Still on my quest for learning Cantonese, I've enrolled myself into the Cantonese classes at the YMCA. I'm only about a quarter of the way through Level 2 of the course and am feeling a lot more confident speaking, which I MOSTLY attribute to attending these lessons.
The courses can be found online.
Basically, if there are enough students (7 roughly), then the classes can go ahead and be held. I was lucky to get into the Level 1 class, which started back in June.
The YMCA Cantonese classes are held at their Tsim Sha Tsui (TST) Campus from 7 - 9 pm. Level 1 was held twice a week. Due to scheduling and attendance of the students, the classes for Level 2 are mostly just held once a week (summer holidays are in full force!).
TST YMCA Cantonese Class Info:
Location
YMCA College of Continuing Education
6/F 41 Salisbury Road
Tsim Sha Tsui
Telephone
2268 - 7733
Course Cost
Level 1 was $1290 HKD for 10 classes
Level 2 was $1560 HKD for 12 classes
***Hopefully, there will be at least 7 of us who want to continue onto Level 3 and then onto Level 4***
The textbook we're using is pretty awesome and our teacher (a native Cantonese speaker born and raised in Hong Kong) utilizes the material really well. She goes as a really nice pace and keeps every lesson quite challenging.
Textbook
A Cantonese Book
by Chan Kwok Kin and Betty Hung
$268 HKD
NOTE: If you enroll in the class, you can get the book with a little discount from the YMCA bookstore on the Ground Floor of the YMCA complex.
For anyone out there who really wants to try out some Cantonese classes, I would highly recommend the YMCA courses. The classes are small enough and the teacher really works on getting us to communicate with Cantonese. Level 1 was mostly about vocabulary building and simple sentences. Level 2 is all about dialogues and being able to get out there in the community and start shopping/ordering food!!!
I've been really enjoying the lessons and totally love being a student again.
Best decision I've made this summer? Totally!
On a side note, who knew that the YMCA was such a huge complex (the TST YMCA)? There is a hotel there, event space, indoor pool/gym facilities, a College annex, a hair salon, and gift shop/book shop, and also a restaurant all in the same building.
The other night, a few of my friends and I tried the summer special at the YMCA Mall Cafe, which was all about burgers and fries! I'd been eyeing up the ad for a few weeks as I had been riding the elevator up to class.
I'd never really been into the Mall Cafe, but was greatly surprised at how posh it was.
I got the fish burger (Crispy Barramundi Burger) with fries and a side of coleslaw. It was so mouthwateringly delicious that I made it my mission to try the other five burgers before the summer special ends.
Cantonese lessons, building confidence in speaking Cantonese with people around Yuen Long and Hong Kong, and eating some delicious burgers….what a great summer it has been!
