User talk:Darabo

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Re: Languages of Hong Kong
Hey --- this reply is a bit long, so I'm putting it to your talk page. My opinion is, learn Cantonese. If you try to learn Mandarin in Hong Kong, you will find few opportunities to practise it, and you'll mix it up with the Cantonese you hear all the time. And I am not sure which is your home country, but if there are any Chinese people there, it is much more likely they are Mandarin speakers --- so once you go back home, you'll still have an opportunity to learn Mandarin.

The University of Hong Kong uses English as their medium of instruction, so you don't really need to learn any other language to understand your classes. Most of the students are Cantonese mother tongue speakers from Hong Kong, but if you're staying in a student hostel, a lot of your hallmates will probably be Mandarin speakers from mainland China (since a lot of the local students live at home). On the other hand, once you go off-campus, Mandarin is next to useless --- some shop assistants, waiters, etc. may be able to speak it, but they will universally prefer to reply to you in English if they think you can understand it.

If you have more general questions about Hong Kong, you may be better off asking on some HK-specific forums like: Or e-mail me. Cheers, cab (talk) 18:07, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
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