Customer Reviews

Basic Cantonese: A Grammar and Workbook (Grammar Workbooks)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Virginia Yip and Stephen Matthews have done it well. This is the clearest, most useful Cantonese language book yet. Each lesson builds on the previous one, as you would expect, but the inclusion of vocabulary that actually is useful in the world, and their clear method for discribing tonal pronunciations goes far beyond what has been available to date. Yip and Matthews draw on film, radio and t.v. for many of their examples, presenting this vital language as it is currently spoken. Using this book in conjuction with their "Essential Cantonese Grammar" will move your studies ahead vigorously and easily.

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.

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.).

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.

This book has absolutely no Chinese characters documented. This makes it rather difficult to learn a language divorced from the writing system, and I think anyone that would use this book is doing a disservice to themselves or their students.

I actually own the hard copy but wanted the ebook version for my ipad library for convenience. I wasn't too happy when I noticed that all of the text (though the pictures have it) did not include tone marks for the first (high pitch) tone...rendering the book useless to any learner. To the editor: Please fix and resend or give us back our money!

This is the one book on Cantonese grammar that every learner of the language should probably buy in addition to their main textbook. Unfortunately, many of the current textbooks on Cantonese, including very good ones such as Baker&Ho, seem to try to avoid grammar at all costs, maybe in order to get people to start speaking as quickly as possible. But after a while, more and more questions about grammar will pile up, with no answers in your textbook, and you will need to get some extra material on grammar.

So, my recommendation: after going through maybe half of your other textbook, buy and read this book. A lot of things will start making more sense. (Then, after another half a year or more of additional study, consider getting the Intermediate Cantonese book by Yip and Matthews.)

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.