Customer Reviews
as good a starting point as any - By: , 22 Jun 2000 
i've got about 30 cantonese learning books & would say this one, overall, is about as good as any beginners' book. on the plus side, it features: a passable glossary, clear presentation & covers most everyday situations. drawbacks are: no chinese characters, not enough repetition exercises. it seems to take approx 1 year for a beginners' class to get through the book (1.5hrs/wk tuition, along with other activities). the cassettes are crucial to get anything out of the course. Remember, the romanisation is only a means to an end (speaking). the book is geared to "situations" & as such may help to get you prepared for a short trip to HK, but it would not get you far for working or formal study. for the former, "A Cantonese Book" is more appropriate, whereas for the latter, the Sidney Lau series (difficult to getin Britain) remains,in my opinion, the best for those willing to invest the time. an excellent companion grammer is the Yip/Matthews.
"Colloquial" books are not suitable for beginners. - By: , 02 May 1999 
I would not advise anyone to use books from the "Colloquial" series if they wish to start learning a language. The learner is expected to absorb a very large vocabulary & learn a great many new structures at a far greater pace than the average person is able to do. This is hard enough for a language very similar to English, but for a difficult language like Chinese the approach usedin this series is quite unsuitable for beginners.
