Pocket Cantonese Dictionary

by Philip Yungkin Lee

Book Overview

It's never a good idea to be overly-relient on technology while traveling Look up words quickly and easily with this great little Cantonese dictionary. Intended for use by tourists, students, and business people traveling to Hong Kong or Guangzhou Pocket Cantonese Dictionary is an essential tool for communication and a great way to learn Cantonese. It features all the essential Cantonese vocabulary appropriate for beginning to intermediate students...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 079460143X
• ISBN13: 9780794601430
• Release Date: August 2003
• Publisher: Periplus Editions
• Length: 88 Pages
• Weight: 0.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 4.3" x 7.5"

Customer Reviews

Pocket Cantonese Dictionary

This is an excellent little dictionary, and the $6.95 price is very reasonable. The vocabulary of 3000 words is of course quite limited, but the selection of words and phrases for inclusion seems well done. Use of the popular and easily learned Yale romanization is a positive factor. There are a few typographical errors. For example, in the C-E section, Ajau 'Asia' is capitalized but au'jau 'Europe' is not; the wrong character is given for kahmmouh 'aunt' in both C-E and E-C sections, and in the E-C section two of the 'aunt' entries don't make sense ("wife of mother's sister"). The introductory note on pronunciation should mention the initial n-/l- confusion and the variation among speakers in use or omission of initial ng-. Listing of entries with these initial sounds is also not uniformly handled. The notes on pronunciation of vowels o and eu work for British English but not for American English, and initial kw- should be explained as "like kw in Kwanza" or "like qu in quick" rather than "like Gwendolyn with a strong puff of air." If the book were printed on thinner paper and had more flexible covers, it would be much more comfortable to hold and easier to spin the pages back and forth looking for entries.

Delivers what it promises

As the cover says, this dictionary is for travelers and beginners of Cantonese, so the focus is on daily and useful expressions. The Cantonese-English part is arranged alphabetically using the Yale romanization, so no knowledge of Chinese characters is required. The definitions are short and clear. The only problem is that the author favors more formal expressions. For example, if a certain verb has a colloquial/slang variant that is used by most Cantonese speakers in daily life and a more formal variant that is used in both spoken Cantonese and written Chinese, the author selects the latter. Nevertheless, I find this dictionary extremely useful.

Excellent Quick Reference

I'm in agreement with one of the reviewers below; I'm curious what other two critics were looking for too, because this is meant to be a limited vocabulary reference book. I like that this includes words not common in most of the other dictionaries, and an additional bonus is that it has the Chinese characters, which are legible and clear. This is the one title that consistently comes up in the "recommended texts" at universities and language schools. Thumbs up for me.

Great dictionary for beginning students

I don't think the other reviewers actually read cover of the dictionary. It says, "Contains the 3,000 most useful words for everyday communication". I'm not sure why someone would be surprised by the fact that it has "limited vocabulary". That's actually the point. Direct your attention to the words needed for daily communication before learning how to say things like, "grandiloquent". Basically, if it's in this dictionary, you need to know it. Not to mention, it is a pocket dictionary. Also, it's not a character dictionary. You look things up either by Cantonese pronunciation or English. As far as Cantonese being a "fading" language, there are 55 million speakers worldwide, in Guangdong province in China, news is broadcast in Cantonese, school up to university level is conducted in Cantonese. Cantonese won't be making its exit from the world language stage anytime soon. This dictionary does what it claims to do very well, namely giving you simple definitions for the most common 3000 words (not characters, although the characters for each word are given which is a huge plus). In addition, it works great as a list of "must know" vocabulary. Once you finish some beginning course (I highly recommend the two FSI courses by Elizabeth L. Boyle), this is a great way to expand your vocab.