Every week, Talking Points gives you a worksheet to practise your reading comprehension with exercises about the story we’ve written.
For many foreigners who come to Hong Kong for work, one of the appeals of the city is its widespread use of English, so they never feel compelled to learn Cantonese.
But 29-year-old Australian Jonas Groom has made a splash on social media, posting videos of his Cantonese language-learning journey, with some of his clips garnering hundreds of thousands of views.
Groom, who moved to Hong Kong over a year ago and works as a strategy consultant, said he prioritised learning the language to forge a deeper bond with the local community.
“There aren’t a lot of Westerners who learn Cantonese,” Groom said.
“I feel that when there is someone learning Cantonese who doesn’t have a Cantonese background or Cantonese heritage, it stands out slightly ... therefore people really appreciate it.”
Cantonese is a famously difficult language owing to its complex tones, unfamiliar phonetic sounds for English speakers and differences between its spoken and written forms.
It has also fallen by the wayside among those looking to learn Chinese, as foreigners increasingly turn to studying Mandarin.
Cantonese learning journey
Groom began learning Cantonese shortly after arriving in Hong Kong in May 2024. While he started with online courses, he now mostly learns through his interactions with friends and locals he meets.
He has stuck Post-it notes on various items and pieces of furniture with the Chinese characters and corresponding tones, while the flip side has the English translation. He also regularly writes down keywords and phrases he wants to practise before heading out.
“I’m not going to lie, my tones are terrible. I don’t think I have any of them correct,” he said. “But I’m making an effort, and that’s what matters.”
Groom said another big challenge was learning the subtle differences between Cantonese and Mandarin, which he studied while living in Beijing.
A few months into his language-learning journey, he began posting videos on his Instagram account, which quickly resonated with users.
In one of his earliest videos, users expressed amazement at how quickly he had picked up the language. “Your Cantonese is so good already!” one user wrote. “Keep going! You can do it,” another wrote.
Cultural exchange chronicles
One of his best-performing videos, with more than 750,000 views, features a comedic interaction in which Groom orders a dish from a local restaurant in Cantonese, and the shop owner responds in English.
“Uncle speaks English, and Jonas speaks Chinese ... the tables have turned!” one user commented.
He has also used his videos as a medium for cultural exchange, featuring clips that show the differences in how Cantonese is spoken in Hong Kong and the nearby mainland city of Guangzhou.
The positive reception has extended from the online world to real life. He recalled a particularly touching moment over Christmas when he visited a nearby wet market to hand out chocolates and befriend the local vendors.
When the South China Morning Post joined Groom at a local cha chaan teng, strangers approached him to strike up conversations in Cantonese.
Ultimately, Groom said he hoped his videos would encourage more people to learn Cantonese.
“It’s something about us as humans,” he said. “We feel very proud and very happy to share our experiences with others.
“Everyone’s really friendly and outgoing, and when you make a little bit of an effort to learn some Cantonese, even if it’s broken, even if it doesn’t make grammatical sense, it really goes a long way.”
