Hi there,

After looking at the sample chapter and learning the first 100 characters, I decided to order the book from Amazon. It'll take 3-4 weeks (!!!) to ship, so I'm wondering - what can I do in the meantime to keep learning that WON'T interfere with learning in the order of the book?

Any advice is appreciated! I'm excited to join this community of learners fully.

Tyler

Amazon is currently showing both RTH Trad. and Simp. versions of the book as In Stock. I don't think it will take more than 5-6 business days, unless you're out of the country, before it's delivered to you. Maybe you ordered an out of print edition? If so, I'd return that, and buy the current edition. Here's the current editions:
http://www.amazon.com/Remembering-Tradit...547&sr=8-1
http://www.amazon.com/Remembering-Simpli...547&sr=8-2

Actually, I'm in Canada and ordered from Amazon.ca - I guess they didn't have it in stock and so it'll take that long. Thanks though. Any ideas on what to do while I wait?

What background do you have in learning Chinese?

There's always Chinese podcasts you can listen to like chineseclass101

My family is from HK and speaks Cantonese, so I'm pretty used to hearing it (although my vocabulary revolves mostly around food).

Chineseclass101 looks interesting, but unfortunately it's in Mandarin, which isn't my focus right now. Thanks for the suggestion though.

You could always return the copy you ordered to Amazon.ca (I think you can do this if it hasn't shipped yet), and buy one of the lightly used copies from a marketplace seller who does have it in stock. Or, just order a copy from Amazon.com since they ship internationally.

For what to do while you wait, sorry I can't help you. I only know about kanji...and Amazon, lol.

There's this

http://fsi-language-courses.org/Content....=Cantonese

Watch lots of Cantonese shows and movies and listen to lots of Cantonese music.

Edit: Maybe you could also ask your family to speak to you in Cantonese as much as possible, and just ask them questions about the language.

@jajaaan You're right, I just cancelled the unshipped one and bought from the Marketplace. It's $6 more (cause I lost free shipping) but it'll be here much quicker. Thanks for the advice!

@shirokuro I'm living away at school now so that's not an option. Though I find with family (I've tried this a million times) it's so difficult because suddenly you need to actually COMMUNICATE, and then you're stuck using a language you can't produce/understand, so you switch back to English. They've been speaking English to me all my life, so it's a hard habit to break.

I do have RTHK radio on though, and a selection of Canto music to play!

Check out some Wong Kar Wai movies with subtitles

lawtj Wrote:Though I find with family (I've tried this a million times) it's so difficult because suddenly you need to actually COMMUNICATE, and then you're stuck using a language you can't produce/understand, so you switch back to English. They've been speaking English to me all my life, so it's a hard habit to break.

Oh, yeah, that sounds really frustrating. Maybe it would be easier if you just answer in English if you can't think of how to respond in Cantonese? I still think you're really lucky that your family speaks the language, though, since you can always ask them questions and to help you practice.

Yeah, I am lucky! Although it's kind of the language I grew up hearing at home, so less "lucky" and more "you should have learned this already".

I DO plan to grab a whole bunch of TV shows from them next time I'm back though, and I have a whole stack of old Chinese Reader's Digests that I can peruse, so the access to material is a definite plus.