Basic Cantonese: A Grammar and Workbook (Routledge Grammars)
by Virginia Yip
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List Price: $35.95
Our Price: $28.33
Your Save: $ 7.62 ( 21% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Routledge
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 495.17
EAN: 9780415193856
ISBN: 0415193850
Label: Routledge
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 184
Publication Date: 1999-11-30
Publisher: Routledge
Studio: Routledge
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: no-script WORKbook
Comment: For a language/dialect spoken by 100 million people or so, there is disproportionately little material for studying it, at least in the West and in English.
Reasons why I think learners should get this book:
1. many varied exercises
2. extensive pronunciation exercises
3. short chapters for smoother progress
4. clearly explained in non-technical manner
5. alot of examples
There is no script used in this book, everything is in romanization.
The pronunciation is covered in the first chapters, with many exercises.
I do have one complaint though:
there are too many words in each chapter and there is no vocabulary list for each chapter.
It is difficult for the beginner to assimilate so many new words, and it makes it more difficult to understand the examples when there are new words in almost every sentence.
I think they should have followed the same format as in the books
Basic Korean: A Grammar and Workbook (Grammar Workbooks) and Basic Chinese: A Grammar and Workbook by the same publisher. The vocabulary format in both those other books are much better than in this one.
So for learning new vocabulary this book gets a low score from me.
In teaching grammar it gets 5/5.
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Useful textbook to learn Cantonese
Comment: 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.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Good, but you're going to need help from some audio source
Comment: 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.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A good supplement to other Cantonese learning books
Comment: 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.).
Customer Rating:
Summary: An excellent supplement or stand-alone text
Comment: 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.
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Editorial Reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: no-script WORKbook
Comment: For a language/dialect spoken by 100 million people or so, there is disproportionately little material for studying it, at least in the West and in English.
Reasons why I think learners should get this book:
1. many varied exercises
2. extensive pronunciation exercises
3. short chapters for smoother progress
4. clearly explained in non-technical manner
5. alot of examples
There is no script used in this book, everything is in romanization.
The pronunciation is covered in the first chapters, with many exercises.
I do have one complaint though:
there are too many words in each chapter and there is no vocabulary list for each chapter.
It is difficult for the beginner to assimilate so many new words, and it makes it more difficult to understand the examples when there are new words in almost every sentence.
I think they should have followed the same format as in the books
Basic Korean: A Grammar and Workbook (Grammar Workbooks) and Basic Chinese: A Grammar and Workbook by the same publisher. The vocabulary format in both those other books are much better than in this one.
So for learning new vocabulary this book gets a low score from me.
In teaching grammar it gets 5/5.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Useful textbook to learn Cantonese
Comment: 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.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Good, but you're going to need help from some audio source
Comment: 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.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A good supplement to other Cantonese learning books
Comment: 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.).
Customer Rating:
Summary: An excellent supplement or stand-alone text
Comment: 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.
Basic Cantonese introduces the essentials of Cantonese grammar in a straightforward and systematic way. Each of the 28 units deals with a grammatical point and provides associated exercises, devised to perfect communication skills. Special attention is paid to topics which differ from English and European language structures. Features include: clear, accessible format; lively examples to illustrate each grammar point; full key to exercises; and glossary of grammatical terms.
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