Talk to Me in Cantonese 跟我說廣東話

Talk to Me in Cantonese is a comprehensive and self-paced textbook tailor-made for English-speaking learners with a basic knowledge of Cantonese. It consists of 10 lessons, each covering a real-life situation using dialogues and stories. Through systematic explanations of the grammar and sentence patterns introduced in the text, readers are able to acquire crucial grammatical structures needed to express themselves fluently and precisely. Each lesson reinforces grammar usage with a review and a wide variety of exercises. The Cantonese pronunciation practice in Appendix 1 serves a dual purpose: it exposes the reader to the richness of the Cantonese language by using slang and colloquial expressions to practise every element of Cantonese pronunciation.

This book is a sequel to A Cantonese Book, a popular textbook designed for beginning-level learners. Since there are very few books that help teach anything beyond survival Cantonese, Talk to Me in Cantonese is suitable for anyone who wants to continue their study, no matter what text they used to start with. The book is enhanced by downloadable audio files by native speakers for all dialogues, stories, vocabulary items, and grammatical practices in the text.

Betty Hung is an assistant lecturer in the School of Chinese at the University of Hong Kong. She is the co-author of A Cantonese Book and Hong Kong Unveiled.

‘Cantonese language study materials available to the learners at the intermediate level are rather limited. Talk to Me in Cantonese, which provides knowledge and practices on useful grammatical patterns and on the Cantonese sound system, will be a great addition to the pool of textbooks on Cantonese.’ —Lee Siu-lun, The Chinese University of Hong Kong

‘Talk to Me in Cantonese is suitable for learners who already have a grounding in survival Cantonese and want to continue their study for practical purposes. The distinguished features of the book, such as the Yale Cantonese Romanization, a collection of real-life dialogues, and various forms of exercises will help learners attain fluency in Cantonese more efficiently.’ —David Yuen, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University