Learning Cantonese: Lesson 1 第一堂

For who wants to learn Cantonese, here are my little tips.

1. How to learn
Since Cantonese is a spoken language, I suggest that people learn it mainly by listening and speaking.
For several reasons:
- People do not pronounce it exactly as the romanisation system, SOMETIMES.
   E.g. 你(nei5) -> (lei5), 我(ngo5) -> (o5).
- Tons of tone sandhi which mean 1 character can have 2 or more pronunciations.
   E.g. 眼鏡(ngaan5 geng3) ->(ngaan5 geng2).
- The tone is complicated. Same character with different tone can change the mood of the sentence totally different.
- Not every pronunciation can be correspond to a character, therefore people use different character with similar pronunciation to express the same meaning in text chat. So if you learn it by reading, it may lead you to a wrong path.

2. Which one romanisation system should you use?
I recommend LSHK jyutping.
There is an online Cantonese dictionary developed by it. Make your learning much more easier.

3. About grammar
The grammar of Cantonese is similar to Mandarin. However, there are some differences. More information for who already know Chinese.
http://www.fed.cuhk.edu.hk/youngwriter/members/resource/rsdb5/man_001.htm
http://laowaichinese.net/learning-mandarin-in-cantonese-land-iii-grammar.htm


Recommended Websites:
- A website that teaching Cantonese. **Strongly recommended**
http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/
- A dictionary that you can check the pronunciation! **Strongly recommended**
http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-can/
- For intermediate
http://www.freehongkong.net/category/learn-cantonese/
- A website that teaching Cantonese.
http://cantonese.ca/
- Others, if you are free, you can check it out.
http://podcast.rthk.org.hk/podcast/item_all.php?pid=45&current_year=1970
http://cpime.hk/pingjam/?language=english
https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%87%92%E9%9F%B3#s.2F.C9.95.2C_ts.2Ft.C9.95.2C_ts.CA.B0.2Ft.C9.95.CA.B0_.E4.B8.8D.E5.88.86 ( Cantonese version only )