Maybe not so much for younger kids, but things like the entertainment tabloids, magazines and some comics are written in more colloquial Cantonese.
Personally I do find it a bit hard to read the colloquial stuff but it's nice that it matches the way you speak. And even then, a lot of times different publications may use different Cantonese words for different things, which makes it really confusing at times.
Another thing in general I find that Chinese is not super rigid and a somewhat flexible language because of all the different regions and dialects, even if you start using Mandarin terms in Cantonese it's not always super weird, and I've found in recent years many words have moved into normal Cantonese usage too.
Things that are considered "standard written Chinese" get used in colloquial contexts (e.g. 算吧啦! 又如何？ ). And things that are considered more "colloquial" are found in published works/newspapers (e.g. 士多啤梨). So it's actually really fluid!
If biliteracy is a goal, I do think it's important to have a decent foundation in "standard written Chinese" grammar. It's easier to transition from reading "standard written Chinese" to colloquial later, than vice versa imo haha
Yeah, obviously, but I think for now I'm hoping to get my kid at a level with decent spoken fluency for now. But the problem with the standard written Chinese is that it doesn't match how Cantonese is really spoken.
My daughter understands the words 雪糕 and ice cream, but not 冰淇淋 so sometimes we use alternative terms so she can't understand, lol...
Maybe not so much for younger kids, but things like the entertainment tabloids, magazines and some comics are written in more colloquial Cantonese.
Personally I do find it a bit hard to read the colloquial stuff but it's nice that it matches the way you speak. And even then, a lot of times different publications may use different Cantonese words for different things, which makes it really confusing at times.
Another thing in general I find that Chinese is not super rigid and a somewhat flexible language because of all the different regions and dialects, even if you start using Mandarin terms in Cantonese it's not always super weird, and I've found in recent years many words have moved into normal Cantonese usage too.
Yes, I find the language is rapidly evolving!
Things that are considered "standard written Chinese" get used in colloquial contexts (e.g. 算吧啦! 又如何？ ). And things that are considered more "colloquial" are found in published works/newspapers (e.g. 士多啤梨). So it's actually really fluid!
If biliteracy is a goal, I do think it's important to have a decent foundation in "standard written Chinese" grammar. It's easier to transition from reading "standard written Chinese" to colloquial later, than vice versa imo haha
Yeah, obviously, but I think for now I'm hoping to get my kid at a level with decent spoken fluency for now. But the problem with the standard written Chinese is that it doesn't match how Cantonese is really spoken.
My daughter understands the words 雪糕 and ice cream, but not 冰淇淋 so sometimes we use alternative terms so she can't understand, lol...