Customer Reviews

Talk Now! Cantonese

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

 

 

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.

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.

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.

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

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