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Title: Cantonese: Basic Course by Elizabeth Latimore Boyle, James R. Frith, Foreign Service Institute ISBN: 0-88432-799-X Publisher: Audio Forum Pub. Date: April, 1979 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $41.50

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Average Customer Rating: 3 (3 reviews)

Rating: 3
Summary: Good Basic Cantonese
Comment: I have gone over this book in it's entirety and I must say that it's put together very nicely but the most important missing are the tapes. It would be excellent if it came with tapes.

Rating: 3
Summary: Cantonese Basic Course
Comment: The "Cantonese Basic Course" is / was published in two separate volumes. The ASIN # 4400012685 should be just volume 1. If you search amazon by the author's name (just click on the name) you will find volume 2, as well as the audiotapes. (ISBN 0879506792.) This book is the required text for Chinese 10A at City College of San Francisco.

I have audiotapes for learning Cantonese from 4 different "systems". The audiotapes with this textbook are the best by far. The actual methodology for teaching Cantonese is fairly clear. Cantonese is a tonal language with as many as 7 "tones" for a given syllable. This text is the only one of the four which gives a clear explination of the varous tones.

There are several different "printings" of this book. Be warned that the spiral bound volume 1 looks like a photocopy, and may be harder to read than the smaller sized paperback. The spiral bound version is also priced higher than the paperback version. I rate this textbook as a 3 out of 5 as the print job is horrible (for ALL the versions I have seen.) The text has been used for many years and is considered to be one of the best to learn Cantonese - so don't judge this book by my review.

Rating: 3
Summary: Where's the rest of it?
Comment: This is a very good course to work from. Its vocabulary is the most useful for a beginning (and intermediate student), its explanations of both pronunciation and grammar are extremely well organized and easy to follow, and there are many excellent exercises and drills. Although this book quite clearly was originally intended to be used in a classroom setting, it is not difficult to adapt the exercises for self-study- since there is usually Cantonese on one side, and English on the other, just cover up one side- then, later on, review by doing it the other way around.

Two negatives: First, the book should be sold with tapes. There are other courses on the market which have audio support, so if you also have one of these, you can learn Cantonese pronunciation from them while using this course. "Colloquial Cantonese" (from Routledge) is a particularly good fit because it uses basically the same system of transcription found in "Cantonese Basic Course". Otherwise, the help of a native speaker will be needed, and from my own experience, many native speakers will be baffled by the transcription (which was originally developed at Yale). Second, the original State Department Course from which this was taken had thirty lessons, but this edition includes only the first fifteen. I would certainly give this book more stars if it contained the full course of thirty lessons.