5 comments about Talk Now! Cantonese.

1. The good part about this software is that it provides a fun and engaging way to learn some basic Cantonese vocabulary. The words and phrases are spoken twice, in a male and female voice with accompanying pictures. The games and self tests are fun to work through. It also provides a way to record your voice and compare it to the speakers' pronunciation.
   
   The bad part is that it does not go very far in how much content it provides. If you are a serious student this will not provide you with any grammar, no section on enunciation of particular sounds (a necessity for those of us starting from only romance languages which do not have these sounds), and no explanation how to read the Romanized spelling of words. Also, it gears some of the vocabulary towards tourists but then much of the dialogue is a very formal type that is not even spoken in practice. If the content is geared toward the casual learner then one would suppose they would teach the language as it is actually spoken. My tutor/girlfriend taught me which parts of this program I should ignore.
   
   Do not buy this expecting it to go very far in teaching you Cantonese. It is only useful as a supplement to another introductory curriculum that might be lacking in good teaching tools.



2. If you just want to learn a few words in Cantonese and learn well by plain rote, this is probably a fair course. However, if you're serious about learning Cantonese, skip this one and try something else. This course just throws out random words with no context of how they'll be used. Grammer and enunciation are given very little attention here. If you've studied Cantonese at all, you'll understand the importance of both. The audio is not terribly clear and the pronounciation doesn't seem to jive with what I'm learning from my wife and other courses.
   
   This course is okay for the price (I got it on sale bundled with the Mandarin course for $10), but if you plan on ever having a conversation in Cantonese someday, I'd recommend the excellent Pimsleur course. Basic Cantonese by Virginia Yip is quite good as well. Even Teach Yourself Cantonese by Hugo Baker is pretty good once you get used to the format.



3. Each language software package can only handle a few angles on language. Talk Now! offers inspired games and oral repetitions for learning vocabulary, telling time and more. The bad reviews must be generated by users who expect everything from one cd. Not me. I love Talk Now! for what it is and hope they expand their scope with all languages as they have with Cantonese. If you want to become fluent, buy several software packages and visit the country for more than a year. If you want an almost effortless and fun introduction this is it. It's one of a kind.



4. I really love the Talk Now! programs. I have a similar one in French, and I think it's absolutely wonderful. This is for people who have never spoken/understood a word of Cantonese in their lives. It starts at the very beginning, and contains hundreds of useful words and phases. Get a different program if you need to learn grammar too. But this one is top notch for vocab and beginning words



5. For people just trying to learn their vocabulary, this tool is fantastic. Much better than flashcards.

1 comments about Basic Cantonese Chinese: Learn to Speak and Understand Cantonese with Pimsleur Language Programs (Pimsleur Basic Language Series).

1. Don't buy this product if you really want to learn correct pronunciation. There are no easy shortcuts to language learning, especially Cantonese! I bought the product, and all it consists of is CD's that have recordings of Cantonese that the listener is supposed to imitate. There's no text at all. Unless you are incredibly competent in tone discrimination, you can learn, at best, to say some phrases that sound like Cantonese.

No comments about Fonetic Cantonese - made Ezee!.

3 comments about Cantonese Chinese Phrase Book (Berlitz Phrase Book).

1. This phrase book does not have written cantonese. They just use the mandarin. Cantonese is an oral language, so some words are not written(in mandarin). Cantonese people have developed some extra characters aside from mandarin. If you know a little cantonese it makes it frustrating because cantonese will read it and it sounds different from the phonetics they give you to say. Cantonese is a tonal language, but they have no tones in the book. Stay away from this book. The lonely planet book is much better.



2. If I could have, I would not have given this book any stars.

   This book provides Cantonese phrases along with some phonetic pronunciation system. The book does not explain what sounds the strange combinations of letters represent nor does it indicate tones. Nowhere does it even mention that Cantonese has tones. It would also be nice if there were a short introduction to Cantonese grammar and sentence structure.

   The previous reviewer takes issue with the fact that Cantonese colloquial characters are not used and claims that literate native speakers will pronounce the words differently because of different characters. I must point out that the the Mandarin dialect as it is written is the official written form of all dialects, as stated by the Chinese government. When a Cantonese writes, he writes Mandarin. Also, the Cantonese speaker more often than not substitutes the uniquely Cantonese word for the written Mandarin equivalent when reading aloud. Cantonese speakers who cannot do this are uneducated.

   For readers of this book, I would recommend the Lonely Planet Cantonese Phrasebook, which provides much more accurate information.




3. My complaints:
   * Only a few phrases per page are on the tape; most are not. A phrase book this size would require at least two cassettes to cover it all.
   
   * The phrases are recited only once (in English and then once in Cantonese), which forces one to hit the review button more often when concentrating on a particular phrase. Some other products recite a phrase twice in the target language, which is convenient.
   
   I disagree with other reviewers in that:
   
   * It *is* possible to learn excellent pronunciation with this tape! I was understood 100% of the time --can't beat that! (The tape pronunciation is declamatory and more vivid than what is commonly spoken. It's probably the accent spoken on national TV. As an aside, those who deal with tourists speak some English, but everyone seemed amused by a Westerner embracing their language; it was a funny icebreaker.)
   
   * The nine tones *are* explained on page 7 of the book.
   
   Bottom line: It's a good, categorized phrase book, but there just aren't enough of its phrases on the tape. Don't waste your time on this! Get Pimsleur instead. I learned much more, much faster with the Pimsleur course, and there's no book to get out of sync with; you can put it on an iPod and take it with you. But a phrase book with Chinese writing is also good for showing others to communicate something.

3 comments about English-Cantonese Dictionary.

1. This dictionary just came out as a companion to the Yale-in-China Chinese to English dictionary. It has a lot of the charm of the earlier volume: waterproof cover, handy size, useful appendices on grammar and pronunciation, and broad vocabulary. The English is not excessively British, and there are a lot of idioms which are nicely translated into equivalent Cantonese phrases. That being said, there are several real problems:
   1. There are printing errors in the pronunciation section where the IPA symbol for Cantonese phoneme "s" is the IPA letter pronounced "sh"--a BAD error, especially for beginners, especially as Cantonese uses no "sh" sound.
   2. There are many English spelling errors, not such a big deal most times.
   3. Worse, there are errors in the Cantonese transliteration, putting in entirely wrong words by leaving out letters. This was a minor problem in the earlier Chinese-to-English book in only a few words. But when you're using the book to learn the pronunciation, such errors are especially annoying.
   4. English synonyms often have different Cantonese translations, for instance check out "maybe" and "perhaps"--this is a minor problem.
   5. There are no Chinese characters in this book. While it makes the printing a lot simpler, it hinders the mastery of phrases, not knowing the precise meaning of particles which are homonyms with identical English spelling and tone, but different connotations in Cantonese. If you want to write a translation, you're on your own! I'm not sure this was a great editorial decision.
   6. As always happens in a first edition, many idioms are lacking, but I can't complain too much about this.
   7. The books are somewhat flimsy--my copy of the earlier text is about 3 months old, and a section has already fallen out. For a reference book, this is not good.
   Overall, not a bad reference for pronunciation of Cantonese, with some useful grammar, but with significant flaws.



2. Probably the worst language dictionary I have used so far.
   I am attempting to learn my 2nd asian language and find this dictionary to be of almost no value whatsoever.
   I have some major issues with this book:
   1) For starters, there are no "Chinese" characters in the book, making it nearly impossible to truly learn the language.
   2) The publisher of this dictionary claims to have "15,000 of the most popular words and phrases", yet a majority of the words are obscure deriviatives of common words or will never come up in daily conversation.
   - For example, how often have you used the following words: "Cogent","Elf Land","Quayage", or "Trepang"???
   3) Worst of all, there are various spelling errors in both the English and Cantonese languages.
   
   Not a bad reference, but not very useful for the beginner.



3. The dictionary is a great step for learners of Cantonese. However, what would help would be separating each word so for each word it is not a complete string of roman letters. For example, the word "computer" is two characters in Cantonese but would appear as "xyzasb" in the dictionary. Chinese is character based so separating the pin yin words would greatly help. Using the same example, then this would be "xyz abc". Furthermore, why not just throw in the Chinese characters to make the dictionary complete and appeal to all levels of competency and learning styles?

5 comments about Basic Cantonese: A Grammar and Workbook (Routledge Grammars).

1. I first studied Cantonese in 1974, using the Yale University text of Parker P.F. Huang. In 2002 I acquired Basic Cantonese by Yip & Matthews. It was an excellent review and also clarified certain points further. In addition, it had the benefits of more recent linguistic scholarship.

   Another good feature was the answer key at the back of the book, which is immensely helpful when the learner has to rely on self-study.

   Also, it is helpful when the learner needs to get an informal Cantonese tutor, like a spouse or other family member. The vast majority of Cantonese speakers have no acquaintance with the Yale University spelling system used in this and other books. So one of the first steps is to teach the spelling system to the tutor. And this book does an excellent job. I recommend it without reservation.




2. This is one of the few books I've seen that uses phonetics that are
   accurate to the Cantonese language, as opposed to the "Romanized" Cantonese in other books. It is definitely a good supplement to other books that teach you words by topic area (i.e. food, travel, clothing, etc.).



3. The title says it all. Written very well, but make sure you have access to someone who is a native speaker (optimal) or some audio source, just to hear the pronunciations.



4. Basic Cantonese, as well as Intermedia Cantonese, are very useful textbooks to learn Cantonese. Well written, well explained, well presented and, most importantly, relatively easy to understand.



5. For a language/dialect spoken by 100 million people or so, there is disproportionately little material for studying it, at least in the West and in English.
   
   Reasons why I think learners should get this book:
   
   1. many varied exercises
   
   2. extensive pronunciation exercises
   
   3. short chapters for smoother progress
   
   4. clearly explained in non-technical manner
   
   5. alot of examples
   
   There is no script used in this book, everything is in romanization.
   The pronunciation is covered in the first chapters, with many exercises.
   
   I do have one complaint though:
   there are too many words in each chapter and there is no vocabulary list for each chapter.
   It is difficult for the beginner to assimilate so many new words, and it makes it more difficult to understand the examples when there are new words in almost every sentence.
   I think they should have followed the same format as in the books
   Basic Korean: A Grammar and Workbook (Grammar Workbooks) and Basic Chinese: A Grammar and Workbook by the same publisher. The vocabulary format in both those other books are much better than in this one.
   So for learning new vocabulary this book gets a low score from me.
   In teaching grammar it gets 5/5.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   

No comments about Cantonese As Written Language: The Growth of a Written Chinese Vernacular.

3 comments about Beginning Cantonese (Critical Languages Series).

1. Well, I finally found a Cantonese course that was worse than the Instant Immersion product. Their romanization is the most confusing I've seen, with several words jammed together to make large, hard-to-read words. From what I can tell, this course also totally ignores the tones in Cantonese, making it extremely difficult to tell exactly which word is being mangled in their horrid spelling. It's obviously intended as a companion to a course in their university and is almost useless on its own. The very first lesson contains dozens of new words used in poor context. Definitions are not always easily found and the native speakers in the audio/video clips are so fast I suspect they work in an auction house in their spare time.
   
   Don't waste your time here. Try Pimsleur's wonderful (though short) course or the Teach Yourself course by Hugh Baker. The Language Learning course from Laser Publishing Group is okay too.



2. If you were starting from scratch to learn Cantonese on your own, I don't think Beginning Cantonese should be your first choice. Without establishing any grounding,it jumps straight into dialogues delivered by native speakers at normal to rapid speaking speed.
   
   I had already gone through the full Pimsleur course and half way through the FSI course before buying Beginning Cantonese. With that foundation I have found Beginning Cantonese very helpful indeed.
   
   The twenty video dialogues with accompanying romanised text are excellent for playing over and over again. You can highlight words or sentences in the text to get Cantonese pronunciations or English translations. You can also record your own speech and compare to the pronunciation of the native speakers. A very user friendly package.
   
   There are other features such as exercises involving multiple choice questions,dictation and the use of flash cards. I don't use any of them but others might find them helpful. There are also many useful footnotes to the texts explaining usage and Cantonese customs.
   
   I think Beginning Cantonese is great value for money. Worth every cent for the video/audio alone. For straight up beginners though, I would recommend starting with something like Pimsleur or Teach Yourself Cantonese, then using this as a supplement.



3. This program is a great way to learn Cantonese when you haven't got a class or instructor to teach it in your home town. The actor and actresses are old fashion, which gives you the traditional feel of Cantonese. The dialogues are defined by sentences and word for word (the best feature). The sentences give you an adapted and sensible meaning, while the word for word definition gives you the literal meaning. The literal meaning doesn't make much sense at first, but it helps train you to think in the foreign language by drilling the pattern in your head. You're going to use the language in the way that you learn it, so if you learn the placement of Cantonese words literally, you won't have to memorize the syntax of the grammar. I love it, love it, love it!!

3 comments about Intermediate Cantonese: A Grammar and Workbook (Routledgegrammars).

1. This book is an excellent sequel to: "Basic Cantonese: A Grammar and Workbook" by the same authors. It (and its predecessor) are the best sources I've seen as far as really explaining how Cantonese works. There has been some other good material published in recent years for Cantonese learners (I give high marks to "Colloquial Cantonese" by Tong and James and "Teach Yourself Cantonese" by Baker and Ho) but this is the best treatment of Cantonese syntax I've come across- having worked through it I now feel confident that I can speak good, authentic Cantonese. It is written from a linguistic point of view but it is so well-organized and the material is so neatly presented that even someone without much linguistic background would find it a help. There are some comparisons made with Mandarin usage which are interesting and helpful to someone who learned Mandarin first (as I did) but previous knowledge of Mandarin is not assumed or required. A further plus: Lots of contemporary vocabulary. If you think you'd like to be able to say: "The boss has sexually harassed her" "My daughter is giving me an attitude again" or "very soon one will be able to get on the Internet via mobile phones" look no further!



2. Intermediate Cantonese is a great textbook to upgrade your knowledge of Cantonese, a language spoken by over 100 million people in southern China (Guangdong, Guangxi, Hong Kong and Macau) and among many overseas Chinese. It's very didactical and quite easy to understand. Cantonese is not easy to learn, but the book makes it pretty easy to learn.



3. Dear sir or madam,
   Till now I do not recive this book.I am rather disappiontment at your company's perfromance.If you have any information about this book which was bought by me in the Oct please contact soon.My cell phone number is +8613983658880.
   
   yours,sincerely
   Tang Aiyi

5 comments about A Dictionary of Cantonese Slang: The Language of Hong Kong Movies, Street Gangs And City Life.

1. Before you purchase a copy just remember this is a dictionary for CANTONESE slang. Cantonese being one of the many Chinese dialogues, obviously not every Chinese speaks Cantonese.
   So having said that, I must inform everyone that Cantonese has the most vivid descriptions and usages of slang of the entire Chinese language (yet, being the least awful sounding). How do I know, because I was born in that wonderful city of Hong Kong! It's my native tongue, so trust me, we know how to slang in style~~ However, not all Cantonese slangs are entirely cruses nor are they offensive, you can use many of them safely in any environment. And this book presents the best of them in their original forms, including the usage of each slang and how to apply it within your speech. I am amazed by how accurate the dictionary truly is. The definations are all better than I thought they would be (as well as its entertaining value)! So if you are ever tired from repeating the same old phrases over and over again, then try adding a few Cantonese slangs into your speech to spice things up a little bit.



2. waited a long time for this to come out, and well worth it..the book is a fantastic contribution to Cantonese language study.
   Cantonese is difficult anyway, and has very few good books for those learning the language, in contrast to Mandarin.
   well done to the authors and publishers for sticking it out, anyone seriously studying Cantonese will need to learn the wonderfully rich and varied slang, and this really is a serious and valuable work, also rather amusing..thank you!.



3. This is the type of cantonese colliquial I was looking for, one that doesn't just include all the usual phrases that are just slightly colloquial. This book goes all the way in terms of slang language. A lot of swearing and gangster talk is included. When I saw the book cover the first thing that came to mind was the hk movie 'young and dangerous'. Although I have to say ever since my mother brought another colloquial book from hk 'common cantonese colloquial expressions' I found that if you want the usual colloquial phrases like "ar chi don gum say" (ie pretending teeth to be used as gold - I highly take in/treausre every word you say) or "bou yee li" (ie cheating with another woman while married) it'll probably be better to get that book. This book is very slang although it does include many of the usual everyday phrases. The language in this book is probably not used by a majority of civilised hk people although many in hk do swear a lot but I guess they won't use that many variations of harsh expressions. I know this as I was born in hk myself and have visited hk once in a while as I live overseas. I myself do swear a lot in canto (although sometimes I try not to) so this book was suitable for me. It is good as a read for amusment and englightening to what can be said when hk people get pissed or are under pressure.. which is a lot of the time. The yale organisation of the book is very useful for those that can't read chinese as it is in alhapbetical order. It also helps you to pronouce the words if you figure out how to read with the sounding of the high and low tones. Overall I think that this book was well written and it isn't expensive for such a thick book as this I have to say.
   
   
   hk.style



4. Excellent book. Though born and raised in Hawaii, Cantonese was my first language. During trips to Hong Kong and Guangzhou to visit family, my Chinese was understood perfectly and they marvelled at how well I spoke colloquial Chinese, but I never realized I wasn't speaking "proper" Cantonese, until I read this book. I highly recommend this book to anyone desiring to learn the usage and context of Cantonese as spoken on the streets of any Chinatown in the U.S. as well as Hong Kong & Guangdong.



5. An excellent book and worth it for both native Cantonese speakers and people learning to speak Cantonese. I'm a native Cantonese speaker (and also fluent in English) and there are lots of slang phrases I have a hard time translating to English and this book helps with it. It should be noted that the vernacular in this book are often particular to the Cantonese in Hong Kong and may not reflect the vernacular of Cantonese spoken in Guangzhou.
   
   There are a few mistakes in the book, however, but not a big problem. For instance, some characters that actually can be written in Cantonese are left "blank" (indicated by a square).
   
   I recommend this book 100%