The other day I and my wife walked pass a mobile phone sales booth. My wife was considering upgrading her phone.
A young salesman approached us and started to introduce to us all kinds of phones available. He was a CBC (Canadian-born Chinese) speaking English with a perfect Canadian teen’s accent. Then he got stuck in [...]

This morning, I needed to call the doctor’s office to reschedule my daughter’s appointment for next week. From the other side of the line came a female voice:
“The doctor’s office…”
Both receptionists speak Cantonese. I usually speak to them in English when booking appointments. But today for some reason, I felt like speaking Cantonese.
“唔該…” (May I…)
“Excuse [...]

I was having a bad cold over the weekend. While lying in my bed having nothing much to do, I decided to pick up some cold medicine bottles and started reading the French instructions.
For the non-Canadian readers, every product sold in Canada must have its instructions and packaging labels printed in at least 2 languages, [...]

Imagine someone threatens to sue you for pronouncing some words differently.
This actually happened last month in Toronto. A group of Cantonese language enthusiasts held a press conference, complaining the news anchors of some Cantonese channels for adopting a pronunciation standard known as the ‘Correct Pronunciation’ (正音). They also started a petition letter:
“As native speakers of [...]

It was my wife’s birthday two weeks ago. I went to the mall to search for a gift. Finally I bought one … for my daughter Michelle.
It was a DVD from the ‘Dora the Explorer’ series. My wife was not happy after knowing this. She said Michelle is watching Dora everyday from the TV channels [...]