ABSTRACT
People commonly say Cantonese is difficult to learn. As a language teacher and course administrator, I think it is important to know what the difficulties are. Such knowledge can improve curriculum development, materials preparation, and the planning of teacher training. The research in this chapter elicited views from adult learners of Cantonese as a second language (CanSL) in Hong Kong. Questionnaire surveys and focus group discussions were used to investigate CanSL learners’ attitudes towards Cantonese and the hurdles they have come across. The CanSL learners reported, on the one hand, that it is “a fun language to learn”, but on the other hand, it is hard and takes a long time. The research results identified three major hurdles, which are discussed in detail: a “linguistic hurdle”, a “psychological hurdle”, and a “sociocultural hurdle”. The first hurdle relates to difficulties encountered while learning the linguistic forms, such as pronunciation, grammatical structure, different register-style forms, etc. The second hurdle comes from the psychological pressure experienced while learning the language. The third hurdle relates to attempts at using the target language with native speakers in actual social environments.
