Learn Cantonese - ChinesePod

[AuntySue]

Today a Chinese lady told me she'd read in the paper that a group of teachers in Sydney had put together a new book for learning Cantonese. Apparently it is for sale at a place called Po Hong in Sussex St in Chinatown.

That's all the info I could extract. Is it correct? Has anyone else heard of this new book?

[AuntySue]

OK, I phoned Po Hong in Sussex St Sydney and they've got it, $40 with 3 CDs.

Apparently it used to exist in Chinese only, so there were no explanations(?) in English, until this edition that's just come out. I still don't know what it's called. I think she said it includes characters, and it definitely has some form of romanisation. Possibly it's the romanisation that's what's new, hard to tell.

They are open to mail order, and suggested sending a fax, but I don't think they do that kind of thing often.
Friendly and helpful, but I wouldn't try to do too much organising on the phone, unless you can yell and hear through loud background noise in fluent Cantonese. Yes I tried speaking Mandarin, but she said she doesn't know any Mandarin, so it might as well have been Polish.

It'll be easier for me to make the trip to Sydney and be done with it. Then I can suss it out and let you know what exactly it is and how to get it.

Meanwhile if anyone hears any more about it, please let me know.

[AuntySue]

The plot thickens. Still unable to fit in a long trip to Sydney, I phoned today and was told they had two Cantonese learning books. I mentioned the 3 CDs that the lady had told me about, and he said they each come with 3 CDs.

I got the title for one of them:
Learning to speak Cantonese with nine tongues

Well I googled all afternoon and found nothing, until my eye caught someone saying "tongues or tones". Oh, could it be nine tones? More google. Yes, I think I've found it, or one of them.
http://us.yesasia.com/en/PrdDept.aspx/code-c/section-books/pid-1005066621/

Strange, they have it for $14.85 and the shop here told me $40. That seems a bit of a price hike. Hang on.... tongues/tones... $40/$14... maybe I misheard again? The growing mystery story is so intriguing, who cares if the book is good or junk, let's see what it really is after all!

The handy piece of info I got from that phone call was that they're going to be open all day (and half the night) on xmas day. By their explanation of why, it sounds like most of Chinatown will probably be business as usual too. Yay! Guess where I'm going for Xmas!

[AuntySue]

OK, I bought it. It is $40, no misunderstanding there. It's 260 pages all up, and comes with three CDs.

It took me quite a while to properly understand the aims and features of this book. Having completed that task, and found it to be quite unlike any other book, I have decided not to write a review.

What I will do instead is simply describe its elements to help anyone interested to understand what it contains in order to make an easier purchasing decision.


The book's approach emphasises the author's precision of expression, so that the student's path won't be blocked by technical imperfection of the raw input. The student's own effort to convert this raw input into learning material is part of the process of learning a language.

Title
"Learn to speak Cantonese with nine tones" is a straight forward descriptive title which is sure to appeal to Cantonese speakers who want to help promote Cantonese language learning in Australia and New Zealand.

Pronunciation
Really, the whole book is about pronunciation, with pronunciation demonstrations occupying almost 3/4 of the text and two of the three CDs. Towards the end, there are 55 pages of sentences and phrases, which are read out on the third CD. There is no discussion of grammar or usage of words or phrases.

Tones
The tones are introduced by plotting them out against musical notation expressed in sol fa, a music notation system that is studied in some European countries. First tone is plotted as descending, not level.
The tones are also explained by comparing them to English words. Apparently English uses Cantonese tones 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, and 9, so naming an English word will convey how the represented Cantonese tones sound. For example, the word "innocent" demonstrates tone sequence 1,4,4. It is not always clear whether one should imagine the English word spoken by a native English speaker, or by a Cantonese speaker, nor in what way this conversion step clarifies the tones, but every Cantonese word can be heard spoken on the CD anyway.

Sounds
Consonants, vowels and dipthongs are treated systematically, one by one, covering each one in all of its nine tones (or fewer tones when real Cantonese words don't exist). You have the Chinese characters and the "Oxford Jone's Symbols" (similar to IPA) but no English translation. Sorry I can't quote you an example because I don't know how to type them. These professional linguist symbols have been used (instead of a romanisation such as Yale) because they express the sounds accurately, and they should be meaningful to English speakers because of their use in the famous Oxford English Dictionary. It is explained that the symbols will always convey the same sound, no matter whether being used to notate English or Cantonese sounds. The sounds that do not occur in English are not explained in the book, but a note advises the reader to listen to the CD instead.

Words
The middle 80 pages of the book consist of a word list. Words are given first in Chinese characters, then Oxford Jone's Symbols, then a brief (often one word) English translation. The list of Cantonese words is read out on the CD.

Sentences
At the end of the book there are 300 Cantonese sentences, in English, characters, and those symbols. CD3 consists of these sentences read out.

English Index
The index allows you to look up an English word and find the page of the book where the Cantonese equivalent is used. Its design is rather unique. Most verbs are entered under the letter T, and most nouns are under A though a few are under T instead (e.g. To go, A hair, The God). Nouns whose characters can also be used for Chinese surnames are found under C (e.g. Chinese surname/Water). That's all you need to know to look up any included English word and find its Cantonese.