Re-learning My Mother Language

I didn’t get to learn my mother tongue (Cantonese) at school. This is how I re-learned it.

Photo by Jason Yuen on Unsplash

Read the entire blog post for free with this link.

(I would have written this post any other way, but a quick disclaimer before we begin: this blog post is sponsored by TypeDuck, an excellent Jyutping Cantonese input keyboard that you can download for free. I am also now working for Visual Fonts; the Chinese characters that come with Jyutping in my graphics are made with the font created by Jon, the founder of Visual Fonts.)

My mother language is Cantonese (廣東話). Both of my parents speak it. Most of my friends and colleagues speak it.

We never get to learn it fully at school.

Why is your mother language not taught at school?

Well, we were taught part of it at school.

A Quick Explanation of the Wonky Cantonese Situation

Please read the following with Tom Scott’s documentary voice so that it doesn’t sound like it was written only for linguistics nerds.

Most Hong Kong schools teach a subject called “Chinese Language” (中文科). In Chinese Language lessons, we read, write, and read aloud “(Standard) Written…