Oceane Zhu Battles Cantonese Weakness
Beauty queen, Oceane Zhu (朱璇), knows that if she wants greater opportunities in the Hong Kong entertainment industry, she must speak Cantonese fluently and convincingly. She engaged the help of 3 teachers to help her master Cantonese and her hard efforts are already paying off.
Despite being praised for her acting and charisma, Oceane lacked one element to win viewers over. In Hong Kong for 5 years, Oceane is still struggling with Cantonese. Often teased for her poor articulation and diction, Oceane related, “There was a scene in Sergeant Tabloid <女警愛作戰> when the director wanted me to scold William Chak (翟威廉). Scolding someone is already difficult, and now I have to scold in Cantonese!” Afterward, the director wanted Oceane to dub her own dialogue, in which she was glad to be given a second chance to improve her pronunciation. But Oceane was disappointed when she ran into Matthew Ko (高鈞賢) who told her there was no difference between her actual dialogue and the dubbing!
Realizing that her improvements may be too minor to be noticed by others, Oceane engaged the help of 3 teachers to help her with Cantonese. Aside from a teacher who assists her with reading scripts, Oceane also consulted with fellow colleague, Ram Chiang (蔣志光) and TVB executive, Catherine Tsang (曾勵珍). Oceane said, “Senior Ram Chiang used his own method to teach me how to pronounce correctly. Catherine Jeh will also teach me how to read the scripts as well as the right articulation. With my 3 teachers’ help, I now have more confidence!”
In Sergeant Tabloid, Oceane no longer plays a “pretty vase”. She has many action scenes as a righteous policewoman. The plot spoke of Oceane’s character hurting her tailbone in the midst of chasing a criminal. In fact, Oceane actually ended up injuring her tailbone, resulting in great pain. However, working with an almost all-female cast was an enjoyable experience for Oceane.
Source: Oriental Daily
This article is written by Karen for JayneStars.com.
i prefer seeing her than christine kuo or aimee chan
but sadly her heavy accent of cantonese really curtails her progress at tvb
She really is improving, although a bit too slow. I remember she was speaking only Mandarin in her first couple of roles, and that’s very different from where she is now.
why cant she just speak in Mandarin, and then get duped by someone in Cantonese?
Yeah? best of both worlds!!!
I actually like her and thinks she is really cute and pretty. However, her cantonese is still very weak and come with a heavy accent. She is still new so let’s hope a few more roles I am sure it will improve after all don’t we always says practice makes perfect? hhehe.. I heard it’s harder for Mandarin natives to learn Cantonese for some reason.
i think it’s because cantonese doesn’t have pinyins and there’s a lot of slang. like if you take oceane’s last name, it’s pronounced exactly like it’s written: ZHU. But cantonese, it’s spelled CHU, but pronounced JUE. does that make sense… haha
or like the last name LIN (mandarin), but cantonese is LAM, but pronounced LUM
In a name it is okay just like Mandarin people sometimes have Chang when it should be Zhang. People sometimes like Chang better because it has a softer sound and looks better on paper (not many names start with Z in the English language).
And for Chu (Cantonese) it’s just the names. The standard Yale Cantonese spelling is jyu.
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E6%9C%B1#Cantonese
She needs a private tutor on hand… like Fala Chen did. Probably another year or so that she can speak a decent Cantonese.
Accents are really hard to kick off. Shu Qi’s finally getting the hang of Cantonese after 20 years.
1 year isn’t going to be jack.
Her accent actually doesn’t put me off. For some reason, it doesn’t bother me like some other actresses such as Christine Kuo. Maybe her personality just shines through.
It seems that we all dislike fake Christian Kuo.
rephrase:
It seems that we all HATE Christian Kuo.
and I can not even watch a drama with Christine in it. Also with Amiee as well.
Yeah, her accent is annoying, so if she can improve maybe I would liker her more, she is pretty though.
Weak cantonese doesn’t hinder Christine Kuo from getting big roles. Wonder why it’s hindering her. Honestly, I’ve seen 158 episodes of her speaking Cantonese in ‘Be Home For Dinner’ and I’ve no problem with it.
Her accent does prevent her from obtaining larger roles, but looking at the roles she has performed up to date, it did not distract me from enjoying the show. Perhaps it’s because she was able to persuade me of her roles through her good acting skills. And if she’s diligently improving her Cantonese and seeking mentors to assist her, she is very likely to get more prominent roles within the next few years.
agreed-hope she becomes 1 of the main leads in a few years, or at least after she masters her Cantonese 😀
her acting is really natural and I would love to see her star in a drama one day as 1 of the main leads
This is so out of the question, but do you guys think she’s cross eyed?f
sorry-I didn’t mean to put an “f” on teh end. I seriously didn’t mean it – typo soz!
Liar! You totally meant it!f
I don’t speak the language but I still prefer Oceane.
She has my sympathy and I hope it works out well. At least she is spending time, money and effort to improve. She will always have that accent, that’s the problem for mandarin speaker to learn Cantonese but at least if she can reach like Richie Ren kinda level, it should be fine.
I like her accent and don’t think it’s disturbing at all. At least I can still understand her, and not like Christine Kuo, who I cannot understand…,
Watch this space. I think Oceane has a chance to be the next Fala Chen. She CAN act but like it said, it’s her cantonese that is dragging her down. I’m sure she will be fluent very soon like Fala. I forgot Fala was not fluent before now. Mandarin dialogue can be change but Christine Kuo has a lisp which is hard to train, she could end up like cerina de graca or sonija kwok
Cantonese can be hard for Mandarin speaking people because Cantonese has more tones compared to Mandarin’s four tones. Therefore I think all she can do it to try her best which she is doing.
yep Cantonese has 8 tones. Slightly wrong tone already makes one not fluent and even changes the meaning of words.
It’s a pain to see these actors and actresses struggle so hard to speak Cantonese. Whenever I see them speak, I feel as though they are forcing themselves so much. Same impression of Oceane, her lips are a pain to look at when she speaks Cantonese.