Learn to Read in Cantonese (Part 2)
Building up a written Chinese knowledge base
Previously, I shared a little about why learning to read Cantonese feels so hard.
In this post, I brainstorm some of the things we can do to help young Cantonese speakers with learning to read standard written Chinese, and why it may help, so that you can also come up with other creative ways that better works for your family!
With that, Iām going to start off with one that almost sound like Iām trolling (given Iām focused on teaching Cantonese)ā¦
1. Learn spoken Mandarin
It sounds like Iām being facetious, I know š
But based on talking to a handful of parents (āanecdataā š¤Ŗ) who introduced Mandarin via camps/classes, or whose child already speaks Mandarin fluently and the parent switched to using it as the language for literacy instruction (instead of Cantonese) ā all these parents have found that the child is picking up reading āfasterā, or that things suddenly āclickā better.
Obviously, not everyone will have the capacity or energy to do this (and most kids in Hong Kong never had to do this).
But, this works because we are adding a spoken language base (with well established phonetic systems) that maps much more closely to the written Chinese languageā¦ and we know the benefits of having a rich spoken knowledge base that you can refer to when reading, especially if you can sound it out with the help of phonetic tools.
It is very important to note ā if you plan to do this, young readers should be learning Mandarin in a spoken environment first (as a baby who is learning to speak their first language would), where they hear words spoken in context and can convert sounds to meaning. e.g. conversational Mandarin classes, or watching Mandarin shows and movies, where they pick up meanings of spoken words and sentences using contextual clues.
If one is simply āredoingā a levelled reader in Mandarin, it does not really āhelpā for this very specific purpose.
There is no harm in doing leveled readers in Mandarin though, as it will help the child learn to read text in Mandarin (which has its own benefits!), and possibly learn to speak Mandarin in the future!
But for our very specific goal of āhelping young Cantonese speakers learn to read standard written Chinese, by growing a spoken knowledge base to draw meaning fromā, redoing readers in Mandarin doesnāt really āaddā anything, especially if reading the leveled readers is their only source of Mandarin.
Why? Because the child is starting from words and sentences they ALREADY know meanings of (since they already learned them in Cantonese) and are now simply associating new sounds to them. The direction of mapping needed, to help with literacy, is reversed.
IMHO, energy is better placed elsewhere becauseāletās be honestāleveled readers are a dragggggā¦ and I wouldnāt want to do them again if it doesnāt address my specific needs.
2. Add more written Chinese sound input
We tend to think whether something is considered spoken/colloquial Cantonese or written Chinese as binary.
It is either one, or the another.
But it is actually more like aā¦ āØspectrumāØ, like soā¦
Letās dive into different kinds of spoken input on this spectrum:
A) Daily conversation
Pretty self-explanatory. This is what we typically consider 100% spoken Cantonese.
B) Childrenās TV shows, podcasts
The language in these shows mostly feels like āspoken Cantoneseā, but there are places where āspokenā terms are occasionally replaced with more formal āwrittenā terms, while keeping the overall sentence still very, very understandable to the young Cantonese speaker.
Sleepy Pig Story is an example podcast that is mostly told spoken Cantonese, but will insert āwrittenā language that we generally wouldnāt ānaturallyā say in daily conversation (e.g. ćę¶ę“ę“ććć é©åććć ę¬č«ć)
C) Technical / science-themed shows
Scientific and technical terms tend to be āinventedā very recently.
The written terms often come first (through published papers in academia), so the spoken Cantonese term is often simply saying the written term as-is, rather than making a new spoken-Canto-specific one.
As such, technical and science-themed shows will often feature a larger proportion of spoken language that more closely maps to the written language!
å°ē“ ē Redd's Nature Play Party is a fun channel by HKās Ocean Park, featuring all kinds of interesting scientific concepts, ranging from physics, biology, and math! All of these areas tend to use spoken terms that are the same as their written counterparts.
D) Cantopop lyrics
Lyrics have historically often used standard written Chinese vocabulary and grammar, even in childrenās songs.
Given music and songs are such a sticky way to acquire language, and there is often context (e.g. hand gestures, body movement) to help communicate meaning, they are a great way to expose little Cantonese speakers to written Chinese!
Kafoo åčå§å§ created many original catchy Cantonese songs, like this one, that use lots of standard written vocabulary and grammar (e.g.ćåØććć å,ććć äøčµ·ćććéåć) while still keeping meaning fairly obvious! Plus, all her videos include Chinese subtitles, so theyāre a great way to expose a child to the words theyāre singing, to increase character recognition!
E) Period dramas
I know I mentioned TV shows earlier, but period dramas def feel like its own category.
As a kid, I watched a lot of TVB period dramas (š¬), and it was where I heard and learned the meanings of a lot of Chinese idioms, because they were spoken in context (e.g. ćåä¾å¦ę¤ćććč«åå ¶å¦ćććčæčæę¼ę·ć)
I didnāt realize it at the time, but this background knowledge was apparently living rent free in my head all this time, and turned out to be very useful in aiding my comprehension when I attempted to read Chinese YA novels recently.
F) News reports
While news reports are considered āspoken Cantoneseā, they honestly feel like the anchor is narrating written Chinese out loud, and just replacing a fewww things like:
ć ä»ćććčŖŖćććēćććę²ęć
with their spoken Cantonese counterparts:
ć ä½¢ććć話ćććå ćććåć
RTHKās news broadcast is a good example of something that is probably still considered āspoken Cantoneseā, but actually uses mostly written Chinese vocab and grammar.
G) Narrating books
The other end of the spectrum is reading a standard written Chinese book out loud exactly as written.
Also fairly self-explanatory, and what most people consider 100% written Chinese.
So, as it turns out, whether something is spoken Cantonese vs written Chinese is not as binary as we think.
If we want to help an aspiring Cantonese reader build a spoken language base that better maps to written Chinese, we can slowly introduce more and more spoken input that is further to the right of that spectrum š
3. Read aloud lots and lots of standard written Chinese text
My big kidās current Cantonese teacher ā whose class is focused on literacy ā put a lot of emphasis on reading aloud standard written Chinese text. And Iām starting to really understand why.
They are basically manually creating that spoken knowledge base, by building familiarity with the written Chinese grammar through saying it out loudā¦ a lot.
Why canāt they just hear it often from the teacher/parent? Why must the child say it out loud themselves?
Iām sure there is a lot of brain science that goes into explaining this (that I wonāt go into here), butā¦ picture this scenario:
Someone shares their phone number with you, and you need to remember it long enough to open the contact on your phone to punch it in.
Many people will find that repeating it to themselves by saying it out loud helps them remember it better.
Itās just how our brain works. I donāt make the rules lol
The other important piece about this reading aloud strategy, is that the child isnāt just blindly memorizing sounds they do not understand (Thinking of those of us who were forced to recite the infamousćåŗåęęå ā¦ćpoem as a child š).
It is crucial that the child understands the meaning of the sounds they are saying, otherwise we donāt create the soundāmeaning mappings that are needed for comprehension when reading.
My childās teacher usually does this by introducing the story via spoken Cantonese to make sure there is comprehension, before she dives into breaking down the text into the written parts, and then asking every child to read it out loud. This is followed by more read-alouds as homework.
We get all kinds of homework, but the one that is consistently there are the read-aloud portions, likely because of its importance for developing reading skills.
Tying it altogether
If you notice the common thread across these strategies, they are all about creating, developing, and expanding the (written Chinese) soundāmeaning mappings in the childās mind, because we know the benefits of being able to draw upon this web of knowledge when reading!
And so far, we looked at the following ways to do that:
Learn spoken Mandarin
Add more written Chinese sound input from media
Read aloud lots of written Chinese text
What do you think? What are some other creative ways you can think of to create these mappings for your little Cantonese reader?
Love the spectrum map! I was raised in Malaysia speaking cantonese but sadly that was as far as it went, plus strengthening it later in life with tvb! :) I never got a chance to learn to read or write, not even in Mandarin. Now I'm trying to pass on Cantonese to my kids, it is proving really difficult. My son, 4.5 years old, understands everything I say but will only reply in his majority language German, or even English (which he learned passively listening to my husband and me talking!). He's done some online cantonese classes but he was young then so only mostly singing and listening to stories. I've gotten some independent cantonese books with jyut ping for me, but to go further, we may have to join classes together in the future to learn. Only thing is there is none available here in Germany where I am, and we can only rely on online classes. I might just wait till my daughter is old enough (she's 1.5) and we all 3 take private cantonese classes for reading and writing written cantonese! XD till then I'll try more children podcasts and cartoons.