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Dry Dirt Road

Loh Chiao Yi 
11318294

Self-learning

Cantonese

English

through online resources

To have another language is to possess a second soul.

This is a portfolio to show you
some English and Cantonese learning resources
that may help you.

Writing on Computer

Introduction

“To have another language is to possess a second soul” is the quote that I would like to begin my self-learning language route. We use language in our daily lives to express our ideas and feelings, connect with people and identify with our culture, and understand the world around us. And learning more languages is beneficial for us to get involved in this diverse world. 

In today’s world, advanced technology dominates every aspect of our lives, and this tendency has been accelerating since the outbreak of the pandemic, especially in education. This new educational trend can assist us in gaining knowledge and skills in a more accessible and efficient way. Therefore, learning a new language does not have to be done in the traditional ways of participating in physical classes; instead, we may use online resources (such as mobile apps learning, websites and etc) to aid our learning, which is more flexible and convenient.

This portfolio provides you with my experience of learning English and Cantonese through mobile apps and websites. These mobile apps and websites emphasize speaking and listening, which I believe will be suitable for me to improve my pronunciation and vocabulary.

 

Let's Begin!

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VoiceTube

English Learning Apps

The way you can improve your pronunciation learning from a variety of videos. You may also find its website from Google!

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Ted talk

English Learning Apps

Learn English from listening is the first step to build our foundation of speaking skills. Searching Ted Talk videos from YouTube is an alternative you can do too!

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simply learn cantonese

Cantonese Learning Apps

To survive in Hong Kong, learning basic Cantonese is indeed important in our daily communication. This app may seem essential for Cantonese-speaking beginners. 

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Voicetube

Voicetube

VoiceTube is a famous English learning platform known for its wide range of great YouTube videos. It provides well-subtitled videos from the BBC, CNN, TED Talk, and a variety of other sources, as well as features like a one-tap dictionary, phrase looping, video recording, and more.

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Feature 1

Diverse categories of videos available for different users  

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Exciting contents on VoiceTube including TED talks, movie clips, music videos, gaming videos, and more.

There are a variety of categories include celebrities, comedy, education, entertainment, science and technology, travel and sport, news and current events.

It is also very helpful for those who are preparing for TOEIC, TOEFL, or IELTS.

Feature 2


Oral Practices: Listen, Practise, and Challenge!  

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This app feature helps us to practise our speaking skills. By watching videos, we can replay the key sentences as many times as we like to learn the intonation and pronunciation from the speakers. Through continuous imitation and correction of our pronunciation, we will be able to overcome our fears of speaking!



Press "Speaking" and record ourselves. In this section, AI pronunciation analysis will help us to analyse our recorded sentence and provide us with customized advice on our pronunciation. 

Feature 3


Systematic Review  

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When we are practising our pronunciation, we may use a one-tap dictionary to look up unusual phrases immediately!

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We may also bookmark a collection of sentences or phrases by clicking the "heart" icon beside them and review them at any time to improve our learning.

 

This app's best feature is that it gives us a daily review quiz to help us evaluate ourselves!

Feature 4


Daily Pronunciation Challenge  

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Every day, themed videos will be uploaded with the hosts' professional elaboration.

 

Indeed, we can make recordings after practising our pronunciation and interact with other users. We can learn together and support each other along this way!

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Tedtalk
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ted talk

TED is a non-profit organization dedicated to disseminating ideas via short, inspiring lectures (at most 18 minutes). It welcomes people from different disciplines and cultures who want to learn more about the world by producing content in over 100 languages on themes ranging from science to business to global affairs. Therefore, it is indeed a popular channel for most people who seek English learning by watching and listening to inspirational talks from different professionals.

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Watching? Listening? Oh Really ?!

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TedTalk seems similar to VoiceTube. But TedTalk features a wide range of inspirational talks delivered by a diverse group of professionals from different areas! Through listening, we can learn how they deliver their valuable ideas concisely and how they begin their speech to attract the audiences. Apart from talks, there are great podcasts available on this platform so that we can practise our listening skills!  

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additional works may boost your learning more!

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Watching professional talks must be torturous for us since there is so much complex vocabulary that we could get lost in the talks. Therefore, rewatch the videos is definitely important for us to fully comprehend them.

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Although subtitles are available in a variety of languages, sometimes we can turn them off to improve our listening skills!

 

Besides, searching up the definitions of the words is the additional work we can do to improve our vocabulary. Cambridge Learner Dictionary is the dictionary I like to recommend since it includes both understandable meaning and translation.

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simply learn
Cantonese

Simply Learn Cantonese is a language app that will help us learn Cantonese rapidly and efficiently. We are supplied with all Cantonese phrases and words in both phonetic and authentic Cantonese text. They are recorded by a native Hong Kong speaker.

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start learning from
daily communication

To survive in Hong Kong, learning basic daily communication is the foundation to build up our Cantonese-speaking abilities. There are several different levels of categories (beginner, traveller basics, traveller advanced, and ex-pat). This app covers a wide range of topics including greetings, direction words, romance, occupations and many, which literally helps us to build up our abilities to speak Cantonese. We can learn the actual way of speaking Cantonese by listening to the recorded audio from the native speakers.

Don't forget to review and challenge yourself!

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Similarly, we can save our favourite phrases and words to review them at any time. There are also plenty of flashcards that involve common vocabulary in Cantonese. More importantly, grabbing a chance to test our knowledge is pretty essential throughout the learning process. Challenge these fun Cantonese language quiz can enhance our learning efficiency and help us to adapt to the Cantonese-speaking environment rapidly. 

self reflection

reflection

Before accepting this challenge of producing an e-portfolio about language learning, I have already begun my self-learning path since last year. I have been motivated to improve my English pronunciation since pursuing my studies overseas because I always have a strong Malaysian accent which is a problem to my future English communication. Therefore, I have decided to follow my speaking lecturer's suggestion and practise my pronunciation using VoiceTube which she recommends.

Throughout the learning process, this app is indeed a useful platform for those who wish to practise speaking and listening skills! Apart from that, its one-tap dictionary came in handy for me, making it much easier for us to look up the definitions of the unknown words. And TedTalk is the app I spend the most time learning because there are so many complex phrases that I need to figure out the meaning in order to better understand the inspirational talks. Also, since most of the talks are delivered by different professionals from around the world, I have gained a broader insight from them, especially regarding my interests in environmental topics, which will help me in my future studies. Apart from learning from these online resources, watching Netflix has become a daily routine for me, not just to pass the time but also to facilitate my English learning.



And in terms of Cantonese, I would say I am a beginner and I am aware that the first step in adapting to the local environment is to build up my daily communication skills. Simply Learn Cantonese has improved my ability to communicate properly in Cantonese, and I am now able to interact with locals in a natural manner and even share my thoughts. Additionally, watching TVB dramas is an effective way to discover Cantonese vocabulary that differs from Mandarin in meaning. And this is the way to assist me in becoming more engaged in the local culture.




Overall, all three mobile applications have one thing in common that helps us a lot: they all include a review feature that allows us to evaluate ourselves, which is significant for speeding up our learning. As a result, I am hoping that the online tools I introduced would be helpful to most learners who want to improve their speaking and listening skills.

My presentation Video

The End

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