I woke up on a Sunday morning last week and really questioned myself, “Is there something that I want to learn in the upcoming weeks. I thought about cooking, guitar, drawing. But eventually I decide to learn how to sing Cantonese songs in the next three weeks. I thought about learning Cantonese.
I had an internship in Hong Kong last summer, and language was a big problem during the time I was in Hong Kong. Therefore, I decide to start learning Cantonese by singing and understanding lyrics first. My dad went to Hong Kong 20 years ago, and he had the same issue that I have today. What he did was watching TV-Shows and live in an environment that is all “Cantonese”. As time goes on, there is a day that he found out he understood what other people were saying, and he have realized the art of learning a new language is to learn it the way you want.
Singing is one of my hobby already, and I will go to KTV to sing with friends once every two weeks. I also want to learn Cantonese since Grade 9, because having another language is always a plus. Being fluent in multiple language is a very big strength that some people does not even realize. Especially China and United States are the two largest in the economy, plus Hong Kong is the Manhattan in China.
I chose to learn the song “真的爱你” , because it is a song that kids will sing to their parents. The direct translation of the name of the song is “I really love you”. I appreciate what they gave me in the past 19 years, and they deserve the first Cantonese song that I will learn in the term of January.
So I wen to KTV on January 12th with my girl friend and some of my friends, and I sang that song, even though it was really bad. I went back home, and downloaded “全民K歌”, which is an app to sing and share, and I will use this app to practice my singing over the next three weeks.
So this is what it shows inside the app. Even I do not know how to pronounce those words, there are pin-yin to guide me through, and I have listened to it a plenty of times before I sing it. I will say it is pretty bad, and I am a very confident person. I got an A, and scored 3,237 points based on the tone and pronunciation. I am going to work on this song for the next few days, and hopefully can get one or two more songs in for my final product.
I just felt like choosing to learn a new language through singing is a thing that I can enjoy in a daily basis, and I am looking forward to get a bit better every single day,
I find it really cool that you want to learn a new language by singing. I agree that it’s easier to learn something new when you learn it in a way that you want. I also find is very fascinating that you did an internship in Hong Kong even though you didn’t know Cantonese. I hope you are able to learn something new while enjoying it.