Hey everyone; I'm an American living Stateside with fairly advanced proficiency in Putonghua (i.e. Mandarin Chinese), and I'm interested in learning Cantonese on my own. Does anyone have any recommendations for books, CDs, software, etc that would help me do this? It seems that most self-teaching Cantonese materials out there are geared towards people with no Chinese training whatsoever. 多谢!
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Knowing Putonghua, Learning Cantonese
- Thread starter HuShifang
- Start date
Actually there is a pretty good book and CD for those who know Putonghua fairly well
and want to impress people with Cantonese. 书名叫： 广州话一日一提 http://www.gdst.com.cn/book_show.asp?BookID=19
It assumes you are quite comfortable with speaking or conversing in most day to day Mandarin or Putonghua already. The book does not try to bore you with absolute 'basics' of what is a Chinese character etc.. (All explanations are in 中文.) Instead it takes just one 'problem' a day (as the name suggests) that Putonghua speakers often find difficult when trying to communicate in Cantonese or the most important southern dialect. Even the illustrations use characters for the Cantonese dialect not found in standard Mandarin or Putonghua courses. When you finish the course, you should be able to read Cantonese adverts appearing in Hong Kong, read Cantonese SMS etc.. and of course communicate fairly accurately in Guangzhou Hua 广州话。
I must add though that 'real' Hong Kong people would find some suggestions or saying in the book rather outdated as the real vernacular keeps adapting to changes. My answer to that is to pick up a few Hong Kong movies, especially the gangster variety or even Mainland movies dubbed in the real Hong Kong Cantonese. Actually if you see enough of these you should soon be communicating better than most overseas Cantonese Chinese...They might even think you're from Hong Kong instead of Guangzhou or TaiShan 台山 where most of the overseas Cantonese are supposed to be from originally.
and want to impress people with Cantonese. 书名叫： 广州话一日一提 http://www.gdst.com.cn/book_show.asp?BookID=19
It assumes you are quite comfortable with speaking or conversing in most day to day Mandarin or Putonghua already. The book does not try to bore you with absolute 'basics' of what is a Chinese character etc.. (All explanations are in 中文.) Instead it takes just one 'problem' a day (as the name suggests) that Putonghua speakers often find difficult when trying to communicate in Cantonese or the most important southern dialect. Even the illustrations use characters for the Cantonese dialect not found in standard Mandarin or Putonghua courses. When you finish the course, you should be able to read Cantonese adverts appearing in Hong Kong, read Cantonese SMS etc.. and of course communicate fairly accurately in Guangzhou Hua 广州话。
I must add though that 'real' Hong Kong people would find some suggestions or saying in the book rather outdated as the real vernacular keeps adapting to changes. My answer to that is to pick up a few Hong Kong movies, especially the gangster variety or even Mainland movies dubbed in the real Hong Kong Cantonese. Actually if you see enough of these you should soon be communicating better than most overseas Cantonese Chinese...They might even think you're from Hong Kong instead of Guangzhou or TaiShan 台山 where most of the overseas Cantonese are supposed to be from originally.
A Short Cut at Cantonese
There is A Short Cut at Cantonese, which is in English but assumes a fair familiarity with Mandarin. Yin-Ping Cream Lee, Greenwood Press, ISBN 962-279-187-5.
There is A Short Cut at Cantonese, which is in English but assumes a fair familiarity with Mandarin. Yin-Ping Cream Lee, Greenwood Press, ISBN 962-279-187-5.