My Journey: Preserving my cultural identity!

Learning new languages has always been something I have been passionate about. I find beauty in languages, as it gives us the power to express how we feel in millions of different ways. A word in different languages has its own meaning.

Cantonese is a language that is part of my identity. I am of Chinese ethnicity, and my ancestors came from Guangdong where Cantonese is one of the local languages spoken there. Despite having relatives who could speak the language, I could not speak a word of Cantonese at all. It was not a problem though, because English was our native language.

However, my grandmother could only speak Cantonese, and because of this, we never had a conversation because of the language barrier. As a result, we never got to know each other. As I grew up, I realized the importance of one identity and culture. I wanted to preserve history and find a place that I belonged. With this, my passion for Cantonese grew.

It was a tough journey for me. I struggled with Cantonese, because of its tonal system. Some of these tones sound similar, so it is easy to get confused. I was so close to giving up on my journey. One day, I found Amazing Talker and decided to look for a Cantonese tutor who could help me with the language. After lots of trials with many different tutors, I finally found one that not only met my requirements but surpassed expectations.

This tutor is Venus! Her lessons are very fun and engaging, to the point that I look forward to them every week. She is very encouraging and patient, which I am very thankful for. Venus would always go through the previous weeks vocabulary and check my pronunciation to make sure that I am making progress. She would even record a screen recording of her pronouncing the words learned each week, so I could revise and go through them in my free time. Venus is clearly a dedicated tutor who goes out of her way to make sure her students make progress.

I will definitely continue having lessons with Venus.

Thank you, Venus. You have changed my life and helped me retain my cultural identity.