switch to Mandarin because she couldn't understand Cantonese. The middle-aged woman replied to her in Mandarin: "If you don't understand, you have to learn. Learn to understand it."
2. Outside a school gate, the communication between parents and students was bizarre: the parents spoke Cantonese, while the students replied in Mandarin. If an acquaintance asked why the student wasn't speaking Cantonese, they would most likely get this response: "The school requires Mandarin; only civilized people speak Mandarin."

The slogan "Speak Mandarin, Be a Civilized Person" has existed for decades. It is one of the CCP's brainwashing tactics to promote Mandarin, drummed into kids' heads starting from kindergarten. The subtext of this slogan is that "those who speak local languages (Cantonese) are uncivilized," which carries an obvious discriminatory undertone. In the two to three years before Jiang Zemin stepped down, the CCP even tightened accompanying measures, punishing students who spoke Cantonese at school. The school has fully adopted Mandarin as the medium of instruction and communication.

To make matters worse, due to the massive influx of the Mandarin-speaking population (commonly referred to as "demographic dilution" or "population washing"), Guangzhou locals are actually being discriminated against and abused just for speaking Cantonese. "Mandarin Police" are everywhere (普通话警察早就周围都系). The maid has outgrown the mistress (妹仔大过主人婆).

Under this kind of brainwashing and suppression, a vast number of students are unwilling to learning Cantonese, refuse to learn Cantonese.

Media outlets reported years ago that primary school students in Guangzhou openly stated they "don't want to learn Cantonese." In this environment, even if parents want to teach, they simply can't.

Media Report and article Cited Below (WeChat):

"I'm a Guangzhou local resident, I don't speak Cantonese, and I don't want to learn."

Remember last year, a short video titled "I am a Guangzhou local resident, but I don't speak Cantonese" went viral on the WeChat Moments of Guangzhou locals?

On camera, this Post-00s primary school student said: "I am a Guangzhou local resident, but I don't speak Cantonese."

Honestly, not speaking Cantonese at that age wouldn't be a huge issue, as long as you spend some time learning and practicing it.

However, when the reporter asked, "Do you want to learn Cantonese?" her reply was: "Not really, it just sounds like gibberish."

This answer brought me nothing but heartbreak: Is the new generation of Guangzhou locals really losing their ability to speak Cantonese?

A previous online survey on the "Proportion of People Aged 6-20 Who Can Fluently Use Dialects" revealed that about 30% of the population already cannot speak Cantonese.

"Guangzhou Locals in Guangzhou, Stripped of Their Cantonese Rights: Mother Tongue Turned to Silence"

There are even instances where people speaking Cantonese in Guangzhou are accused of "showing off superiority" or "discriminating against outsiders."

Good grief! We Guangzhou natives already have such a low profile. What did we do wrong by speaking Cantonese? That is our mother tongue that we grew up speaking! How did it suddenly become "xenophobic"?

I've been taking Cantonese (I'm an ABC) lessons for about a month and a half at this point. Last night when I was in the middle of my lesson, my father tried getting my attention while my door was closed to ask me a quesiton, I paused my lesson real quick to tell him I was in class real quick and he asked what it was for, I said "it's for Cantonese" and I immediately felt a smug tone from him.

I could tell he wasn't happy that I was paying to learn (extremely cheap parent, I'm sure a lot of you can relate) Cantonese when he feels like I could've just learned it from speaking with them. But I'm sure a lot of you have felt that your parents/family just shame or make fun of you just like mine lol. It's extremely discouraging and then they wonder why you decide not to speak it? It's funny because not like anyone ever took the time to correct me, or taught me how to properly prounounce things.

But if they won't teach me, I'll find someone that will. For those who've been wanting to learn, I encourage you to take the leap and do it. I've been taking lessons on italki and have enjoyed my time so far. It's helped me fill some gaps in my knowledge and I want to continue to get better. The language will not die with my parents, and I want to speak it and see the language live on.

video @blackjoe_forfun

I guess this video is also for u/OneLastPoint ask, where are we indigenous to?

vocab

冚杯 ham bui1 "clink glasses" also 扻 ham2

I’ve been learning Cantonese for about 4 years (two of those years were full-time study). I love the language, but I’ve always found it strange that despite HK being an international city, and there being ~80 million Canto speakers worldwide, almost no (western) foreigners speak it.

I made a video (spoken in Cantonese) breaking down why I think this happens, but I’d love to hear your thoughts.

My theory comes down to thee things:

1. The time commitment: For a western foreigner with no background in a related language, it takes 2,000+ hours to reach proficiency vs. 500 for Spanish. The barrier to entry is brutal.

2. The English bubble: English is an official language in HK. Everyone learns it in school and you basically have to use it as the medium of instruction if you go to uni in HK. Honestly, I’ve never met a Hong Konger whose English was worse than my Cantonese. You can survive here too easily without it.

3. The switch: HKers don't expect westerners to speak it. When I try, I get the "Wah, you speak Chinese!" reaction... and then they immediately switch back to English to be polite/efficient. It kills the practice flow.

Do you guys think the social friction (Point 3) is a bigger barrier than the actual difficulty of the language?

Watch the full video here (spoken in Cantonese)

Thought it was great pin yin

I live in Toronto where there’s a big community of taishanese people. Istfg my family is so messed up, with 70% of them having some sort of gambling addiction. My parents are divorced because of that plus the fact that my dad was verbally abusive. Every other Chinese friend around me ,from different cities ,don’t seem to have this problem. They have rather peaceful/educated families ( especially the ones speaking mandarin). One of them even told me that all the Chinese immigrants come from educated families as he thought every Chinese person came here with work visas. U was lowkey offended at his ignorance because this couldn’t be further from the truth. In my family, everyone works at restaurants and grew up dirt poor. I only were able to get outta China cuz my mom sacrificed herself and married a deadbeat dad to get a visa.

I met an older Chinese-American who spoke Cantonese and I asked if they were Cantonese. They replied that they spoke it but it made me think about other times I’ve heard similar careful responses. I wanted to ask this group what “Cantonese” means to them?

I want to make this post after someone posted about a tiktoker fafalily saying they are Cantonese, but people say they are Vietnamese.

This story is about me and I want to let other people know that Cantonese are not just from Hk.

This is me! I am so tired of people telling me I am not Chinese. I can speak perfect Cantonese. I can read and write both traditional and simplified Chinese and canto slangs. I grew up speaking and practicing Cantonese culture. Most importantly, my ancestors are from China. The only diff for me is I was born in Vietnam, and I have a Vietnamese name and I look Vietnamese. I am teaching my child Cantonese language (傳承粵語), but some people are just so mean. When I am on 小红书, I see more and more people from GZ don’t even speak Cantonese anymore. When I introduce myself to new friend, I tell them straight that I am Cantonese from Vietnam and some people are like you are not Chinese. Anyway, I feel bad for some of these people kept complaining that oh people don’t speak Cantonese anymore in China blah blah and then still want to pass on the culture, but go and complain about me not being Chinese bc I wasn’t born in HK or GZ. Sorry, there are people from Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand. We identify ourselves as 華僑. I have experienced this all my life in the state. I get to the point that I don’t even care. I let them talk shit about me and then I stare at them. Oh, I also can understand Mandarin, but don’t speak it. When I first met my Taiwanese in laws, they are really nice, but I would hear their friends saying oh your daughter in law is viet, blah blah until they found out that I am Cantonese and can understand them. It’s funny. Anyway, sorry for the long post. I just want to say that it’s very similar to people born in the US and say they are Chinese American. That’s the best way I explain to my friends. No offense to anyone. I just want to say Cantonese can come from other places other than HK.

Even a decade ago, I can mostly get by speaking Cantonese whenever I go into Chinatown, but now with a few exceptions, I feel like everything here is mostly spoken in Mandarin. I have also come to the realization that I now have to learn Mandarin to go to any Chinese business out here. Do you think this is the case for where you are? Discuss.

"CIA bot" What?

"English dialects in England" What a flawed analogy.

"Coarse local dialects" Is this elitism?

video by @miss_pear_and_her_peers

件 gin6 classifier for people in a derogatory sense "item"

打靶 daa2 baa2 "useless"

迷姦 mai4 gaan1 "drugged, date raped"

濕鳩 sap1 gau1 useless, shitty, 十九

etc.

hi everyone! i was born in guangzhou and moved to the us at a young age w my cousin! as we grew up in america, our family forced us to speak english inside our household, and no canto/ mandarin were allowed…

slowly, english became the main language we used but it always make me sad that we are forgetting part of the culture.

now as an independent developer, i want to find this culture back and learn the language thru an accessible way. would LOVE to hear what everyone would be interested in, in an canto learning app, so we don’t have to attend canto school, but instead learn it day by day 😊💛

would love to hear more on:
1) what is your biggest pain point in learning canto?
2) why do you wanna learn canto?
3) what features would you want the app to have

anything would be appreciated !! 🫶🏻

video by @justange_canto

I’m Chinese American born and raised in the US. Growing up, I always felt like my Cantonese mom was so verbally abusive. She had no idea how to give emotional support or warmth and she would curse at me in Cantonese and would say things like you’re so useless (gum mo yung), etc.

But as I got older and started seeing Chinese American or Cantonese influencers on social media, I’m realizing that as a culture, Cantonese people are just verbally harsh and they don’t know any better. So now instead of thinking my mom was verbally abusive, I’m more like that is just how Cantonese people are raised to talk to each other and they parent the way they are parented.

TLDR: Growing up in a Westernized culture, I thought my mom was so verbally abusive but now I’m not as condemning towards her because that’s just how Cantonese people are raised to speak to each other and maybe I shouldn’t take it so personally. Anyone feel similarly?

video @hero_ladies

Destructive Criticism vs Constructive Criticism?

Berate and intimidate, or Reason and support?

Which parenting method is effective? I've posted this video to offer the type of example positive Cantonese vocabulary to use should one want to break the negative cycle as a parent.

Comment below if you want translation, and vocab help. Hopefully somebody will help step in

The original video she was speaking way too fast. I slowed down the video 85% so it sounds a bit more natural

video @bythatjustine

打斷 daa2 tyun5 "to interrupt, to cut short"

嫌棄 jim4 hei3 "dismissive, to give the cold shoulder"

態度 taai3 dou6 "attitude"

兵分兩路 bing1 fan1 loeng5 lou6 "split up into two groups"

火滾 fo2 gwan2 "infuriating".

幾 gei2 used as an adverb here "quite". 幾火滾 "pissed off"

黑面 haak1 min6 "to give a stern or displeased look" literally: black face.
Black is used as the verb here, 晒 saai3 is a verb particle used to indicate completion. 黑晒 "completely blacken". she says 黑晒面 to say the person "(became) bitch facing"

尊重 zyun1 zung6 "respect, hold in esteem" 唔尊重 "disrespect"