Hey, speaking Cantonese does not mess with one's sanity.... I'm pretty sure it was other things that messed with my sanity...
I'm not a real speaker either, actually, but my mom is and my dad was also, even though he was tone deaf. The main spoken language in Hong Kong is Cantonese, and about a 1/3 of the meetings his workplace had were in Cantonese so he decided he really needed to be able to speak and understand the language, even though they assured him they weren't leaving him out of any information loop -- things can be missed though, no matter how well-intentioned people are. He had to learn by repetition and feel -- my mom would listen and have him try saying things different ways until he got it right, and then he would memorize the feel of it since he couldn't hear the difference.
But it is more complex than Mandarin, because it has more tones.
Good on you though, getting the greeting right for your co-worker :) That's what I call community-building!
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Date: 2008-02-09 03:22 pm (UTC)I'm not a real speaker either, actually, but my mom is and my dad was also, even though he was tone deaf. The main spoken language in Hong Kong is Cantonese, and about a 1/3 of the meetings his workplace had were in Cantonese so he decided he really needed to be able to speak and understand the language, even though they assured him they weren't leaving him out of any information loop -- things can be missed though, no matter how well-intentioned people are. He had to learn by repetition and feel -- my mom would listen and have him try saying things different ways until he got it right, and then he would memorize the feel of it since he couldn't hear the difference.
But it is more complex than Mandarin, because it has more tones.
Good on you though, getting the greeting right for your co-worker :) That's what I call community-building!