DMA1401L01 journey: Learning Cantonese
Reflection on Learning Cantonese 28 Oct, 2024 By: Sham Jo Yee As someone who rarely speaks Chinese at home since secondary school and found my Chinese standard dropping day by day, taking up this course seemed daunting to me. I was introduced to this course by one of my friends. As we are both healthcare students, we found value in taking up this course and learning one of the popular spoken dialects in Singapore. My objective from this course was to develop a greater appreciation for Chinese dialects. Coming from a home that speaks Cantonese, I thought I would eventually learn how to speak Cantonese as I grew older. However, I never got the opportunity to do so and only managed to pick up some basic phrases such as "Do1 Ze6" and "Sik6 Baau2 Mei6". I never understood the conversations between my father and my Nai Nai, and often relied on translations by my grandmother. During our first lesson, we learned the basics of Cantonese, which include basic greetings, numb...