Lonely Planet Cantonese Phrasebook (Lonely Planet Language Survival Kit) [Paperback]

Kam Lau (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0864423403 | ISBN-13: 978-0864423405 | Publication Date: October 1995 | Edition: 2nd

Cantonese is a southern Chinese dialect, spoken in Canton, the Guandong Province, Hong Kong and Macau. Designed for both leisure and business travellers, this phrasebook provides a pronunciation guide, notes on grammar, vocabulary (including script) and practice sections. Illustrative material includes finger counting (body language), signs and diagrams to help with pronunciation. Hints on making sentences are included.

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Lonely Planet; 2nd edition (October 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0864423403
• ISBN-13: 978-0864423405
• Product Dimensions: 5 x 3.6 x 0.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,542,392 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars You can't learn any Cantonese from this book, March 20, 2000

By 

Leo Dirac (Seattle, WA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Lonely Planet Cantonese Phrasebook (Paperback)

I will temper this review by noting that this is a _phrasebook_ and not explicitly intended as a learning tool. The book could be useful as a way of looking up something you want to say (if you can find it) and pointing to the chinese writing, but that's about all.

Cantonese pronunciation is very complicated, and this book isn't very helpful in explaining it. The section that tries to give a broad introduction to the language is terrible. For example, early on it gives a list of 8 "useful verbs" which is missing staples like "to want" and "to have", and in fact only has about 3 that are even remotely useful. One of the listed verbs is "to trick" -- a word that every traveller struggling with a language wishes they could remember.

The majority of this book is organized by topic. Within each topic, it goes into too much depth to be able to find anything quickly, but being a small book it is not comprehensive at all. The dictionary section in the back is tiny and not very useful either.

My copy ended up in a trash can in Hong Kong a few days after I bought it.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good for the price., May 10, 2001

By 

Derek J Chappell (Raleigh, NC United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lonely Planet Cantonese Phrasebook (Paperback)

This phrase book has authentic cantonese characters. Cantonese is an oral language and they use a few special characters aside from the "chinese" characters. I have seen another phrase book which uses all "chinese" characters. If you literally read it in cantonese, the pronunciations are all wrong, but the meaning is the same. It is frustrating if you know a little cantonese, and want to know the cantonese characters. This book is good because of the cantonese characters and the correct pronunciations that go along with them. If you have no background in a language and want to learn never choose a phrase book. Go buy a textbook.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Cantonese Anyone?, October 31, 2004

By 

IROHA - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lonely Planet Cantonese Phrasebook (Paperback)

First of all, I have to give credit to anyone who writes a book explaining the pronunciation of cantonese. However, this book would be more useful as a reference or supplement guide to those learning cantonese but already know the basics of the language. I wouldn't recommend it for beginners, but it wouldn't hurt to have it if you're looking to expand your vocabulary.