I am new to learning cantonese. I picked this up at a bookstore. I read Teach Yourself and thought it would be a simple start. It was not! I read the part of the book that was not on the audio and started the tape. The one of the first dialogues was about buying an american car vs. a Japanese car.(which I found out with the help of a chinese friend) English translations are not provided in most cases. The part of the tape that is in English is in British English and talks of European pronunciation. I was so frustrated I have not picked up the book in a while maybe when I know more cantonese it will be useful.

This book starts out ok, but after the first few lessons, no longer goes over new vocabulary words on the audio casette, nor provides translations with any of the dialogues. This is especially important, because so much of Cantonese is not directly translatable from Engish, and I had absolutly no idea what I was saying. I have acess to a whole family of native Cantonese speakers and was still completly confused. This book and cassette may be good for business purposes, since all the exercises are very proper, but I found myself having to ask so many questions just to understand, it was hardly "teach yourself".

This is a really rewarding course to study. The authors have done a wonderful job of conveying what devotees of Cantonese (like this reviewer) love most about the language- its vigor and its humor. The tapes are very good to work from, also- the dialogues of the first two lessons are given in what might be called "classroom speed" and then as in the real world so that it's a gentle way for a beginner to get a "feel" for how Cantonese sounds without losing any self-confidence. There are lots of good exercises with each lesson, also, and the review lessons really do review.

I cannot help but complain about one thing, however. The authors have invented a system of transcription that (for me at least) was difficult to learn, confusing, and totally different from any other Romanization of Cantonese that I've ever seen. I don't have any great feelings of loyalty to the Huang-Kok romanization (I'll spend the rest of my life trying to undo the damage by Huang's "Speak Cantonese", Books 2 and 3) but it is in wide use, it's not difficult to pick up, and most of the other books and courses about Cantonese use it (including the good ones). Going back and forth between different systems of transcription is one of the banes of the life of a student of Asian languages, but up until now it is not a problem that most learners of Cantonese have had to deal with. Even though this is a very complete, self-contained beginning course, it's always helpful to cross-reference and compare other material. What were you thinking of, guys?