#Cantonese

[fullcravings]

Mini Cantonese-Style Mooncakes

[piizunn]

let's meet at the confluence (2024)

The New Gallery's Billboard 208

January 27th - June 30th, 2024

let’s meet at the confluence is a suggestion to all Calgarians to consider the site where the Elbow flows into the Bow river and question how settler-colonial history is privileged in public and site specific art. The piece references the different histories of gathering at the confluence of the waters, histories that long predate Calgary, Alberta. Despite histories of Indigenous uses of the land, queer cruising, sex work, trade, the arrival of the railway, and the North West Mounted Police, the site of the confluence is often overlooked and rarely used as the great meeting place that it once was. The simple map and text invites an audience of all backgrounds, Indigenous and non-Indigenous alike, to make their way from the The New Gallery along the Bow river to the confluence viewpoint and to consider their proximity to one another. The text is in English and the word confluence is repeated in multiple languages including Blackfoot, Cantonese, and Cree to honour the artist’s Michif roots and the specific location of the billboard on Treaty 7 and in Chinatown, pointing to the history of many different people living along the rivers.

[don-dake]

unexpected 成語 (idiom) lesson on

Bluey ～ The Sign (S03?E49?) 🙀😻

The story that Calypso was reading to Bluey's class? That is the story behind the Chinese idiom,

塞翁��馬 [焉/安知非福]

usually, only the first part (塞翁失馬) is uttered in practical use

🇭🇰🇲🇴 coi³ jung¹ sat¹ maa⁵ [jin¹/on¹ zi¹ fei¹ fuk¹]

🀄 ㄙㄞˋ ㄨㄥ ㄕ ㄇㄚˇ [ㄧㄢ/ㄢ ㄓ ㄈㄟ ㄈㄨˊ]

🀄 sài wēng shī mǎ [yān/ān zhī fēi fú]

Literal meaning: The old man of the frontier lost his horse (how could he know if this is not fortuitous?)

Meaning: Similar to the sayings, “a blessing in disguise”, “every cloud has a silver lining”.

And there's actually a Wiki entry for this! Quote from Wiki:

“One of the most famous parables from the Huainanzi (淮南子; 'Master of Huainan'), chapter 18 (人間訓; Rénjiānxùn; 'In the World of Man') dating to the 2nd century B.C. The story exemplifies the view of Taoism regarding "fortune" ("good luck") and "misfortune" ("bad luck").

The story is well-known throughout the East Asian cultural sphere and is often invoked to express the idea of "silver lining" or "blessing in disguise" in Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean, and Japanese.”

The Chinese language nerd in me was getting increasingly stoked as Calypso read out more and more of the story…I was like, wait a minute…this sounds bloody familiar…and then I had my Aha! 🙀 moment…😸

[davidwontstopwritingsongs]

so in cantonese it's called 奇異女俠玩救宇宙. lets break that DOWN

the tweet i saw about it translated it as "wacky woman fucks around and saves the world". is that an accurate translation? well… yes and no.

let's start with 奇異. you'll also notice it in films like doctor strange (奇異博士). a rough translation would be wacky/weird, yes. or strange if you will. but it also has connotations to magic, the supernatural, interesting things, things outside the realm of reality. something singular, unique. and that fits with the film so well.

女俠 next. 女 means woman. not very much to say here. 俠 if you google it would mean something like brave, hero, etc. not a huuuuge amount to analyse in this part apart from the fact that 俠 is used in the title of every single superhero movie (spiderman is 蜘蛛侠, iron man is 鐵甲奇俠, so on and so forth) so i guess a cantonese person seeing this movie title would assume it was somewhat superhero-y. ("to be fair, it does have quite good action scenes" - my friend who had to have this post infodumped to them at 2am before i decided to post it on tumblr)

NOW THE NEXT BIT. THE BIT THAT INSPIRED THIS UNHINGED 2AM DEEP DIVE. 玩救. THIS IS WHERE THE FUCKS AROUND AND SAVES THE WORLD BIT COMES FROM. 玩 means to play. 救 means to save. so she's playing around and saving something. cool.

but wait, because this is actually an EXTREMELY CLEVER PUN. you see, 救 is pronounced "gou" in cantonese. you want to know another word that is pronounced "gou"? and not just after you fuck around with tones, but actually in the exact same pronounciation? 夠. now what is the significance of that you may ask?

玩救 itself is not a word/phrase. 玩夠, however, is. same pronounciation so it fits into the wordplay. 玩夠 means literally to have "played enough/finished playing". basically you're done, you're moving on. but that is the centre of evelyn's struggle! she doesn't think she's done anything with her life, she constantly rues the fact that she could have done so much more and she didn't! evelyn HASN'T 玩夠 life yet. she wants to do it all, to live all those lifetimes. and it is through living all those lifetimes and finding enlightment that she 玩夠, and thus is also able to 救 the universe.

and then 宇宙 is universe. like the whole universe. there's only one universe in this translation. i'm not quite sure how you would articulate multiple universes in cantonese.

anyway the person who made this title translation was IMMENSELY clever

[goshyesvintageads]

Chun King Sales Inc, 1959

[summerongrand]

MELISSA O'NEIL ANSWERED MY QUESTION (with a twist). I AM NOT OKAY.

[buried-in-stardust]

Buying a meal's worth of food for 20 yuan in Guangzhou

[eng by me]

Disclaimer: most of the video is in Cantonese, which I do not know. I translated off the text so there may be parts that are off.

[linguisticdiscovery]

Why I hate conlangs

A conlang (constructed language) is one that was consciously created for some purpose—usually either fiction or global communication—rather than one that developed naturally (Crystal 2008; Wikipedia). Some well-known examples include: Dothraki, Valyrian (Game of Thrones) Esperanto Na’vi (Avatar) Quenya, Sindarin (Lord of the Rings) Klingon (Star Trek) Atlantean (Atlantis: The Lost…

[jasminelyoko57]

The beast who sprouts flames, the angel(s) who bask themselves in impure flames.

Kuroshitsuji (S1, E23)

Ah yes, Ciel is relatively calm because he has experienced fire before. When he ordered the trio to slay Pluto, I FREAKING TEARED UP BOTH IN JPN AND HK ISTG.

Also, I can't believe that the act such as mere COUNTDOWN from 10-1 can be sound so badass thanks to Kenneth Chan-yan's splendid voice acting as Sebas *claps*.

He seems to be having fun doing his role, like, OMG, that 'Yes, My Lord' sounds so British and I LOVE IT.

From now on, it seems I'll start calling Ciel with '少爺' (siu3 ye4), hehe :D //slapped

----

Kuroshitsuji - Toboso Yana

Studio: A-1 Pictures

Cantonese dub by TVB Hong Kong

[fullcravings]

Hong Kong-Style Coconut Tarts

[shyce-overgod]

Are there any Cantonese speakers on the plane?

[don-dake]

So I've been playing around with Cāngjié…

And I thought a post like this (similar to a post on Zhùyīn done by linghxr) may be of interest to some.

Edited: 10 Sep 2023

This post has gotten a little popular lately and on scrutinizing my own post again, I've come to the conclusion that I had made some mistakes in my given character examples.

Amended now. Namely, 「唔」 and 「龍」 have now been swapped over in the examples.

「唔」 is really the “3-parts”, and 「龍」 is indeed a “2-parts” character! Amendments are reflected in orange.

What (and who) is Cāngjié?

For those who may not know, Cāngjié is another way to input 漢字/汉字 (Hànzì — Chinese characters). It is way less popular than Pinyin (or even Zhuyin) but it still has its fans, and has a few advantages over the other two.

Cāngjié is also the name of the mythical figure in Chinese legend who is said to have been the inventor of 漢字/汉字, for which Cāngjié (the input system) was named after.

Would I recommend it?

Yes, if you think you have already acquired a good (enough) understanding of 漢字/汉字, and/or just like a new challenge.

(TL;DR at the end)

Why am I learning Cāngjié (and why you may like to, too)?

1. Mostly for fun.

Have long been intrigued by both Cāngjié and Zhùyīn, and since I finally mustered up the courage to tackle Zhùyīn not too long ago, I thought I'd finally give Cāngjié a try.

While learning Cāngjié does require more effort than learning Pinyin or Zhuyin, it can also be really fun! Inputting 漢字/汉字 with the Cāngjié method is almost like doing a jigsaw puzzle.

The euphoria derived from figuring out and piecing together the radicals that make up a word is something that learning Jyutping (Cantonese equivalent of Pinyin), Pinyin or Zhuyin can't quite match.

And while I know I'll never be as adept with Cāngjié — my knowledge of 漢字/汉字 is nowhere near good enough to ever use Cāngjié efficiently — as I do Jyutping or Pinyin (or to some extent, Zhuyin), it'll still be fun to use Cāngjié every once in a while!

2. Helps with thinking and typing in Chinese.

The upshot of relying too much on using Jyutping/Pinyin/Zhuyin is, I'd tend to think in Roman letters or ㄅㄆㄇㄈ before I'd even think about the actual 漢字/汉字.

But with Cāngjié, because it's based on knowing radicals and joining them together to form actual characters, it'll encourage thinking of 漢字/汉字 first, so I think that would help some with 漢字/汉字 memory retention.

Now you may be thinking, why not just you know, practise actually writing then? That is the tried and proven method to better remember 漢字/汉字 after all?

Yes, of course I can do that — and am doing so occasionally — but we live in a digital age now, and the probability and opportunity to type things out is much higher than actually writing stuff by hand.

The idea here is, more looking to think of and envision characters fully in my head, and trying to lessen over-reliance on Jyutping/Pinyin/Zhuyin.

And this is where I find Cāngjié can be useful, which leads to my next point…

3. Haunted by “What if” scenario.

What if there comes a day (however improbable) where I'm presented with only a Cāngjié keyboard to use for typing Chinese? It has happened with Zhùyīn for me!

That means, no Pinyin or Zhuyin keyboards, no Handwriting tools/touchscreens to write with fingers/mouse, no speech-to-text, and no option to copy-and-paste characters from somewhere else either! What then?

4. Able to type without knowing pronunciation, and with more accuracy.

Cāngjié is shape-based. Unlike Jyutping/Pinyin/Zhuyin, where you have to know what a character sounds like before you can type it out, with Cāngjié, you can type out (again assuming no Handwriting or other tools available) characters without needing to know how to pronounce them at all.

With shape-based typing, you'd also get more accurate hits in the first few 漢字/汉字 that show up, versus sound-based methods like Pinyin where for e.g., typing out “wan” will get you a whole list under the same sound and you may have to scroll through a whole lot to get the exact “wan” you need.

You can also type both Traditional and Simplified characters without having to toggle something or switch keyboards.

So how does one begin learning Cāngjié?

Install a Cāngjié keyboard.

Duh…but of course! Heh! Gboard offers one, banded under Cantonese language input (Android user here, don't know about iPhones, sorry).

There are two versions of Cāngjié that are prevalent currently. Cāngjié 3 and Cāngjié 5. Cāngjié 5 is supposed to be an improvement over version 3 but I don't find there's much; having a slightly altered version just adds to the confusion and unnecessarily complicates matters, in fact!

If you have a choice, I'd recommend selecting Cāngjié 3 as that is more supported. Some operating systems may not be too compatible with Cāngjié 5 still, for some strange reason.

You may also come across something called “Quick” (速成) aka, “Simplified Cāngjié”.

This is simply a scaled down version of Cāngjié, it's still based on Cāngjié's formula. So you still need to know how Cāngjié works in order to use “Quick” efficiently.

You'd then need a chart like this. ↓

* the 重 (Z) key doesn't really come into use. I don't really know what it's for, but it seems to be used (paired with other keystrokes) mainly to type out various punctuation marks.

There are variants out there, some having a little more, or less, radicals shown than in the above example, but I'll say the chart here is one of the more comprehensive ones I've found so far (and sufficient enough) — other charts often fail to highlight the 難 (X) key and what it corresponds to.

You don't have to memorize the chart all at once. Just always have a chart like this on hand to refer to and with enough typing practise, you'll eventually remember which key corresponds with which radicals.

Remember the rules. ↓

“1 part” character (e.g. 寫) = first 3 & last (radical).

“2 parts” character (e.g. 唔龍) = first & last, first 2 & last.

“3 parts” character (e.g. 難) = first & last, first & last, last.

e.g. 寫 ↓

With radicals 宀，丿，臼 (first 3) and 灬 (last).

Corresponding keys: 十，竹，難 and 火。

寫 → 写 ↓

With radicals 冖，卜，㇆ (first 3)，一 (last).

Corresponding keys：月，卜，尸 and 一。

e.g. 龍 ↓

With radicals 亠，月 (first & last), 卜，コ (first 2)，ヒ (last).

Corresponding keys: 卜，月，卜，尸，and 心。

龍 → 龙 ↓ (Simplified 龍 → 龙，a “1 part” character)

With radicals 丶，ナ，ヒ (first 3).

Corresponding keys: 戈，大，and 心。

e.g. 難 ↓

With radicals 廿，人 (first & last)，亻(first & last)，土 (last).

Corresponding keys: 廿，人，人 and 土。

難 → 难 ↓

With radicals ヌ (first & last)，亻(first & last)，土 (last).

Corresponding keys: 水，人，and 土。

Occasionally, you may get a character that looks like a “2 parts” but is actually a “3 parts”. ↓

e.g. 唔 ↓

With radicals 口 (first & last)，一，一 (first & last)，口 (last).

Corresponding keys: 口，一，一 and 口。

Or looks like a “1 part” but really a “3 parts”. ↓

e.g. 奪 ↓

With radicals 大 (first & last)，亻，土 (first & last)，丶 (last).

Corresponding keys: 大，人，土，and 戈。

奪 → 夺 ↓(Simplified 奪 → 夺，a “1 part” character)

With radicals 大，寸 (first 3; the 丶 is the 3rd component).

Corresponding keys: 大，木，and 戈。

But these are exceptions, and don't occur that often.

And you can start practising!

You can try out this pretty good app called 『五色學倉頡』 (learning Cāngjié with 5 colours), for practise. It's on Playstore, just search for “Cangjie Dictionary” and it should show up.

You have to pay to unlock higher levels, unfortunately. ↓

Anyway, each character comes with colour coded hints and you can opt to turn them off if you like more of a challenge. There are also hints (提示) and the chart (字根表) to refer to if you're really stuck. Also has a dictionary component (查字典) to check out the Cāngjié input for characters.

Another option would be a website called HKCards. ↓

You can use it to check the Cāngjié input for any 漢字/汉字, and there's section for practise (倉頡輸入法練習) as well. After inputting your answer with Cāngjié keys (手田水口廿卜), you can click on the “Answer” (答案) button to see how right or wrong your answers were. ↓

There are 8 characters each time, and you can just hit “Practise Again” (再做練習) to refresh for another 8 to practise with. I've yet to hit a limit.

Unfortunately, this website has lots of ads popping up. And it only supports searching in Traditional characters (Cāngjié was initially catered more for Traditional).

Or you can just try practising randomly with a Cāngjié keyboard and check for mistakes with a Cāngjié dictionary (『五色學倉頡』 app's dictionary comes in really useful here — it appears to support searching in Simplified too).

TL;DR

Cāngjié could be useful (and fun) to know if your 漢字/汉字 knowledge is already adequate, and/or you just like a new challenge.

And if watching videos is more your thing, here's a really helpful YouTube tutorial on how to use Cāngjié (has English subs)!

[jesncin]

Comfort Food, featuring Stewed Broccoli, Shrimp and Abalone + Pen Cai (Cantonese dish)

[kkulbeolyeonghwa]

Month wrap-up

Korean: 383 words this month, the biggest amount this year! This was my main focus this month. Picks of my favorite words from this month:

교대 交代 - taking turns 당청되다 當籤- - to win the lottery 마땅히 - properly 석화 石花 - oyster 일당백 一當百 - equal to 100 warriors 출하 出荷 - shipment

Japanese: only 57 words this time! I feel like I've studied more though. I've gotten better at listening! Favorite words:

いれい 慰霊 - consoling the dead しけ 時化 - stormy weather at sea でんち 電池 - battery よてい 予定 - plans

Mandarin and Cantonese: I haven't focused on these much this month. However I've been listening to both languages a bunch.

Mongolian: I haven't logged the words I know because I'm learning it with a different approach. But I've been studying it a lot and am learning a bunch of new words!

Toki Pona: I can now understand written text 99% of the time. I should practice writing next.

Okinawan: I've learn the Okinawan version of every Japanese word I've studied this month. I'm progressing steadily.

Other languages: I've been learning random words from other languages too. Notably Hungarian (Which I haven't learned at all in the past). Maybe I should start studying it regularly!

[etudieryvivere]

Cantonese Resources

This will be a list in progress, just whatever I find. Feel free (please help) to recommend any resources that you know of.

Websites:

cantonese.sheik.co.uk

This has characters, vocabulary, pronunciation help, essays, a bunch of different stuff, Beginner to Intermediate. CantoDict is apart of this (add /dictionary/ to the url)

cantoneseclass101.com/cantonese-resources/

Some stuff for grammar, reading and writing, pronunciation, etc. The actual course is Beginner to Advanced, but the free stuff is just beginner. They also have a free Word of the Day email newsletter thingy.

cantonese.ca

Vocab lists!

livelingua.com/courses/cantonese

Audio lessons along with a textbook. It seems free (and claims so). It's only a basic course, and comes with a dictionary as well, although it's hard to see the characters well. They also have tons of other languages (including ones like Igbo and Finnish, so check it out).

cantonese-alliance.github.io/courses.html

Okay this one is super cool. In the proficiency levels tab, they have some curriculums for different levels (with tons of resources). There's also 'Cantonese through films' which has a long list of movies organized by decades. Even more materials, historical, linguistic, and the like. Overall, super interesting.

savecantonese.org/education

Textbooks and resources (most of which are mentioned).

These are just the first few things I've found, but there's alot, so I', making a spreadsheet with everything else on it too. Hope this helps!