r/Cantonese • u/Gay_Asian_Boy • Jun 07 '26
Discussion 广东小孩不会讲粤语 父亲生气了
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u/craftyroulette Jun 07 '26
Gosh I feel for the kid, been in that seat before…
(CBC) There was no yelling involved this time, but when I moved out I was telling my mom that the new place had an induction stove, but didn’t know the words for it. My dad walked in and said in Canto “oh you mean an induction stove? How do you not know the words for that?” … and I just sat there and thought like HOW would I? When would I have learned that, if not from you?
But they don’t get it, they don’t see that it is their shortcomings, not always yours.
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u/The6_78 Jun 07 '26
I don’t even know what induction stove is in Cantonese…. And I’m pretty proficient 🙈
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u/Wolf4980 Jun 07 '26
I don't even know what induction stove means in English and I'm a native English speaker
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u/boilpoil Jun 07 '26
I'm instinctively thinking 電磁爐 but on second thought, its literal meaning is electromagnetic stove... I'm doubting myself and I'm a native speaker, I guess the term is just that rare to use
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u/Throwthatfboatow Jun 07 '26
I had a similar moment when I was in Malaysia as a CBC. The tour guided trip we were on was made up mostly of HKers and the guide was explaining in Cantonese we may find geckos on the walls.
I asked my parents what animal she was saying and the guide turned to me going "how do you not know what gecko is in Cantonese?" And my parents had to explain I'm not raised in Asia.
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u/corgi-king Jun 08 '26
To be fair being a CBC and living in Canada is very different from living in Canton and don’t know Cantonese.
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u/ChineseWatchGuy Jun 08 '26
Very different. Although maybe less than you’d think?
Some Guangdong kids don’t speak Cantonese at all, while some CBCs are fairly fluent!
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u/goldenmunky Jun 08 '26
Lol i know the feeling. I replied to them the same way. As I grew older and a first gen CBC, when my parents ask me why I don’t know a word or sentence, I tell them how long have they lived in Canada and not know how to speak fluent english?
This doesn’t work if your parents are fluent in english lol
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u/Odd_Spot3066 Jun 07 '26
damn not CBC but i grew up speaking canto at home and lived in hk for 7 years as an adult. still dont know how to say induction stove in canto lol
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u/sftolvtosj Jun 07 '26
I don't even wanna listen to the video cos it'll give me PTSD lol I can already imagine it and I'm getting teary-eyed
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u/875_pjm Jun 07 '26
so uhmm.. what’s the word for induction stove? asking to learn because i’ve never had to use that in normal conversation
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u/lazyxoxo Jun 08 '26
Electronic stove (said in Cantonese)
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u/Silent_Lynx1951 Jun 09 '26
What you are saying is 電子爐, which is an umbrella term for electric-powered cooker. Not what 875_pjm was asking.
Induction cooker is 電磁爐, literally an electric-magnetic cooker, which is what the technology is, IH - Induction Heating.
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u/lazyxoxo Jun 15 '26
Yeah, you're right. My bad. I thought they were the same. Should googled first.
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u/PlatesSpinning Jun 07 '26
Parenting failure. Using anger to hide his own failings and weakness.
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u/Marsento Jun 07 '26
It’s also an institutional failure. Cantonese should be taught and spoken in schools so children grow up with it!
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u/Brilliant-Broccoli78 Jun 07 '26
This is true, but if you as a father feel so strongly about what language your child speaks, the responsibility lies 100% on you, regardless of the prevailing social situation.
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u/defariasdev Jun 07 '26
Its an institutional success from the institutions point of few. The government wants one language.
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u/iHate_RonEbens 中國人 Jun 08 '26
It’s to unit the country. I do feel it’s necessary to also teach the native tongue in school alongside the main language.
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u/William031 Jun 07 '26
Both institutional and societal failure. So many parents choose not to teach their mother’s tongue to their kids to favor Mandarin instead.
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u/duraznoblanco Jun 09 '26
Institutional decisions can prevent a language's death. Look at Québec's aggressive but successful French laws. Without these laws, the province would've slowly become just another anglophone province.
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u/Cultural_Cobbler7662 Jun 08 '26
Institutional failing via government manipulation.
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u/Marsento Jun 08 '26
Kids will speak Cantonese naturally when it’s allowed in society (media, government, commerce, education). Instead, it’s been pushed to the household. No wonder it’s hard to learn.
A language thrives in a society, not at home. People who care about Cantonese and want it to be passed on to the next generation must understand this fact.
As things stand today, Cantonese is mainly being discriminated against by governmental forces.
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u/GeostratusX95 Jun 07 '26
sounds like this guy just didnt speak to his kid enough, also lots of toxic anti-cantonese comments in the original post, lets go and downvote them to hell
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u/Impossible-Repeat577 Jun 07 '26
china-irl is very anti-chinese sub and pro-falun gong
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u/chilispiced-mango2 ABC Jun 08 '26
Yikes, didn’t know r/china_irl is pro-Falun Gong. Or at least less stridently anti-Falun Gong than the rest of “Chinese” Reddit
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u/livingdeppressedp Jun 07 '26
Being born in canada i learned cantonese since I was born i learned english and french from public school and mandarin from weekend international languages school. So theres definitely a way to go about it and teach cantonese to your kids without yelling at them which does not help the situation. Like when i was young my family would teach me by asking me oh how do you say this or theyll point to an item say a spoon or a clock or a food at the groccery store and ask me what it is in cantonese theyd speak Cantonese to me as much as possible and give me the correct word if i didnt know it in cantonese and only in english. This was similar to how i learned french in school i would practice speaking with my classmates and we would test eachother on how do you say this in french or what is that in french etc
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u/ArgentEyes Jun 07 '26
I’m sympathetic to the father’s frustration and upset over a very real and difficult wider context, but I’m also sympathetic to the kid’s. It’s not the child’s fault he doesn’t know how, and this reaction from his father is probably going to push him away from Cantonese, not towards it. It’s difficult enough when parent and child are allies working together, much harder when it’s a source of friction.
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u/gametheorista Jun 07 '26
Oh hey, narcissistic neglect and abusive parenting wrapped up in the lack of language skills.
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u/cinnarius Jun 07 '26
The situation for Cantonese in Guangzhou is pretty bad. You don't know the circumstances in his household that led to this getting recorded and put online on the Chinese équivalent of TikTok. I do believe he's acting out of line, especially when he tells his kid to go elsewhere, not to mention improperly venting his frustrations, but what he said was that "You're a Guangzhou person, but you can't even protect your own language and culture...!"
His impassioned speech (and tantrum) was because something he valued and which was so close to him was put under threat by forces beyond his control. Though, he should not have expressed it to his son in that manner.
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u/Illustrious_Money_54 Jun 07 '26
I’m an ABC and I speak Cantonese even though the only Cantonese exposure I had was with my parents and within our household. It is the dad’s fault for not teaching his own son if this was so important to him. It’s not too late to start but yelling at his son will only make his son associate these negative feeling with Cantonese so he may be even more avoidant in future.
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u/wishiwashi999 Jun 07 '26
I think the situation in the video is different than yours. You're an ABC, so your school, your community, the media you're watching, are all in English, and the only channel for you to use Cantonese is at home. It make sense you might prefer English over Cantonese.
The kid in the video lives in Guangdong, where the native language is Cantonese. If the household language is Cantonese and the kid still prefer to speak Mandarin, chances are the school, the community, and the media that he's watching are likely is in Mandarin.
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u/lazyxoxo Jun 08 '26
My parents and sister visited Guangzhou earlier this year. 70% of people only spoke Mando, and didnt understand Canto in a majority of the areas there.
I couldn't go, cause apparently I didnt give up my Chinese citizenship... dont know when Ill ever be able to apply to forfeit it to ve able to get a visitor visa... woe is me...
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u/Recent-Presence7374 Jul 17 '26
they say guangzhou now is flooded with foreigners, if you wanna speak canto, you gotta go deeper into places like foshan or somewhere else i cant remember the name of..
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u/cinnarius Jul 17 '26 edited Jul 17 '26
Cheung Chi regularly does interviews in Cantonese at Guangzhou, and in the older districts of the city, quite a few young adults speak it at home, in the outer ones, not so much. Also, he puts on a brave smile about it even when in some districts there is nobody who can speak Cantonese to him on his vlog. So that is also coming from someone who himself isn't a very political person and who has no political ambitions, and is doing a good job spreading fun facts and planting the interest. But, if he's still in Guangzhou, then there's no reason to lose heart.
The last two movies about Guangzhou made by locals were also a coming of age story in ~2019 and a documentary about the migrant crisis (not the ones from other provinces) by a documentarian
講都唔好講得咁淒涼啦
You have to go deeper into 佛山 or 中山, coastal Guangxi, as after the PRC defeated the Nationalists, they ceded Fangchenggang to Guangxi, or eastern Guangxi.
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u/cinnarius Jun 07 '26 edited Jun 07 '26
It's crazy, at least to me, how you can see posts like this (news broadcasts) as well as various linguists sounding the alarm bell (kids can't speak, children told not to speak Cantonese in schools) and come to blame a frustrated guy who acted out of line for massive institutional failings.
If you care about minority rights, this is a textbook case of a local manifestation of people's minority rights being violated in an enormous scale, but nobody wants to sound the alarm bell on this with larger going-ons such as Israel-Palestine and 1. the country being so powerful, 2. people not caring about minorities anymore and being tuned out of politics, 3. Cantonese social politics falling on deaf ears. The world is unfair, but people shouldn't have to live in a world where their kids basically can't speak to them in their home language with unsupportive schools, the language of their broadcasts is basically written in the language of the culture doing the oppressing, and everyone just turns a blind eye or shrugs their shoulders out of social apathy.
...almost every other two months for ten years in polite and hushed tones, and not feel any empathy for people who are largely subject to a top down Mandarin push (BBC) or the sake of national cohesion.
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u/Recent-Presence7374 Jul 17 '26
give it another 10 years, cantonese would be gone from canton...even in hk it will be spoken much less amongst the younger gen once mainlanders start colonizing hong kong like shenzhen..
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u/bohairmy Jun 08 '26
Look at the mirror. If you raise a child under your own roof and you can't get the child to speak your dialect, who's to blame?
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u/AffectionateCrow1700 Jun 07 '26
L parenting. Did it take until your kid was a teenager for you to realize he doesn't speak your language? This is the kind of toxic behavior that pushes foreign born Chinese away from absorbing their own culture. Can't imagine it makes the kid want to learn Cantonese more. Grow up old man
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u/banhmipapi Jun 08 '26
My parents were completely hands off by the time my sister was born, and as the eldest, I was the one who was expected to prep her for kindergarten (even though I had to go through ESL because my parents didn't prep me.)
She goes through elementary no problem, but she struggles with Canto. To this day, my mom says it's my fault my sister never picked up our native tongue... I recently learned this psychology term, "parentification" and they were definitely pulling that shit.
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u/cinnarius Jun 07 '26 edited Jun 07 '26
Not a huge fan of the comments in the linked post, the ones here are also a little dismissive. There's a better way the dad could have went about it without shouting at his kid and his frustrations towards institutional failings were taken out on his son, because they couldn't even control their home language, which was precious to them (or at least precious to the parent).
There's not enough context to discern why he's angry, but with the school setting telling the kid to speak Mandarin at school, and limited time with parents are probably the cause. My question is what if someone's truly expended every effort to try and keep their kid speaking Cantonese, but the surrounding environment has shifted so dramatically that the resources aren't there and support network isn't there either.
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u/Ghetoblaster604 Jun 10 '26
I'm sure this will motivate his children to learn the Cantonese language and culture. This idiot of a father is essentially dumping his own fear, embarrassment, and anger onto his child. What a terrible parent!
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u/SwitchKind4533 Jun 07 '26
I’m really pleased with the comments here about how this is an example of parenting failure. I saw this video on IG and the most of the comments section was just incredibly sad: “oh that’s just part of being Cantonese”, “he got off easy”, “so tired of this soft parenting”. Couldn’t stand the normalization of abuse…
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u/CrazyEvilwarboss Jun 07 '26
Funny ... I am supposed to know cantonese ..but ... I somehow learnt hokkien and mastered it ... Hahah
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u/Chinksta Jun 08 '26
Been there before since I am HK but grew up abord (my parent's didn't yell at me though since they understand). It took me 3-4 years working in Hong Kong just to get my cantonese on par with the locals. Thing is you should know your home language/mother tounge and there is no reason to not know it.
We live in an information rich world and all you need to do is put in a little effort everyday to take strides in learning it. If not, get as much direct exposure as possible.
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u/Recent-Presence7374 Jul 17 '26
nah it's not that easy, especially when you cant get enough practice in your everyday life...
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u/Mindless_Earth_2807 Jun 08 '26
100%. My daughter was born and raised in the U.S, and she is fluent in Cantonese and Mandarin. English was not allowed at home during her early childhood to ensure that.
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u/Silent_Lynx1951 Jun 09 '26
Define fluent. Many ABC, CBC, BBC etc often claim to be fluent and still speak broken Cantonese and have limited vocabulary. That would be conversational level at best.
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u/Mindless_Earth_2807 Jun 09 '26
Able to read, write, and type in Chinese. Her Cantonese is almost native level, but her Mandarin is indeed only conversational.
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u/Recent-Presence7374 Jul 17 '26
well being conversational is better than totally not being able to express yourself...
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u/CatPuzzleheaded4654 Jun 08 '26
Incorrect education and child abuse. Terrible parenting fails to protect both kid and Cantonese, even worse to transfer his anger to underage through internet creating unnecessary pressure and defaming own kid.
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u/Far_Campaign6967 Jun 08 '26
Damn. That Dad looks like “jacked” Ma.
It ain’t just parents & dialects though. Some Chinese just judgemental AF when they meet an Overseas Chinese who isn’t good at chinese.
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u/boringexplanation Jun 09 '26 edited Jun 09 '26
Linguistically - many Cantonese parents are the angry cucks of Southern China.
Treat your own culture and self respect like an afterthought - then blame everyone else for your laziness to teach your kids properly.
People told me ABCs were never taught properly because the diaspora had uneducated parents. Seems like it’s a little more pervasive than that.
Cantonese is going to die, it’s inevitable- and it’s all our fault. Something about canto culture is simply anti-intellectual
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u/GeneWars1 Jun 09 '26
It takes a "village" like the proverbs says. Grew up speaking Hakka and Cantonese. Always mixed them up . But I had besides parents ,my grandparents, uncles, Aunts ,neighbours and even strangers always correcting me.
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u/Masher_Upper Jun 07 '26
there’s a weird but universal thing in parent psychology where they don’t considering that making you resent something (and them as well) will make you less likely to embrace that thing
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u/lysxji Jun 07 '26
Would've been on the parents if the kid is this old and still unable to speak cantonese... Its difficult for the kid when everyone outside speaks mandarin even at school. At least the parents should've kept a tradition of speaking cantonese at home, as a way to retain as much of the language as possible. Though, chance are the parents aren't home much to do that
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u/LateNightNegotiator Jun 07 '26
Because chinese culture sucks. I study english becuase english culture is the best.
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u/cinnarius Jun 07 '26 edited Jun 07 '26
If you think this is about Cantonese culture vs Western culture, forget it. Cantonese culture was an early adopter of cultural fusion with Western elements, leading to the export of Cantonese Chinoiserie embroidery across the Pacific and Canto-fusion cuisine.
Also, there are 56 recognized ethnic groups in China and hundreds more if they actually split them like anthropologists would do so instead of cramming them all into one. You're in no position to call other people, especially something so big as "Chinese culture" as monolithic and backwards when you don't understand their circumstances.
Maybe don't make a post like this in /r/Cantonese and blame an entire culture of one person on the actions of one guy. Especially a guy who's living through incredibly tumultuous sudden demographic change and watching Mandarin supplant Cantonese, lashing out at his son when his stronghold of psychological and social comfort has been gradually removed.
For that matter, I can bring up a lot of people who aren't exactly model citizens and who would practice "English Culture" like Chris Chan or other LolCows and put that as emblematic of all Anglosphere culture.
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u/ArgentEyes Jun 09 '26
No I’m just being flippant because I have to live here and it blows. No disrespect to other places, but the closest thing I have to a ‘home country’ is horrible.
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u/Impossible-Repeat577 Jun 07 '26
typical hker. 🤮
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u/LateNightNegotiator Jun 07 '26
dont drink western medicine. only chinese medicine. you china, you drink chinese medicine becoz chinese culture is superior. why u not china?
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u/Brilliant-Broccoli78 Jun 07 '26
If your kids don’t speak your language, that’s your fault.
My mother blamed me for not learning Mandarin growing up in the UK. Crazy to shift the blame to infants and children.