Chapter 47 Why not "babble"?

Thinking back to when I first arrived in Hong Kong in September 2004, I was not pregnant at that time, and the first difficulty was not to build up ambitions and show off my skills, but to not understand the language here, to communicate with others, let alone Explore the society carefully.This trips me up. For example, in the first few days when I set up camp, I was sorting out the items shipped from Beijing. The property management staff kindly wanted to help me and asked, "Which floor is your house on?" I didn't understand at all, "house house"?What "housing enterprises"?Later, I learned that "House Enterprise" is the "home" of Hong Kong people. After washing off the mud and sweat of the day in the bathroom at night, I saw in the mirror that I was stupid like a baby, and it was more than a baby. Adults are easily affected. Injured self-esteem - as a reporter in Hong Kong, you don't even know a "household enterprise"?Will you write about Hong Kong in the future?Doesn't this mean you want to go to heaven even if you can't find a ladder?No, I have to learn, learn Cantonese as soon as possible - but a mainlander who has just come to Hong Kong, can only learn Cantonese Chinese, and many words such as "house enterprise" are quite interesting: think about the origin of Chinese hieroglyphs I thought: "House" is too common, so I don't need to worry about it, but what about "enterprise"?Isn't it composed of a "person" plus a word "stop"?When people reach a sheltered place, they can stop, relax and have a good rest. Isn't this kind of home more civilized, more appropriate, and more vivid than "home"?However, if it is replaced by "speaking", and the Cantonese is squeezed out from between the two rows of teeth, it will suffocate people. What long and short sounds, opening and closing, very big people must be very careful. Exaggerated observance—Mandarin has 4 sounds, Cantonese has 9; He spoke in a nonsensical manner, making the people who happened to hear him laughing.

I remember that just when I was hesitating, one day I went to a restaurant in Causeway Bay with my husband and a secretary from their work unit. As soon as the "little secretary" sat down at the dining table, he immediately greeted the waiter in a very hostile manner. : "Well, let's have a cup of hot tea first!" Then he confidently ordered in Hong Kong—"Gali Hai!" "Have a cup of hot tea first?" "Galihai?" What are these? ! I was blindfolded, and the "little secretary" was very unhappy when he saw me and asked: "Bring a cup of hot tea first" means "bring us some hot tea first"; "Galihai" means "curry crab" in Cantonese , Hong Kong people call it that, haven’t we arrived at an Indian restaurant?

I was amazed at how the "little secretary" could speak Cantonese so well, and I thought she must have been in Hong Kong for many years.As a result, it was less than a year.And the "little secretary" told me that she has only been in Hong Kong for a month, and she can speak "bird language" in succession, at least it is no problem to go shopping and bargain with the locals! (Didn't she say "go to the moon tomorrow"?) After that meal, I don't know whether it was inspired or stimulated by the "little secretary", and the fire was kindled in my heart-to learn Cantonese and fulfill my promise. Plan, people learn for 30 days, we are stupid, 60 days?

That's how I started learning Cantonese, knowing that it was the first step to go out and explore the world.So I bought a tape recorder and put in a Cantonese tape. It was like reviewing English for a college entrance examination. The machine said a sentence, and I followed a sentence. I insisted on it every night. "Leihou (Hello)!" "Stop powder (eat)!" "Indignation (sleep)!" "Dabo (play)!" In fact, for many mainlanders, being able to speak Cantonese in succession in recent years is a desire mixed with practicality and vanity. They just feel that Cantonese is difficult. Dare to take a step.My experience: when learning Cantonese, you must not regard yourself as a "pedant". Isn't Cantonese called "bird language"?Let's turn ourselves into a little bird, babble, parrot, others say something, you follow up, experience the feeling of being a baby again, it's fun, and find a shortcut, of course you have to first Willing to face, not afraid of being laughed at.

In the beginning, it was not Hong Kong people who often laughed at me, but my husband and daughter.My husband's way is to purse his lips and smile with ulterior motives, and say nothing, but I know under my tongue that I don't believe that I can learn it. I always think that I have to stop after a few days of trouble!As for my daughter, she was on vacation in Hong Kong at that time. She was an English major in high school. After receiving basic training in language learning, she often directly attacked her: "Mum, please, can you listen clearly first? The ears of a language learner are the most important. , you know, ears come first!"

The first sentence I learned Cantonese in Hong Kong was: "Qingmen, Saisougan Haibindou?" (Excuse me, where is the bathroom?) And the one I stubbornly remembered was another sentence: "I am afraid of the ball, so I yelled so loudly. " (Don't be afraid of being ugly, learn quickly.) From now on, you will start on the road, regardless of whether this road will never reach the "Shu Road" of "Blue Sky".But seeing that half of the two-month plan I had set had already passed, and there were still many barriers in front of me, a pot of bad noodles that were getting worse and thinner and couldn't be grasped at all, I was also anxious.At the same time, you have to find someone to communicate with when you are learning a language. If you don’t welcome me at home, I go to the street, so when I go outside, no matter if I catch up with shop girls, bank staff, taxi drivers, old men at newsstands, or old ladies selling vegetables, I catch them. Talk to whoever you want.Gradually, my face will not turn red, and I don’t need to repeat some words in my stomach two or three times in advance, but the “strike” from the street during the “practice” stage is still inevitable, especially sometimes I never catch up with a sentence. If you haven’t heard it, of course you don’t know how to express it. If you insist, you must show timidity and make the other party completely confused. At this time, most people will say: “Oh, don’t work so hard. You can either speak Mandarin or English. Lah!" It made a woman in my forties standing on the streets of Hong Kong, so embarrassed that I was most afraid of suddenly finding some acquaintance standing behind me.

Embarrassment and injury, from the perspective of dialectics, this may be a godsend opportunity for language learning.Which sentence others bury me hurt my self-esteem the most, that sentence will be the best teacher in the future, no need to review, you can remember it after being "buried" once! Finally, God rewards those who work hard, and the "miracle" happened—one day two months later, I met an impatient Hong Kong female student on the street in front of my house. I asked a question in Cantonese, I was stunned for half a second, and then said "ah" - I understand, what the female student wanted to ask was "Where is the Happy Valley Post Office".I immediately told her "Ahead, go straight, the first intersection", of course in Cantonese.God has eyes, and the female student even understood, because she immediately kept saying "I shouldn't be stuffed" and "I shouldn't be stuffed" (thank you), and ran forward while nodding.

With this accidental "success", my confidence has greatly increased, and I have also added an "addiction". Every time I go to the street, whenever someone asks me for directions, I will immediately get excited and tell them in detail. Where is the place to go, and how to get there is more cost-effective.In this way, as the number of times increases, I will be annoyed: "It's passed", "Have you passed it again?"But a year later, a group of friends from mainland China came to my house for a party. People listened to "Wow wow wow wow wow wow wow" on TV, and they didn't know what the announcer was talking about.I picked up my ears, got a secret, and told them: This is "Huang Huahua said".Isn't the governor of Guangdong Province called "Huang Huahua"?The same pronunciation of Huang and Wang in Cantonese is "Wang"; the "Hua" in speaking is similar to the Chinese "Hua", both are "Wow", so the "Wow wow wow wow" you hear is actually the announcer Quoting Huang Huahua's words - wow!At that time, my house exploded, and my friends kept praising: "It's really good!" "Dare to learn bird language?!" When I first came here, I went to eat "Galihai" with the "little secretary" of my husband's unit. Hey, now, our Cantonese can also be used to bluff people!