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FULL BLOG POST:
http://www.iwillteachyoualanguage.com/how-to-learn-cantonese-1-year/
This video marks the 1-year point in my mission to learn Cantonese. It's a partly-prepared speech where I discuss some of my learning experiences, challenges and successes.
If you're learning Cantonese, be sure to check out my new passion project, Cantonese Conversations:
http://www.iwillteachyoualanguage.com/cantoneseconversations
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Learning Cantonese has been the most challenging language-learning experience for me so far. I live in Doha, and there are no Cantonese speakers around here! This has made finding people to communicated with a top priority, and quite hard to do.
Also, the fact that Cantonese is a spoken language has made the learning process a strange one. What do you do when you hardly even see your language written down?
I'm pretty pleased with my level after 1 year, especially given the fact that I've only really studied for around 15 minutes a day on average. I think I've got a good command of the 6 tones of Cantonese, which is good because it was a priority for me. I've also got used to speaking with people and can hold really interesting conversations, providing they're on reasonably familiar topics. (No politics yet!)
Areas to work on in the future include building my vocabulary way beyond where it's at now, and learning written Chinese.
Moving forward, I'm going to prioritise speaking over other things. This means arranging regular language exchanges or tutor sessions, and trying hard to keep it consistent.
If you'd like to watch the other progress videos from this year of learning Cantonese, here they are:
1-month:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1C0i-_MR64Y&list=UUSSLq4KYuztsj6ch2RbqoIg
How I learnt Cantonese (the first month):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48Z09WEBcCM&list=UUSSLq4KYuztsj6ch2RbqoIg
Singing in Cantonese:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9Z20Bg8Ppg&list=UUSSLq4KYuztsj6ch2RbqoIg
2-months:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pwu5Jg7Uvw&list=UUSSLq4KYuztsj6ch2RbqoIg
3-months:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vM50pgWlHsE&list=UUSSLq4KYuztsj6ch2RbqoIg
4-months:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAA-_RfvV24&list=UUSSLq4KYuztsj6ch2RbqoIg
6-months:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbm085X6eps&list=UUSSLq4KYuztsj6ch2RbqoIg
Here are the resources I used to learn Cantonese:
http://www.iwillteachyoualanguage.com/resources/cantonese-resource-page/
Also check out this interesting article from Brian Kwong on why Cantonese is an easy language to learn:
http://www.fluentin3months.com/cantonese/
