[Andrew W Scott]

Just moved to HK a few days ago...will be here for about another 3 months at least, maybe more.

I want to learn conversational Cantonese...fast. Wouldn't mind learning some of the characters too (even just learning the English meaning of them so I can read street signs and so on). The way my life is set up, I can do a private 1 on 1 lesson every weekday from 2pm to 4pm. That's 10 hours a week. I basically don't have any time for homework outside that 10 hours a week.

Although I'm a native English speaker, I don't go for all that "oh Chinese is such a hard language to learn" crap. If you say something's hard, you just reinforced its difficulty in your own mind. Yes Chinese does have some things that make it harder for some English speakers (like tones, measure words and different grammar), but hell it has some things that make it much easier than English too - like a lot less synonyms, no verb conjugation, no tenses other than adverbs of time, no singular and plural, stuff like that.

I learnt a little Mandarin for a very short time way back in 2001 and haven't used it since, I still probably remember 50 words or so and maybe 20 characters. I could cope with the tones no problem (although I'm aware Canto has 7/8/9 tones depending on who you ask and Mandarin has only 4).

I know a grand total of about 8 Cantonese words!! I'm a pretty quick learner though.

So here's the question, is there anyone out there who is a trained or experienced Cantonese teacher who can teach me Mon to Fri 2pm to 4pm? If not, does anyone have any suggestions of private schools that might be out there that would teach me on the basis I have outlined?

I'm in Sheung Wan, but there's no reason I can't hop on the MTR to travel a short distance if necessary.

I don't really have the time to do a language exchange where I teach English to someone for as long as they teach me Cantonese, because then I am wasting valuable Canto learning time on teaching English, I'd rather just pay to learn Cantonese. But of course I'm happy to spend a little time clarifying or explaining something about English or answering a specific question about the language to someone who was teaching me Cantonese.

Any help, advice and/or suggestions would be great...

[hottie]

http://www.hkllc.com/index.asp?page=d-mar02wanchai

[Andrew W Scott]

I see they recommend BLCU for learning Mandarin in Beijing - I actually went to BLCU for a short time and found their teaching methods very old-fashioned and repetitive.

That doesn't mean HKLLC is like that though. Has anybody had any experience with HKLLC?

[biothermus]

Too bad the time doesn't work for me, but if you changed your mind on the time and feel like having classes in the evenings or weekends do pm me, am a private Cantonese teacher myself.

[Tulip]

I have completed the beginner's course at HKLLC and will start intermediate 1 mid September. I must say I'm happy with their teaching methods. PM me if you want more details.

[hottie]

No personal experience, but I was looking at the site recently and the time 2- 4 stuck.

Originally Posted by Andrew Melb

I see they recommend BLCU for learning Mandarin in Beijing - I actually went to BLCU for a short time and found their teaching methods very old-fashioned and repetitive.

That doesn't mean HKLLC is like that though. Has anybody had any experience with HKLLC?

[Pekkerhead]

...you could always get a head start with these on line references.

http://www.cantonese.ca/

http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/

[keliman]

Hi,
I am qualified teacher and teach Cantonese in private now. I have sent you a pm already but just in case. You can contact me by e-mail
cantoneselearning@yahoo.com.hk
Thank you very much.