#jyutping

[theunbearablelightnessofbein]

Rouge (1987) dir. Stanley Kwan

[don-dake]

hey 🇭🇰Cantonese🇲🇴 learners!

I got recommended this keyboard App called TypeDuck🦆by anwar @ Insta that you may like to check out! (If you haven't heard of, or aren't already using, that is!)

Even though I have yet to try it (long story involving my phone being wonky so I can't install this for myself, for now), cantonese4parents @ Insta already has, and it's available on Playstore, so I'd expect it has been vetted safe enough!

Apparently if you use this keyboard to type out in 粵拼 Jyutping (Cantonese Romanisation, equivalent to Mandarin's Pinyin system), it will show you not only the Jyutping spelling but also the English meaning alongside the 漢字 Chinese characters! ↓

Besides English, it apparently supports some less common language translations like “Hindi, Nepali and Urdu” (quoting from their website) too.

Very useful I think, for anyone who's not good at recognising/mapping the 漢字 to the 粵拼 yet! 😺

Trivia: If you're wondering why this App is called “TypeDuck” 🦆, it's because it's a play on 打得 in Cantonese (Jyutping: daa² dak¹), which means “able to type”! Great pun! Yes? 😸

[impulsiveconnection]

Converting Cantonese kids songs/nursery rhymes to MP4 format and transcribing the subtitles to jyutping for my sister and her toddler.

Wonder if this counts as transformative work.

Progress:

2 files converted to MP4 format. (I stopped there because one of the media players on the computer I was using told me it couldn't read the audio in that format. Checked with my sister, just heard it works fine for her.)

8 (?) songs transcribed over the last 8-ish years, there might be more I haven't done a comprehensive search of my text files/notes. Today I put the jyutping tone numbers in the two songs I converted so far. Those seem to be the only ones I didn't add tone numbers to.

Goal: I have 8 VCDs worth of files, each has 15-20 songs on them.

Let's see how this goes with my ADHD, part-time work and moving house ...

[what-yadoking-likes]

San nin faai lok!

May the Year of the Water Tiger give you the vigour of a dragon & the fierceness of a tiger!

And if I have any married followers, I am unmarried 🙃 My Paypal is-

[jbluphin]

So, I’m going back to trying to learn Cantonese, starting by reviewing all the Cantonese I USED to know, but have forgotten. Back when I was actually practicing regularly some *cough mumble mumble* years ago, I went to the website “Memrise”, typed in all my vocabulary (up to a point, which is admittedly quite a lot) from the class I was taking, and set up my own little course for myself, and whoever else might want to take it. All well and good. 

Well, today, after *cough* years of absence, I clicked onto the same website again! Hey, my course is still there! And look, it seems that... 3.4k people have used it?? More than 50 in the last month alone? WTF???? 

It’s not the most popular Cantonese class on there. But it *is* the most popular Cantonese Jyutping, and if you take both categories together, it’s like, 5th.

So, uhh, good to know that while *I’ve* forgotten most of my Cantonese classes, other people have benefited???

[don-dake]

OK from now on,

🇭🇰🇲🇴 → 🥮

I just remembered the existence of the 🥮 mooncake emoji. Going to use it to denote Cantonese 粵拼 (Jyutping — Cantonese Romanisation) in my language posts henceforth.

I think it's perfect to represent Cantonese too, because there's a pun in 「月」 from 月餅 (🥮 jyut⁶ beng²) — the Cantonese pronunciation for "mooncake” and 「粵」 from 粵語 (🥮 jyut⁶ jyu⁵) — a term for the Cantonese topolect.

Frankly, I have always been a little uncomfortable with using region flags' emoji to represent or denote what languages I speak/am writing/am learning, because the usage of region flags can be so…politically charged — not that anyone has given me grief for using flags' emoji so far — and in the case of the Cantonese I am self-learning, it's not exactly the same as the Cantonese from 🇭🇰 Hong Kong or 🇲🇴 Macau either, so to use those regions' flags seems inaccurate to me.

But because the language community seems to have generally embraced using flags' emoji to represent languages, and I couldn't think of anything better to use before, I mostly went along with it, until now that is!

I had the same dilemma with Mandarin, but gleefully had the brainwave to use the 🀄 mahjong emoji for a while now, and I think it turned out a fortuitous choice!

Going to be using more neutral emoji to denote the other languages, English (🇬🇧 → 🎩 top hat) and Japanese (🇯🇵 → 🍙 onigiri) as well; Mandarin will remain the same 🀄 mahjong emoji.

This has been a PSA I guess? (If anyone cares for my posts.)

[don-dake]

So I've been playing around with Cāngjié…

And I thought a post like this (similar to a post on Zhùyīn done by linghxr) may be of interest to some.

Edited: 10 Sep 2023

This post has gotten a little popular lately and on scrutinizing my own post again, I've come to the conclusion that I had made some mistakes in my given character examples.

Amended now. Namely, 「唔」 and 「龍」 have now been swapped over in the examples.

「唔」 is really the “3-parts”, and 「龍」 is indeed a “2-parts” character! Amendments are reflected in orange.

What (and who) is Cāngjié?

For those who may not know, Cāngjié is another way to input 漢字/汉字 (Hànzì — Chinese characters). It is way less popular than Pinyin (or even Zhuyin) but it still has its fans, and has a few advantages over the other two.

Cāngjié is also the name of the mythical figure in Chinese legend who is said to have been the inventor of 漢字/汉字, for which Cāngjié (the input system) was named after.

Would I recommend it?

Yes, if you think you have already acquired a good (enough) understanding of 漢字/汉字, and/or just like a new challenge.

(TL;DR at the end)

Why am I learning Cāngjié (and why you may like to, too)?

1. Mostly for fun.

Have long been intrigued by both Cāngjié and Zhùyīn, and since I finally mustered up the courage to tackle Zhùyīn not too long ago, I thought I'd finally give Cāngjié a try.

While learning Cāngjié does require more effort than learning Pinyin or Zhuyin, it can also be really fun! Inputting 漢字/汉字 with the Cāngjié method is almost like doing a jigsaw puzzle.

The euphoria derived from figuring out and piecing together the radicals that make up a word is something that learning Jyutping (Cantonese equivalent of Pinyin), Pinyin or Zhuyin can't quite match.

And while I know I'll never be as adept with Cāngjié — my knowledge of 漢字/汉字 is nowhere near good enough to ever use Cāngjié efficiently — as I do Jyutping or Pinyin (or to some extent, Zhuyin), it'll still be fun to use Cāngjié every once in a while!

2. Helps with thinking and typing in Chinese.

The upshot of relying too much on using Jyutping/Pinyin/Zhuyin is, I'd tend to think in Roman letters or ㄅㄆㄇㄈ before I'd even think about the actual 漢字/汉字.

But with Cāngjié, because it's based on knowing radicals and joining them together to form actual characters, it'll encourage thinking of 漢字/汉字 first, so I think that would help some with 漢字/汉字 memory retention.

Now you may be thinking, why not just you know, practise actually writing then? That is the tried and proven method to better remember 漢字/汉字 after all?

Yes, of course I can do that — and am doing so occasionally — but we live in a digital age now, and the probability and opportunity to type things out is much higher than actually writing stuff by hand.

The idea here is, more looking to think of and envision characters fully in my head, and trying to lessen over-reliance on Jyutping/Pinyin/Zhuyin.

And this is where I find Cāngjié can be useful, which leads to my next point…

3. Haunted by “What if” scenario.

What if there comes a day (however improbable) where I'm presented with only a Cāngjié keyboard to use for typing Chinese? It has happened with Zhùyīn for me!

That means, no Pinyin or Zhuyin keyboards, no Handwriting tools/touchscreens to write with fingers/mouse, no speech-to-text, and no option to copy-and-paste characters from somewhere else either! What then?

4. Able to type without knowing pronunciation, and with more accuracy.

Cāngjié is shape-based. Unlike Jyutping/Pinyin/Zhuyin, where you have to know what a character sounds like before you can type it out, with Cāngjié, you can type out (again assuming no Handwriting or other tools available) characters without needing to know how to pronounce them at all.

With shape-based typing, you'd also get more accurate hits in the first few 漢字/汉字 that show up, versus sound-based methods like Pinyin where for e.g., typing out “wan” will get you a whole list under the same sound and you may have to scroll through a whole lot to get the exact “wan” you need.

You can also type both Traditional and Simplified characters without having to toggle something or switch keyboards.

So how does one begin learning Cāngjié?

Install a Cāngjié keyboard.

Duh…but of course! Heh! Gboard offers one, banded under Cantonese language input (Android user here, don't know about iPhones, sorry).

There are two versions of Cāngjié that are prevalent currently. Cāngjié 3 and Cāngjié 5. Cāngjié 5 is supposed to be an improvement over version 3 but I don't find there's much; having a slightly altered version just adds to the confusion and unnecessarily complicates matters, in fact!

If you have a choice, I'd recommend selecting Cāngjié 3 as that is more supported. Some operating systems may not be too compatible with Cāngjié 5 still, for some strange reason.

You may also come across something called “Quick” (速成) aka, “Simplified Cāngjié”.

This is simply a scaled down version of Cāngjié, it's still based on Cāngjié's formula. So you still need to know how Cāngjié works in order to use “Quick” efficiently.

You'd then need a chart like this. ↓

* the 重 (Z) key doesn't really come into use. I don't really know what it's for, but it seems to be used (paired with other keystrokes) mainly to type out various punctuation marks.

There are variants out there, some having a little more, or less, radicals shown than in the above example, but I'll say the chart here is one of the more comprehensive ones I've found so far (and sufficient enough) — other charts often fail to highlight the 難 (X) key and what it corresponds to.

You don't have to memorize the chart all at once. Just always have a chart like this on hand to refer to and with enough typing practise, you'll eventually remember which key corresponds with which radicals.

Remember the rules. ↓

“1 part” character (e.g. 寫) = first 3 & last (radical).

“2 parts” character (e.g. 唔龍) = first & last, first 2 & last.

“3 parts” character (e.g. 難) = first & last, first & last, last.

e.g. 寫 ↓

With radicals 宀，丿，臼 (first 3) and 灬 (last).

Corresponding keys: 十，竹，難 and 火。

寫 → 写 ↓

With radicals 冖，卜，㇆ (first 3)，一 (last).

Corresponding keys：月，卜，尸 and 一。

e.g. 龍 ↓

With radicals 亠，月 (first & last), 卜，コ (first 2)，ヒ (last).

Corresponding keys: 卜，月，卜，尸，and 心。

龍 → 龙 ↓ (Simplified 龍 → 龙，a “1 part” character)

With radicals 丶，ナ，ヒ (first 3).

Corresponding keys: 戈，大，and 心。

e.g. 難 ↓

With radicals 廿，人 (first & last)，亻(first & last)，土 (last).

Corresponding keys: 廿，人，人 and 土。

難 → 难 ↓

With radicals ヌ (first & last)，亻(first & last)，土 (last).

Corresponding keys: 水，人，and 土。

Occasionally, you may get a character that looks like a “2 parts” but is actually a “3 parts”. ↓

e.g. 唔 ↓

With radicals 口 (first & last)，一，一 (first & last)，口 (last).

Corresponding keys: 口，一，一 and 口。

Or looks like a “1 part” but really a “3 parts”. ↓

e.g. 奪 ↓

With radicals 大 (first & last)，亻，土 (first & last)，丶 (last).

Corresponding keys: 大，人，土，and 戈。

奪 → 夺 ↓(Simplified 奪 → 夺，a “1 part” character)

With radicals 大，寸 (first 3; the 丶 is the 3rd component).

Corresponding keys: 大，木，and 戈。

But these are exceptions, and don't occur that often.

And you can start practising!

You can try out this pretty good app called 『五色學倉頡』 (learning Cāngjié with 5 colours), for practise. It's on Playstore, just search for “Cangjie Dictionary” and it should show up.

You have to pay to unlock higher levels, unfortunately. ↓

Anyway, each character comes with colour coded hints and you can opt to turn them off if you like more of a challenge. There are also hints (提示) and the chart (字根表) to refer to if you're really stuck. Also has a dictionary component (查字典) to check out the Cāngjié input for characters.

Another option would be a website called HKCards. ↓

You can use it to check the Cāngjié input for any 漢字/汉字, and there's section for practise (倉頡輸入法練習) as well. After inputting your answer with Cāngjié keys (手田水口廿卜), you can click on the “Answer” (答案) button to see how right or wrong your answers were. ↓

There are 8 characters each time, and you can just hit “Practise Again” (再做練習) to refresh for another 8 to practise with. I've yet to hit a limit.

Unfortunately, this website has lots of ads popping up. And it only supports searching in Traditional characters (Cāngjié was initially catered more for Traditional).

Or you can just try practising randomly with a Cāngjié keyboard and check for mistakes with a Cāngjié dictionary (『五色學倉頡』 app's dictionary comes in really useful here — it appears to support searching in Simplified too).

TL;DR

Cāngjié could be useful (and fun) to know if your 漢字/汉字 knowledge is already adequate, and/or you just like a new challenge.

And if watching videos is more your thing, here's a really helpful YouTube tutorial on how to use Cāngjié (has English subs)!

[don-dake]

Hong Kong hotel offers dim sum cart for dogs

上湯鵪鶉蛋 (soeng6 tong1 am1 seon4 daan2)

quail egg in consommé

鱈魚花膠卷 (syut3 jyu2 faa1 gaau1 gyun2)

cod fish maw roll

羊奶燉雞柳 (joeng4 naai5 dan6 gai1 lau5)

shredded chicken stewed in goat's milk

鴨肉多春魚 (aap3 juk6 do1 ceon1 jyu2)

duck meat with (some kind of) smelt fish

籠蒸滋味球 (lung4 zing1 zi1 mei6 kau4)

bamboo basket steamed flavourful balls (yes I know that sounds…naughty? 🤣 I'm just translating directly — ‘flavourful balls’ probably refers to some type of meat, likely chicken, rolled into balls)