English LingQ 2.0 Podcast #20: Learning Chinese with Luke Truman (1) Englisch LingQ 2.0 Podcast #20: Chinesisch lernen mit Luke Truman (1) Inglés LingQ 2.0 Podcast #20: Aprender chino con Luke Truman (1) Anglais LingQ 2.0 Podcast #20 : Apprendre le chinois avec Luke Truman (1) Inglese LingQ 2.0 Podcast #20: Imparare il cinese con Luke Truman (1) 英語 LingQ 2.0 Podcast #20：ルーク・トルーマンと学ぶ中国語 (1) 잉글리쉬 링큐 2.0 팟캐스트 #20: 루크 트루먼과 함께 중국어 배우기 (1) Angielski LingQ 2.0 Podcast #20: Nauka chińskiego z Lukiem Trumanem (1) Podcast #20 do LingQ 2.0 Inglês: Aprender chinês com Luke Truman (1) Английский LingQ 2.0 Подкаст #20: Изучение китайского языка с Люком Труманом (1) İngilizce LingQ 2.0 Podcast #20: Luke Truman ile Çince Öğrenmek (1) Подкаст English LingQ 2.0 #20: Вивчаємо китайську з Люком Труменом (1) 英语 LingQ 2.0 播客#20：跟卢克·杜鲁门学中文 (1)

Elle: Hello everyone and welcome it to the LingQ podcast with me Elle and today I'm joined by another special guest, Luke Truman of the YouTube channel also called Luke Truman. How are you?

Luke: Yeah, I'm great. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me on, and I'm really excited to be here. 非常感谢你们邀请我，我很高兴能来到这里。

Elle: Well, thank you so much for joining us. So your channel. Uh, I was perusing, uh, today and last week, uh, you focus on Chinese. There's a little Spanish. Uh, so, and I read in your "about" that you taught yourself Cantonese from scratch. Así que leí en tu "acerca de" que aprendiste cantonés desde cero. Now, as someone who, I know you're from the UK, English is your first language, seems to me like a language like Cantonese would be one of the more difficult languages you could teach yourself from scratch. 现在，作为一个我知道你来自英国的人，英语是你的第一语言，在我看来，像粤语这样的语言将是你可以从头开始自学的更难的语言之一。

So it's pretty amazing. 所以这真是太神奇了。 Um, how, how did that happen? First actually, why Cantonese? And then how did you go about teaching yourself Cantonese? Y luego, ¿cómo hiciste para aprender cantonés por tu cuenta?

Luke: Yeah so why Cantonese is kind of, for me, it was quite obvious choice although it might not be for most people. Luke: Sí, entonces, ¿por qué el cantonés es un poco? Para mí, fue una elección bastante obvia, aunque podría no serlo para la mayoría de las personas. 卢克：是的，所以为什么说粤语，对我来说，这是一个很明显的选择，尽管对大多数人来说可能不是。 When I was at university, I played table tennis in the university clubs. 当我上大学时，我在大学俱乐部打乒乓球。

So I was around a lot of people from Hong Kong. 所以我周围有很多来自香港的人。 And then I became really close to this one girl who later became my girlfriend. 然后我和这个后来成为我女朋友的女孩变得非常亲密。 Um, then we were dating after about two years I decided to start learning a bit of Cantonese because at the time I was going out for meals with her and her friends and I... when they'd speak in Cantonese 嗯，大约两年后我们约会了，我决定开始学一点粤语，因为当时我和她还有她的朋友出去吃饭，我……当他们用粤语说话时

I had no idea what was going on. No tenía idea de lo que estaba pasando. 我不知道发生了什么事。 So my original motivation, I guess, was just to really understand what the people around me were talking. 所以我想，我最初的动机只是为了真正理解周围的人在说什么。 所以我想，我最初的動機只是為了真正理解周遭的人在說什麼。 And when I'd go out for meals, they'd always, you know, make an effort and speak to me in English. 当我出去吃饭时，他们总是，你知道，努力用英语和我说话。 當我出去吃飯時，他們總是，你知道，努力用英語和我說話。 Maybe like one-to-one, but I always felt kind of like, not part of the group and left out Tal vez como uno-a-uno, pero siempre me sentí como, no parte del grupo y dejado de lado 也许就像一对一，但我总感觉自己不是团队的一部分，被排除在外 也許就像一對一，但我總覺得自己不是團隊的一部分，被排除在外

of the conversations because I could never join in. 谈话，因为我永远无法加入。 And whenever someone switched to English to speak to me, I always felt like they were accommodating me and I kind of felt a bit bad and a bit embarrassed. And also that if I'm going to be with this person, then I should probably try and learn that language. Y también que si voy a estar con esa persona, probablemente debería intentar aprender ese idioma.

Elle: And so how did you go about, do you ever, I mean, this is, I know a number of years ago now, but how did you get into it? Elle: Y entonces, ¿cómo te fue, alguna vez, quiero decir, esto es, lo sé hace varios años ahora, pero cómo te metiste en esto? Cause it's, I mean, you have to learn the Chinese characters. Porque es, quiero decir, tienes que aprender los caracteres chinos. It seems really tough. I mean, I guess you have, you had friends and a girlfriend who was speaking Cantonese, so that helped, but, um, what kind of method did you use to, to study Cantonese?

Luke: Well, I guess for the first maybe month or so, I didn't really know what I was doing then I just kind of downloaded a few apps on my phone and just gave it a go. Luke: Bueno, supongo que durante el primer mes más o menos, realmente no sabía lo que estaba haciendo, luego simplemente descargué algunas aplicaciones en mi teléfono y lo intenté. 卢克：嗯，我想在最初的一个月左右，我真的不知道自己在做什么，然后我只是在手机上下载了一些应用程序，然后就开始尝试。 I remember I was sitting in a car on holiday, I think it was in croatia at the time when I just started flicking through and trying to just learn a few words in that, you know, it was giving me words, like car and stuff. Recuerdo que estaba sentado en un automóvil de vacaciones, creo que fue en Croacia en el momento en que comencé a hojear e intentar aprender algunas palabras en eso, ya sabes, me estaba dando palabras, como automóvil y esas cosas. .

And I did that little research about what Cantonese is I didn't even know what a tone was. E hice esa pequeña investigación sobre qué es el cantonés. Ni siquiera sabía qué era un tono. I didn't... never heard of tones before. And when I was looking through the vocab, it was basically a few letters. And then there was this number next to it. And now I know that the number was the tone, but at the time I didn't even know what the number was. Y ahora sé que el número era el tono, pero en ese momento ni siquiera sabía cuál era el número.

So I just ignored it completely. And I was like, that's probably not that important. And then maybe, yeah, I kind of did that for a few weeks and then kind of stopped and didn't really do anything. Y luego tal vez, sí, hice eso durante algunas semanas y luego me detuve y realmente no hice nada. Cause I didn't really get anywhere. And then. Um, I remember looking online and trying to Google how to learn Cantonese.

Um, and this website kept coming up over and over again, a website called Cantoneseclass101.Com. Um, y este sitio web seguía apareciendo una y otra vez, un sitio web llamado Cantoneseclass101.Com. So they're run by, um, Innovative Language who also run, I guess, Chinese Pod 101. Así que están dirigidos por Innovative Language, que también dirige, supongo, Chinese Pod 101. They've got them in every language, I guess it's like Spanish Class or Spanish Pod or something. Los tienen en todos los idiomas, supongo que es como Spanish Class o Spanish Pod o algo así. You know, they've got Italian Class, they've got loads of languages and it's loads of kind of 10 to 15 minute podcasts with a short dialogue.

And then they have, um, a complete transcript to the dialogue. So I started that for a bit and then maybe about a week or two later, I didn't really make any progress. So I kind of just stopped again. And then I was, because I already had the subscription, I was Googling online, you know, "how to learn Cantonese." Y entonces estaba, porque ya tenía la suscripción, estaba buscando en Google, ya sabes, "cómo aprender cantonés".

And I stumbled across this article by a polyglot called Olly Richards, who said how to use Cantonese Class 101 to actually learn Cantonese. And I was like, okay, well I have this program. I bought it already. ya lo compre I didn't get anywhere before. So let's just see what this guy has to say. And he made the big point of

basically don't spend any time with a podcast because that, they're just English waffle and you don't need to know any of it. Básicamente, no pierdas el tiempo con un podcast porque son solo gofres en inglés y no necesitas saber nada de eso. You know, they're just taking 10 minutes to explain one grammar poinbt and you get like maybe two or three words of Cantonese. Tardan 10 minutos en explicarte un punto de gramática y tú te quedas con dos o tres palabras en cantonés. It's just not enough. So instead you want to shift your focus onto the dialogues and you want to read through many, many times, you want to listen to the dialogues on repeat, you want to look up all the words and you really want to practice your ear and focus on listening a lot from the start. En lugar de eso, debes centrarte en los diálogos y leerlos muchas, muchas veces, escuchar los diálogos una y otra vez, buscar todas las palabras y practicar el oído y centrarte mucho en escuchar desde el principio. 因此，你想把注意力转移到对话上，你想读很多很多遍，你想重复听对话，你想查找所有单词，你真的想练习你的耳朵和注意力从一开始就大量聆听。

So I started doing Olly's approach he outlined in the, in the blog post. 所以我开始采用 Olly 在博客文章中概述的方法。 And I started progressing quite fast, a lot more than what I was doing before. 我开始进步得很快，比以前进步很多。 And I thought, okay, we're onto something here. 我想，好吧，我们正在做一些事情。 So I took the same method and used it to apply to other resources like, um, the Teach Yourself Cantonese, complete, complete beginner course book, um, and did that for a few months. 所以我采取了同样的方法，并将其应用于其他资源，例如，嗯，自学粤语，完整的，完整的初学者课程书籍，嗯，并且这样做了几个月。

And then after that I started speaking a little bit. So I started practicing and again, my first few times on Skype I didn't really know what I was doing. 所以我开始练习，但在我最初几次使用 Skype 时，我真的不知道自己在做什么。 So most of the classes are in English and kind of stumbled about a bit there. Así que la mayoría de las clases son en inglés y tropezamos un poco allí. 所以大部分课程都是用英语授课的，所以我在那里遇到了一些问题。 And then, um, later I stumbled across a website called AJATT and I'm trying to remember of the timelines.

I think I also discovered Steve at some point. Creo que también descubrí a Steve en algún momento. And his videos along with that I also discovered websites like AJATT and they all emphasize the power of how powerful it is to immerse yourself in native audio and content and read and all that sort of stuff. Y sus videos junto con eso también descubrí sitios web como AJATT y todos enfatizan el poder de lo poderoso que es sumergirse en audio y contenido nativo y leer y todo ese tipo de cosas. So I then started putting an emphasis on watching a lot of dramas in Cantonese.

Initially I did it with English subs, subtitles for the first few months because my comprehension was really low. And then after a few months I decided to kick the subtitles and rewatch the shows I'd already watched cause I already had the context for it. Um, so did that for a few months. And then maybe after I got to the point about nine months/10 months, and I also used a few other resources, um, that had like fast, full speed audio. Y luego, tal vez, después de que llegué al punto alrededor de nueve meses/10 meses, y también usé algunos otros recursos, um, que tenían un audio rápido y de alta velocidad. But with the transcripts, um, Cantonese conversations by Olly Richard's again was really useful. And I started to kind of reach this... I felt like I've hit this ceiling in terms of how far my ability to comprehend was. Y comencé a llegar a esto... Sentí que había alcanzado este techo en términos de cuán lejos estaba mi capacidad de comprensión.

Getting so I could understand basic things, but my vocabulary was really small and I couldn't read and write. And if I wanted to jump into most native content and as I prepared for it, it was too difficult. So about nine months in, I started to learn Chinese characters. Entonces, alrededor de nueve meses después, comencé a aprender caracteres chinos. I found the book called Remembering the Traditional Hanzi by James Heisig or The Traditional Hanzi by James Heising.

I always pronounce it "Z" because that's the way the Cantonese word's pronounced. Siempre lo pronuncio "Z" porque así se pronuncia la palabra cantonesa. And I got called out for it before in a video so I wanna state... Y me llamaron antes en un video, así que quiero decir...

and, and...I learned, um, characters that way. It basically teaches you the 1,500 most characters, um, in terms of breaking them down into components and while it does, doesn't teach you pronunciation... I basically came to the ability to write 1,500 characters by hand and break them down. Básicamente te enseña la mayoría de los 1500 caracteres, um, en términos de dividirlos en componentes y, aunque lo hace, no te enseña la pronunciación... Básicamente llegué a la capacidad de escribir 1500 caracteres a mano y dividirlos. So instead of looking at a bunch of squiggly lines, I see, you know, I look at that and it's part A plus part B, it's not just a bunch of lines that have no meaning anymore. Entonces, en lugar de mirar un montón de líneas onduladas, veo, ya sabes, miro eso y es la parte A más la parte B, no es solo un montón de líneas que ya no tienen significado. So when I went into reading after that, and I started with short content with lots of audio and, you know, short chapters, or I could go through it and that worked really well. And I started picking up vocabulary really quickly. Now I could read, I could text with my friends.

I could, you know, look for subtitles and do all this stuff. I could read comic books. I could read books, not at first, but after a lot of time, I started to build up to that and I started to pick up words a lot quicker. So then it was just a lot of consuming as much content as I physically can. And speaking as much as I can basically from there on out. Y hablar todo lo que pueda básicamente a partir de ahí.

And I did that for about two years overall and got to a, like a pretty comfortable level to the point where I could go out with my friends and easily join in the conversation out for dinner. E hice eso durante aproximadamente dos años en general y llegué a un nivel bastante cómodo hasta el punto en que podía salir con mis amigos y unirme fácilmente a la conversación para cenar. I can read a few, I read a few novels in Cantonese that weren't crazy fantasy genre or anything like that, but they were like set in real life and I still had enough vocabulary to kind of follow what was going on longer than that. Puedo leer algunas, leí algunas novelas en cantonés que no eran del género de fantasía loca ni nada por el estilo, pero estaban ambientadas en la vida real y todavía tenía suficiente vocabulario para seguir lo que estaba pasando por más tiempo. . 我可以读一些，我读了一些粤语小说，这些小说不是疯狂的幻想类型或类似的东西，但它们就像现实生活中的背景一样，而且我仍然有足够的词汇来跟踪发生的事情比那更长的时间.

So that's more or less what I did for Cantonese.

Elle: Wow. And to pick up on a few things, you said that, did you say you learned to write 1500 chinese characters. Did I hear you say that?

Luke: Yeah. With the first book? Yeah.

So I did, um, I did more since then, because I studied the second book, which has another 1500.

And then when I was studying Mandarin, after I went to Taiwan for a year and we had to write out a lot of essays by hand and we did a lot of handwriting for that. But at the time I only did the first 1,500. Um, I don't think the second book's really worth it. I think the second book was pretty much a waste of time, but...

Elle: oh, okay. And so how many, how many Chinese characters would you say you, you know, like you could write at any given time? Entonces, ¿cuántos, cuántos caracteres chinos dirías que podrías escribir en un momento dado?

Luke: Well, it varies a lot. So, cause I haven't really practiced, um, writing up by hand since I, so I went for sabbatical for a year to study in Taiwan for Mandarin. No he vuelto a escribir a mano desde que me tomé un año sabático para estudiar mandarín en Taiwán. Dus, omdat ik niet echt heb geoefend, eh, met de hand schrijven sinds ik, dus ging ik een jaar voor een sabbatical om in Taiwan Mandarijn te studeren. Um, when I left Taiwan at the time I, they basically had our tests would give us a news article to read and would read it and then basically write out what our opinions on the article, and just write it out by hand. Cuando me fui de Taiwán, nos daban un artículo para leer, lo leíamos y escribíamos nuestras opiniones sobre el artículo a mano. Когда я уехал из Тайваня, то, в основном, на экзаменах нам давали прочитать новостную статью, и мы читали ее, а потом писали свое мнение о статье, причем просто от руки.

Um, so I could kind of do that at the time, but there was a lot of forgetting characters and paraphrasing or forgetting a character and then looking in the question to see if I'd written the character that I'd forgotten and I could kind of copy it. Um, entonces podría hacer eso en ese momento, pero hubo muchos olvidos de personajes y parafraseo u olvido de un personaje y luego mirar en la pregunta para ver si había escrito el personaje que había olvidado y podía tipo de copiarlo. 嗯，所以我当时可以这样做，但是有很多忘记字符和释义或忘记字符的情况，然后查看问题，看看我是否写了我忘记的字符，我可以有点复制它。 So there was like, you know, it was, uh, things like that, but I kind of stumbled my way through a bit forgetting sometimes, some of the, some of the, um, radicals or sorry, the components, the wrong way around and stuff. Así que había, ya sabes, eran, eh, cosas así, pero me tropecé un poco y a veces me olvidé de algunos de los, algunos de los, um, radicales o lo siento, los componentes, de la manera incorrecta. alrededor y esas cosas.

Um, but in terms of recognizing characters again, I, I don't really use any sort of online system now. So I don't track any of that, but I can read most, um, novels now, as long as they're not too archaic in the language they use. Dus ik hou daar niets van bij, maar ik kan de meeste, eh, romans nu lezen, zolang ze niet te archaïsch zijn in de taal die ze gebruiken. So some of the older books, there's this really popular novelist from Hong Kong called Jin Yong who writes a lot about martial arts novels and because they're quite old in the way, like  it's set in historical times, they use a lot of weird language that kind of is sort of half classical Chinese. En algunos de los libros más antiguos, está este novelista muy popular de Hong Kong llamado Jin Yong que escribe mucho sobre novelas de artes marciales y, como son bastante antiguas, como si estuvieran ambientadas en tiempos históricos, usan muchas cosas raras. idioma que es una especie de medio chino clásico. So it'll, as long as it doesn't go to that sort of, uh, language attempt to be okay now. Así que será, siempre y cuando no va a ese tipo de, eh, el lenguaje intento de estar bien ahora. Um, yeah.

Elle: Wow. I can't, I just can't imagine writing. It's an amazing accomplishment, I think, to be able to just write.

Cause I feel as though a lot of people who, uh, study Chinese, you know, Cantonese, Mandarin, or Japanese, maybe don't go down the path of learning how to write the characters because, um, it's really involved, takes a lot of time and maybe we're not, you won't really need to, to do it ever, you can just use... You're on your computer or your phone. Porque me siento como si un montón de gente que, eh, estudiar chino, ya sabes, cantonés, mandarín o japonés, tal vez no ir por el camino de aprender a escribir los caracteres porque, um, es realmente complicado, lleva mucho tiempo y tal vez no estamos, usted realmente no necesita, para hacerlo nunca, usted puede utilizar... Usted está en su computadora o su teléfono.

So, um, that's a really, it's a really cool skill.

Luke: I completely agree. It's not that practical and you forget them really quickly, but it was kind of fun. So I enjoyed it.

Elle: Well, it must totally help... I mean, you say impractical, I guess kind of, but it's, it must help with other aspects of learning the language. Elle: Bueno, debe ayudar totalmente... Quiero decir, dices poco práctico, supongo, pero debe ayudar con otros aspectos del aprendizaje del idioma.

I mean, you're writing it out, so that's also reading and, you know, yeah. It helps for sure. I enjoyed that aspect of learning Japanese for sure. But when you said 1500 and the fact that, you know more than that to write out, that just blows me away. Pero cuando dijiste 1500 y el hecho de que sabes más que eso para escribir, eso me deja boquiabierto. I think I could write like a hundred when I stopped studying Chinese characters, Kanji.

I mean, I'm very impressed. So then after Cantonese, did you move straight on to studying Mandarin or was there, or were there any languages in between? Entonces, después del cantonés, ¿pasó directamente a estudiar mandarín o estuvo allí, o hubo algún idioma intermedio?

Luke: Yeah. So I was planning a trip to Mexico with my family so I... and there was also a few Spanish dramas I wanted to watch. So I thought, you know, let's just try and learn Spanish for a little bit.

So I gave myself a kind of timeline of half a year to try and see how far I could get. And I just basically used similar methods to Cantonese. Um, and just started really trying to just immerse myself as much as I can. Um, I used LingQ a lot for Spanish, which I found brilliant. I really like the feature of being able to import YouTube videos and then having the audio just so easily transferred into my phone in the app and just having a playlist of all the things that I've downloaded and going through on a system like that.

It's really easy to look at words. So, and with some... When there's a lot of cognation, I can at a relatively early stage jump into really interesting but short content and just do a lot of intensive work with that. I'm not, that's what that I found really enjoyable. So I did that for about half a year.

Elle: Hmm. Excellent. And then you moved on to the Mandarin. Okay. Right. And so how, how similar are Cantonese and Mandarin?

Luke: Uh, well, the, the, the biggest overlap is obviously the Chinese characters are the same and this is always a complicated thing to explain, but effectively, um, standard written Chinese, which is basically based off Mandarin is the formal, um, written language in China, in Hong Kong and Taiwan. Luke: Uh, bueno, la, la, la mayor superposición es, obviamente, que los caracteres chinos son los mismos y esto siempre es algo complicado de explicar, pero efectivamente, um, el chino escrito estándar, que se basa básicamente en el mandarín es el formal, um, lenguaje escrito en China, en Hong Kong y Taiwán.

And that is the same, obviously you have the traditional simplified character split, but in terms of the grammar and the word choice, it's the same across all of them. And it doesn't matter if you speak Taiwanese, it doesn't matter. Y no importa si hablas taiwanés, no importa. You speak Cantonese or Hokkien or Shanghainese or Mandarin, you write the same way.

And that's kind of how Mandarin's worded. So it's based off that. Así que se basa en eso. Um, with Cantonese, you can read it out colloquially as it's spoken, but that's really rare and only really seen in things like maybe in YouTube comments or texting or comic books and stuff like that. Um, con el cantonés, puedes leerlo coloquialmente mientras se habla, pero eso es realmente raro y solo se ve en cosas como comentarios de YouTube o mensajes de texto o cómics y cosas así. There are some novels, but they're rare.

Um, so that's the biggest overlap. Um, entonces esa es la superposición más grande. And then I guess the other bigger, biggest overlap is just in terms of, you know, vocabulary. So a lot of things sound really similar to, if you take a common word, for example, like "ni hao" in Mandarin means "hello". In Cantonese, you can pronounce it "ni hao". So it kind of sounds close enough that you can kind of guess, and that helps, um, really speed up the ability to improve your comprehension by quite a lot. Así que suena lo suficientemente cerca como para que puedas adivinarlo, y eso ayuda, um, realmente a acelerar la capacidad de mejorar tu comprensión en gran medida.

Um, the things that always tripped me up is the endings of words. Um, las cosas que siempre me hicieron tropezar son las terminaciones de las palabras. The "ao" sound and "oo" sound almost seems to be a one for one swap. El sonido "ao" y el sonido "oo" casi parecen ser un intercambio de uno por uno. So if it's an "ao" in Mandarin, it's an "ou" in Cantonese and vice versa. And it just seems to like swap you around. Y parece que le gusta intercambiarte. So for example, I don't know, "head" in Cantonese, his ... and in Mandarin it's ...

So if you're trying to swap between the two, it's almost for every word, it's just kind of like the inverse with enough exceptions to trip you up. Entonces, si está tratando de cambiar entre los dos, es casi para cada palabra, es algo así como lo contrario con suficientes excepciones para hacerlo tropezar. Yeah.

Elle: So do you find that you get, you get tripped up a lot when you're, cause you're actively, your language right now that you're studying and really immersed in is Mandarin., right? Elle: Entonces, encuentras que te haces tropezar mucho cuando estás, porque estás activamente, tu idioma en este momento en el que estás estudiando y realmente inmerso es el mandarín, ¿verdad? And so do you find you're often using the Cantonese? ¿Y te encuentras a menudo utilizando el cantonés?

Luke: Yeah, I mean, when I was in Taiwan for like the first I did four semesters there and I think on my first day in class, on semester one, two and three, I had different teachers and then the teacher said on day one, "wait, do you know Cantonese?" And they said that basically every semester until my last one, when I got a bit better with fixing my weird accent. Y dijeron eso básicamente cada semestre hasta el último, cuando mejoré un poco arreglando mi extraño acento.

Um, so they could obviously tell where the way I pronounce certain words, wrong that it was kind of more towards the Cantonese pronunciation. Um, for example, the word for time is ... and in Mandarin, it's ... so I'd always say ... and kind of have that "ow" sound in Cantonese when it should be ... Um, por ejemplo, la palabra para el tiempo es... y en mandarín, es... así que siempre diría... y tengo ese sonido "ow" en cantonés cuando debería ser...

and I do that a lot and that would be the most common one. You can probably click on any of my Mandarin-speaking videos and see a remanence of it there still. Probablemente puedas hacer clic en cualquiera de mis vídeos en mandarín y ver una remanencia de ello allí todavía. Вы можете кликнуть на любое из моих видео, где я говорю на мандаринском языке, и увидеть его остатки. Um, so yeah, I find that quite confusing, but I have gotten a lot better now. Um, I do still make mistakes, but it's, it's less of an issue now.

Elle: And for anyone listening, who maybe is on the journey studying, uh, Cantonese or Mandarin, or is thinking maybe they want to give it a go because it is, it's a scary thought. Elle: Y para cualquiera que escuche, que tal vez esté en el viaje estudiando, eh, cantonés o mandarín, o esté pensando que tal vez quiera intentarlo porque es un pensamiento aterrador. I think, especially coming from an English as a first language point of view, um, it's... people say it's a very difficult language to learn. 我认为，特别是从英语作为第一语言的角度来看，嗯，人们说这是一门非常难学的语言。 They both are. Uh, do you have any tips for anyone who is thinking about maybe starting that journey of learning to read the characters or just, just learning Cantonese or Mandarin?

Luke: Yeah. I mean, I guess, um, with a lot of these things, I kind of think sometimes we're our own worst enemy. Quiero decir, supongo, um, con muchas de estas cosas, creo que a veces somos nuestro peor enemigo. So like one quote I really liked by, I think it was Mohammed Ali says, um, it's not the mountains ahead that wear us out it's the pebble in our shoe, you know, stuff like that. Entonces, como una cita que realmente me gustó, creo que fue Mohammed Ali que dice, um, no son las montañas las que nos desgastan, es la piedra en nuestro zapato, ya sabes, cosas así. Мне очень нравится цитата Мохаммеда Али, который, кажется, сказал: "Не горы впереди изматывают нас, а камешек в ботинке", ну, вы понимаете, и все такое. I think we feel like that a lot of the time, we spend so much time worrying about how hard it's going to be, that if we just

started and got going, you know, it would start progressing quicker than we thought. And then as soon as you start progressing, when you feel that, you're going to be motivated to carry on. Y en cuanto empieces a progresar, cuando sientas eso, estarás motivado para seguir. So it's kind of that, that first bit before you feel any tangible progress, it's the bit that you most likely to give up in. Así que es algo así, ese primer momento antes de que sientas algún progreso tangible, es el momento en el que es más probable que te rindas.

So I feel like if you can just get started and feel some progress, then you're going to be motivated and want to carry on. At least that's what happened to me. Um, And when I didn't feel progress by using inefficient methods, then I did give up after like a week or two. Um, y cuando no sentí ningún progreso usando métodos ineficientes, me di por vencido después de una semana o dos. Cause I thought, well, this is pointless,

I'm not getting anywhere. Um, I think the big thing for me is don't be so worried about what you can and can't say to begin with, because like you said, it's, there's, the sounds are very different. The tones are very different. The characters are very different and it's all very new and a fun, it takes a long time for me to get used to.

So I think just, regardless of whether you learn characters or not. Así que creo que simplemente, independientemente de si aprendes los caracteres o no. I feel like putting a big emphasis on listening at the start is very useful. Siento que poner un gran énfasis en escuchar al principio es muy útil. Um, and with the characters, I did use a book called Remembering the Traditional Hanzi by James. Um, y con los personajes, usé un libro llamado Remembering the Traditional Hanzi de James. Hiseig which, he has a Kanji version, which teaches us, like, I think or the Joy of Kanji, which is something like 2000.

The Mandarin one was 1,500. I don't think it's necessarily. Actually, I don't think it's necessarily relevant to learn that many characters in one go in the start at the beginning because it is quite dry. So unless you're really a big like Hanzi nerd, then maybe you don't do that. Así que a menos que seas realmente un gran como Hanzi nerd, entonces tal vez usted no hace eso. I think there's lots of really good courses out there that teach you the fundamentals of how characters work with only a few hundred. Creo que hay muchos cursos muy buenos que te enseñan los fundamentos del funcionamiento de los personajes con sólo unos cientos.

And then once you kind of get that basic knowledge, you can just move on. So, you know, once you understand that, okay, well, on... Most of them are sound plus meaning. Entonces, ya sabes, una vez que entiendes eso, está bien, bueno, en... La mayoría de ellos son sonido más significado. So you have a sound component of the character that tells you roughly how it's pronounced and you have a meaning that's, you know, so for example, it might be ... which is the one for copper. Así que tienes un componente de sonido del carácter que te dice aproximadamente cómo se pronuncia y tienes un significado que es, ya sabes, por ejemplo, podría ser... que es el del cobre.

You've got the gold bit on the right. Tienes la broca dorada a la derecha. And the one that looks kind of like a cave, it was HiSeig, it was a cave and that, and it's pronounced ... as well. Y el que parece una especie de cueva, era HiSeig, era una cueva y eso, y se pronuncia... también. So, you know, that's the sound, that's the meaning. Most characters are like that. And once you kind of get used to that in your head and you know what the basic elements are, it's a lot easier.

So there were a few courses out there. You can try that with, there's um a book that Vladimir Skultety wrote which teaches about 300 characters. He had a PhD in Chinese characters that, that I've heard really good things about that. There's Outlier Chinese. I did a course also about 300 characters, long with that. Hice un curso también de unos 300 caracteres, largo con eso.

Again, he's got a, I think a PhD in Chinese phonology and lots of crazy stuff. And I've got an interview with him on my channel and he's his, knowledge on Mandarin just completely blew my mind. It's like, he's a very smart guy, so his course is very, very good as well. So just picking anything like that and just Así que simplemente eligiendo algo así y simplemente

getting a basic idea of what they are. And then just trying to jump into just reading. And when you first get started, preferably something with audio is better because then you can, if you can kind of try and pair up the audio and the characters and not kind of put so much strain on your brain to recall sounds that you may or may not be able to remember.

Elle: Right. Well there we have it got us some excellent advice there. Some great. Uh, content. I'll put the links in the description too, for anyone who is interested in checking those out. Uh, you mentioned interviews on your channel, just there and you have some excellent ones. I see. Uh, is there anyone though, who you would love? Uh, ¿hay alguien a quien amarías?

I was wondering who would love to have on your,channel? Me preguntaba a quién le encantaría tener en tu canal. It can be, you know, unrealistic, like... the Pope or something. Is there anyone you'd love to have on? Um, yeah.

And if so, who and why?

Luke: I mean, yeah, I think Pope speaks in Chinese would be a great clickbait and I'd get so many views of that. Luke: Quiero decir, sí, creo que Pope habla en chino sería un gran clickbait y obtendría muchas vistas de eso. Luke: Ik bedoel, ja, ik denk dat paus die in het Chinees spreekt een geweldige clickbait zou zijn en ik zou daar zoveel meningen over krijgen. So, yeah.

Yeah.

Chinese, um, sphere. I guess the one that I kind of looked up to a lot was Dasha, which translates to like big mountain he's Canadian comedian. Supongo que el que más admiraba era Dasha, que se traduce como una gran montaña, es un comediante canadiense. Well, he was born in Canada, lives in China and has done for like maybe like 30, 40 years. And he speaks absolutely phenomenal. And it's not that he just speaks like a native, he also makes lots of jokes and you know, he's standing in front of a crowd of thousands of Chinese people, making them all laugh.

It's just completely blows my mind every time I watch one of his performances. So yeah, I would love to get him on, um, maybe more realistic. Así que sí, me encantaría tenerlo, um, tal vez más realista. Um, there's also this other, I think he's a polyglto he speaks a few languages called Laoma on ... Again speaks really kind of, like really authentic Northern accent in China. Um, también está este otro, creo que es políglota, habla algunos idiomas llamados Laoma en... De nuevo, habla realmente como un auténtico acento del norte en China.

And he has really, really good pronunciation. He has lots of videos, teaching English, pronunciation to Chinese people, he's lived there for a long time and he speaks really good. So I'd love to get Laoma on the channek as well if, uh, if I got the opportunity.

Elle: Well, fingers crossed and to go back to Dashu, is that his name? Elle: Bueno, crucemos los dedos y para volver a Dashu, ¿es ese su nombre?

Luke: It's Dashu. It's like big mountain.

Elle: Uh, I feel like making people laugh in the language, you know, making other people understand that language laugh is like the ultimate. Elle: Uh, me siento como hacer reír a la gente en el idioma, ya sabes, hacer reír a otras personas entienden que el lenguaje es como el último. I feel, you know, as it's so nuanced, you know, comedy in different cultures. Siento, ya sabes, como tiene tantos matices, ya sabes, la comedia en diferentes culturas. So yeah, I imagine that I would be, yeah, just, just would be an amazing feeling.

So, and he's Canadian, you said?

Luke: Yeah. Pretty sure he's Canadian, yeah, pretty sure.

Elle: All right. Cool. Okay. Well, uh, all of these great pieces of content that you have mentioned, I will put in the description and also a link to your channel for anyone who's interested in, checking it out. Thank you so much for joining us today Luke.

Luke: Thank you so much for having me on. I really enjoyed it.

Elle: Bye

Luke: Bye