Thanks for your tour guide. In fact I have been to Chester before, and love it very much. I was on the way to the Isle of Man, flying there with a piece of steel, not much bigger than my bathtub. Well, that sounds a bit exagerate, but the plane could only hold 12 people, and the trip was like riding on a roller-coaster.

I am glad you like Chester. I have been a few times too. It has a Wall and a river and a toilet in the carpark where gay people write things about their underpants.

PS. Do not tell that bloke from "Wham"

Aaaah, you mean "probably the best beer in the world"?
My favourite as well, despite this annoying, bragging slogan...
I visited the original Kah See Ba brewery in Copenhagen once. Very interesting, especially the Beer Museum there and the free samples at the end of the VERY POPULAR tour.

How did we go from speaking Cantonese to being in some Dutch brewery?!?!?!? hahahahhahahaha

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We're still on the same topic. You started this topic by asking who can count in Cantonese!
Yat baeh tsau, Yee baeh tsau, Sam baeh tsau, Say baeh tsau, Ng Baeh tsau... too drunk now to continue counting...

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gow sap gow luk sic beer-jau

ha ha ha

What I find really frustrating about trying to learn Cantonese is that there is very little suport from any written language in the surrounding environment. In other countries, once you have learned a little of the language you can start reading signs and notices and shop displays etc, but unless you learn Chinese characters there is not much to help you as there is no standard way of writing Cantonese - there are lots of systems, but nobody agrees on which one to use. This is different from the mainland, where the Pinyin system is standard everywhere and a great aid to learning the language.

The "psuedo Chinese" place names are particularly frustrating - if you want to go to Tseun Wan or Mai Po or Sheung Shui and have already diligently learned the pattern "ngoh seung heui ..." at the YMCA there is no way of knowing how to pronounce the place names accurately.

To take an example from the MTR, Chai Wan and Wan Chai look as if they are the same words reversed. OK, so the Wan is the same (even if would be better written "waan") But how can a learner know that the "chai" in Wan Chai starts with a dz sound, has a short a vowel and is a rising tone and the "chai" in Chai Wan starts with a ts sound, has a long aa vowel and is a low falling tone?

If they were written in a real Pinyin it woujld be much easier.

Zep

Quite right, as evinced by my "gow gow gow gow gow gow" sentence.

Or as Phil the Greek once said, "It all looks like barbed wire to me."

I kind of agree. But then I learnt to speak Cantonese WITHOUT being able to read the characters. I HAVE met quite a number of English people (in England!) who can speak English but are illiterate.... And as a native English speaker I really don't care what a 'pluperfect tense' is... When we learn languages, there seems to be a few different ways and I find it a struggle with the standard 'textbook' style that ESF schools offer.

Here on Lamma, we have "Tai Peng" but in Cantonese; it sounds more like "Die Ping" which I can imagine is visually unappealing to English speakers...... Is that why they chose the less correct words? Maybe!

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Hong Kong Underground Music Scene:
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Thinking Out Loud:
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Guitars & Panties:
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Sisters of Sharon:
http://www.sistersofsharon.com.hk/

In mandarin there are only four tones, but 9 in cantonese? So Pinyin for Cantonese will look a lot more complicated than the mandarin pinyin. You might see somthing like Waan1 Zhai8 for Wan Chai, and Chai3 Waan1 for Chai Wan. Besides the tone, there are so many twist of tougue even many locals have difficulties to master. Perhaps you should learn the language as a pure spoken language, and not to bother with the writing. Always speak in a sentence because it helps people to associate the meaning. And use a lot of gestures as k@ does.

Ha Ha,

My wife used to work in a maternity ward so she taught me a gesture that means " go forth and multiply "

I have found it very handy for saying goodbye with