Any english speakers here ! 這裡有任何說英語的人！

千年女妖

Papaya 发表于 2022-9-19 00:30
How do you watch Hong Kong drama in England? By youtube? It's really difficult for the older gener ...

During the 80s-90s there was no internet. The place where we could get hong kong entertainment were from china town, there you could rent VHS (video cassette tape). then we had TVB international broadcasting satellite, where we could watch it's content with a yearly subscription through a satellite service. but we watch mostly rented tapes. if you where born after the year 2000, i don't think you would know what a video cassette tape is. thankfully my parents managed to pick up the language eventually, which was due to attending local community services and the people there treated them very humbly.

Papaya

千年女妖 发表于 2022-9-19 00:49
During the 80s-90s there was no internet. The place where we could get hong kong entertainment wer ...

Oh, I do really know the VHS since it's very expensive in China at that time, it helped me watch many mid night cartons from my classmates. As you said, the VHS is an ancient memories now, the gen Z may never understand how difficult we get the cotents throught those years. Referring the satellite services, do the supplier include the subtitles in the drama? Then it will great help to learn Chinese.

千年女妖

Papaya 发表于 2022-9-19 09:07
Oh, I do really know the VHS since it's very expensive in China at that time, it helped me watch m ...

i think the satellite services did include subtitles. but our satellite receiver box was quite outdated so it didn't have that function and the VHS drama didn't have subtitles. if i remember correctly, the price for 4 VHS tapes was about 10 UK pounds so that would be about $90 hong kong dollars and each VHS tape would contain 2 episodes.

so my friend are you from china?

Papaya

千年女妖 发表于 2022-9-19 20:03
i think the satellite services did include subtitles. but our satellite receiver box was quite out ...

Oh, yes, I am from mainland China, living dozens of kilometers away from Foshan.
In my childhood early 90s, as I remembered what I heard when I grow up, the blank VHS is 100+ RMB per set, it's about 1/3 of a worker monthly income so that the VHS is not that popular in China since it's too expensive.
For your Chinese charaters study, I think simplified Chinese is easier than the traditional since it's less strokes. Although all of HK drama they uses traditional Chinese, you still can identify what are their meaning.

Jasonani

English is enough for any people to read any topic
No need worry about that

千年女妖

Papaya 发表于 2022-9-20 11:21
Oh, yes, I am from mainland China, living dozens of kilometers away from Foshan.
In my childhood  ...

VHS is very expensive during your time. In the 90s TVB satellite service was considered a luxury, so not a lot of people had it. it was only when the service got cheaper then people started using it. As for my Chinese, i did have the opportunity to learn during my young school days. i did went to Chinese school for about less than 2 years but i didn't have the patience to learn it, as i prefer playing sports. i do understand some Chinese written characters, just not a lot. i enjoy travelling to Asia and i go to china perhaps once or twice every 2 years so i get to learn mandarin as well.

千年女妖

Jasonani 发表于 2022-9-20 17:31
English is enough for any people to read any topic
No need worry about that

i guess so. but i really love Chinese culture, so understanding its written language would be a great asset to me.

Papaya

千年女妖 发表于 2022-9-20 17:49
VHS is very expensive during your time. In the 90s TVB satellite service was considered a luxury,  ...

Ah, I see. The TVB broadcast is not expensive at our end thus many people grows with it. But only few people keeps subcribe this service so that some regions' younger generatation only knows few Guangzhou idiom( in order to not makes you confuse, cantonese have many branches, the one you hears the most is considered as Guangzhou idiom including Guangzhou, Foshan, HK and Macau)
For the Chinese study, I understood that people will have different hobbies in different generation. If you can read some Chinese, I think you can have a try in the chat page of the forum, there're many interesting people and some of them knows English well.

千年女妖

Papaya 发表于 2022-9-21 14:19
Ah, I see. The TVB broadcast is not expensive at our end thus many people grows with it. But only  ...

thank you for the information. my generation of Chinese British born, all likely to be in the same boat as me. we can speak and listen just fine, but not so good at writing and reading. now our next generation can only listen and not speak or choose not to speak as they only associate with English people. it's a very sad scene, to see younger people no longer interested in their own heritage. your advice is very much appreciated. yes, i guess i will use this forum as a form of learning Chinese. i can read some comments just not all. hopefully, i can improve over time.   

Papaya

千年女妖 发表于 2022-9-21 18:12
thank you for the information. my generation of Chinese British born, all likely to be in the same ...

It's the same story everywhere, the scene around your children is English and mine is Mandarine. Most of the schools in China is using Mandarine on education in order to unify the speech. At my generation some of the Cantonese do not speek Mandarine fluently and same does other provinces. I think that's why the school uses Mandarine as formal.
I don't think the languages are in opposition. Children just lack the incentives to love another language, I think the cartoon, movie and music could be a good media to let them fall in love.