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Cantonese resources thread

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Ari
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 Message 1 of 17
19 January 2012 at 7:12pm | IP Logged 
As one of the most fanatic Canto learners on the forum, I thought I should make a thread with some of the best materials for learning I've found online. Cantonese resources are few and far between, so maybe this thread can be of some help for others. If you have your own resources to share, do post them.


Dictionaries and word lists

CantoDict
The one and, as far as I know, only Cantonese dictionary on the web. It's a collaborative project by learners and native speakers, so it's not 100% complete, but it's been running since 2006, so most everything you encounter, especially as a beginner, is in there. Words and characters are marked with symbols to illustrate which are Mandarin-only, which are Cantonese-only and which are acceptable in both. There are also difficulty levels based on subjective assessment by editors which can still be a great help for students.

港式用語診症室
This site has a great list of Cantonese-only expressions. There doesn't seem to be any explanations for the individual expressions, but since they're alphabetically ordered by pronunciation, you can use them to look up a "recommended" spelling for a certain term if you know how it's pronounced. On another of the pages you can find some great explanations of instances where Cantonese grammar differs from Mandarin grammar. They'll have a Canto sentence, a Mandarin translation, as well as audio. There's also a fantastic page listing Cantonese measure words and their Mando counterparts.

Flying @way
This page is pretty strange, but it contains all sorts of Cantonese expressions, often listed with both "orthodox" characters and "colloquial" ones, and the author (who I don't think is a scholar) makes some recommendations as to which to use. If you poke around you can find all sorts of interesting bits here, like colloquial expressions, nursery rhymes and tongue twisters. As the author seems to come from Mainland China, it's written in simps, which can be annoying.

UniHan search page
Two great uses for this page: search characters by their Jyutping pronunciations, or make a search for "Cant." (make sure to include the dot) to get a handy list of all Canto-only characters in the UniHan database (it's quite a lot).


Courses

PopupCantonese
Podcast-based course. You can listen for free, but you need to subscribe for transcripts.

CantoneseClass101
Similar concept to the one above.

FSI Cantonese
The old FSI course for free.

Greenwood Press
This company sells some books for Canto learners.

Sidney Lau books (Audio can be downloaded here)

DLI Cantonese

Cantonese for Everyone

Naked Cantonese
Not really a full course, but it's pretty light entertaining and fun for when you're too tired to study. Learn Cantonese from a Norwegian blonde.


Movies

粤语学习网
This page contains scripts and parts of scripts for some Cantonese movies, mainly ones by Stephen Chow. Since most Cantonese movies are subtitled in Mandarin rather than Cantonese, this can be fantastic for learning from movies. Unfortunately it's all in simps.

Hong Kong movies with Cantonese subtitles?
The last page on this CantoDict forum thread has a list off movies for which versions exist with Canto subs.


Music
(The vast majority of "Cantonese" music is written in Mandarin and sung with Canto pronunciation, which means it uses non-Cantonese vocabulary and grammar. Music listed in this section is only music written and sung in Cantonese. One or two phrases might be in Mandarin for stylistic effect, but pretty much all of this is prime material for students. Unfortunately, this means most of this is rap, as respectable singers don't sing in their native language.)

農夫 娛樂圈殺人事件
農夫/FAMA are my favorite Cantonese band. Lots of their songs are on YouTube, so click away on the "related videos". Great songwriting and very friendly, positive attitude.

ToNick 聖誕歌 Last Christmas
ToNick has a very "skatepunk" style which is not my cup of tea, but their lyrics are real Cantonese and this one's pretty funny, too.

許冠傑 尖沙咀Susie
I always link to "半斤八兩", so this time I'll link to another of Sam Hui's songs. This one is my Sifu's favorite. You'll find it in karaoke joints all over Guangdong province!

LMF - 揸緊中指
The guys in LMF are known to be potty mouths, and although this song has less swearing than most of theirs, there's still some in there. Oh, and don't play this song in Mainland China, or you'll probably get arrested. It's pretty political.

Hardpack - 小喇叭
This one uses some Mandarin for stylistic effect, but most of it is in Cantonese. Hardpack has another video which is only in Canto, but that one's both full of swears and very political.

MastaMic - 10 HK Rap Up
This has a LOT of lyric for you to practice on.


Texts

Cantonese Wikipedia
Probably the only place in the world where you can find texts written in good Cantonese on serious topics.

小男人週記
小男人週記 (Diary of a Little Man) is in many ways a rather unimportant book. But in others it's a pretty big deal. It's one of extremely few novels written in Cantonese. Published in the eighties, it's now pretty hard to get a hold of, but some kind soul has posted it in this forum thread for us to read and practice our Cantonese.

Radio

Open Sky Radio
Online Cantonese radio station based in Frisco.

RTHK podcasts
Podcast versions of RTHK (Hong Kong's biggest radio station) radio shows.


Video

粵講粵過癮
Excellent program talking in Cantonese about Cantonese. Lots of great colloquial expressions you might not get from textbooks.

Alright, that's all I can come up with for now. Feel free to add your own resources!

Edited by Ari on 20 January 2012 at 7:06pm

14 persons have voted this message useful



liddytime
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 Message 2 of 17
19 January 2012 at 11:49pm | IP Logged 
Canto is awesome! I might just have to tackle it one I get a better handle on my Mandarin! I love the Pop Up Cantonese podcasts!
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newyorkeric
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 Message 3 of 17
20 January 2012 at 5:16am | IP Logged 
There are also the Sidney Lau books, DLI Cantonese, and Cantonese for Everyone.

There were some audio recordings for some dialogs of the Sidney Lau series, but apparently they aren't available anymore or at least I can't find them online.


Edited by newyorkeric on 20 January 2012 at 5:41am

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nway
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 Message 4 of 17
20 January 2012 at 7:13am | IP Logged 
I was about to bookmark each of these sites, but then I remembered I could just bookmark this whole page...

Curse you for adding yet another brilliant bookmark to my already insurmountable collection.
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egill
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 Message 5 of 17
20 January 2012 at 7:44am | IP Logged 
I have the Sidney Lau recordings, at least lessons 1-40, should anyone want them.

If I recall correctly the person payed someone to record them then shared them freely online,
which is where I found them.

Edited by egill on 20 January 2012 at 7:45am

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jeff_lindqvist
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 Message 6 of 17
20 January 2012 at 1:36pm | IP Logged 
Here's the Sidney Lau collection:
Sidney Lau Cantonese
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Ari
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Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese
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 Message 7 of 17
20 January 2012 at 7:07pm | IP Logged 
Great additions, guys! I added them to the first post for convenience. Also added the "Naked Cantonese" RTHK podcast.
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Ari
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Senior Member
Norway
Joined 6573 days ago

2314 posts - 5695 votes 
Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese
Studies: Czech, Latin, German

 
 Message 8 of 17
05 February 2012 at 2:55pm | IP Logged 
I can no longer edit the original post, but I've also found The World of Lily Wong, a cartoon by Larry Feign. He's been making cartoons about life in HK since the 90's (check out the archives!). He used to make them only in English and stopped in 99 or thereabouts. But for a short stint Lily Wong made a comeback in 2007-2008, and then in both Cantonese and English. With a simple click you can toggle the comics in from Cantonese to English and back.

Edited by Ari on 05 February 2012 at 2:56pm



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