The standard of spoken Cantonese is declining and affecting the ability of SAR people to learn English and Putonghua, language professors said yesterday.
The warning was made as professors at the Chinese University announced a scheme to assess Cantonese pronunciation.
'Many people, especially youths, make serious pronunciation mistakes, such as mixing the 'n' sound with the 'l' sound,' said Professor Dang Shu-leung of the Chinese Language and Literature Department, which launched the scheme.
'This is largely because they are under bad influence from their parents, teachers or the media.' If they did not speak Cantonese well, they could not effectively learn English or Putonghua, he said.
The assessment test, the first of its kind in Hong Kong, has teachers and media workers as its main targets in helping to deal with pronunciation errors.
The open-to-all test would begin in March next year and was expected to run two to four times a year, he said.
