My Personal Learning
I always believe in continued personal learning for myself. After all, this is what I preach in my motivational speeches as well as in my book, ‘The Life Champion In You‘. Lately, one of my own goals is to get my Chinese Cantonese back up to speed from rusty level to at least decent conversation level.
Although Cantonese was actually my first language, English soon took over as my primary language by the time I reached primary school. Over the years, much to my regret, I lost a lot of my Cantonese speaking skills and this is actually quite common among many Canadian born Chinese.
Renewed Interest In Chinese Cantonese Language
Now as I am in a much more mature age, I have a renewed interest in the personal learning (or relearning) of the Chinese Cantonese language to at least street conversational level. In fact, one of the things I would like to be able to do is present my full motivational speech based on ‘The Life Champion In You‘ in Cantonese.
In a previous blog post, I mentioned that I do have plans to translate my motivational speech into both Cantonese and Mandarin. I have to admit that this decision is highly influenced by the business potential of making my speaking programs available to Chinese speaking audiences.
New Motivational Speech A Reality Soon
Well, a new version of my motivational speech in Cantonese will soon become a reality. I am spending part of the seasonal holidays to work on this project. On December 18, I will be sitting down with a Cantonese speaker who will help me translate every single line and phrase of my English motivational speech.
I will use technology to record what his translated lines are so that I will be able to study and memorize the proper Cantonese translations for each section of my keynote. This project will result in a new offering in terms of my speaking programs.
I will be able to accommodate Chinese audiences in Hong Kong, Macau, southern China and those here in North America who prefer to listen to my motivational speech in Cantonese. A double offer of my program in both English and Cantonese will hopefully help expand my reach with a larger audience in those communities.
Now that actual steps for this goal is put in motion, I can say that I really do practise what I preach in terms of personal learning.
photo credit: romana klee
