At the age of 97, my dad still try to refresh his language skills and the books he used most often are language books. My dad speak Cantonese, English, Mandarin, French, Japanese and Spanish.

• Being born in Hong Kong into a Cantonese family, Cantonese is his mother tongue.
• For his English, in Hong Kong as a British Colony, English is offered in almost all schools as a mandatory second language. Later, his work as a civil servant gives him lots of practices as well. Since what was taught in Hong Kong was British English, I am sure when he first came to Canada, he think we speak funny here. 😉
• For his Mandarin, when he went up north into Northern China to join the University of Political Science, he had a chance to learn and master his Mandarin. (So his Mandarin is much better than my self-learnt, from the movies as-near-as-ca-be accent. And for words I don’t know, I used off-toned Cantonese as substitute).
• For French, I remember that he learnt it through Alliance Francaise Hong Kong over many years. He participated in the student council and can speak it fluently. He was even interviewed once by a French TV station in French. I remember that quite often when I go ask him how to pronounce certain English words, he would do a roundabout and say how this word was originally French and taught me the French pronunciation instead. This means that when I use that in school, my classmates were laughing their heads off. While it expanded my knowledge, it certainly did not help in building my confidence in public speaking.
  

• As for Japanese, he learnt it for a few years, can do basic converstations (I imagine that it is like “How old are you?” “I am sorry, I don’t understand you. Just teasing.” and can make do while travelling in Japan. I remember that he brought me once to Japan’s Expo but I didn’t really enjoy all the lineups and visit of exhibits. So I managed to nag my dad to find one of Japan’s famous Judo training – Kodokan Judo Institute (講道館) . At that time, without Google Maps or a proper guide, the trip was quite an adventure. We had to ask our way to get there. We chose to take public transit too. We made it there after a lot of effort. I was well worth it because that was one of my forever treasured memories.
  
  

• For Spanish, I believe that he did not attend any Spanish school and learnt it through books and tapes.

************** Here is the way he described his language journey:

For me ? It is a Long Haul ! A grueling haul !
Why ? It’s simply because , Life is a Hijghway of Learning, it is not the destination that counts , but the landscapes along the way that bring the top thrills and total satisfaction!

I’m a Chinese, born and grow up in Hong Kong. Cantonese is our native language, but English was the official language in government and in business , because HK was then a british colony, under the British rule . It was only until recently in 1997 upon the completion of the 100 years Lease that HK was returned to China .

I learn to speak Mandarin, not until I left South China and went to North China to join the University of Political Science there .

Why then did I study French and Japanese ?
For French, I admire their long history and excellence in Arts !
For Japanese, I admire their struggle and hard work to become a world class country !
And Spanish ? It’s a language spoken in several countries in Europe and in all of the countries in Central and South America with the exception of Brazil where Portuguese is used .

For more details , I need to write a book !

Again Happy New Year for 2021 !