Assimil Cantonese Lesson 1

To begin with, I thank my viewers who cared about this course text and gave me recommendations and asked questions on an elusive course that seems to be out of print. The lesson texts are still essentially part of Assimil Cantonese. But since I never owned this book at all, what I can do here is to write up new lesson texts and I literally own all of them as I write with my knowledge, as a Cantonese speaker myself, and imagination.

Cantonese pronunciation:

Just consult this Jyutping guide

Tones:

Also consult the same site for tones. I can make a video too, but that's for later.

The previous 10 posts were "raw" lesson texts. Now, as I try and experiment with writing/adding content to such a course, I'll see what I can do.

Note: this and all subsequent lesson notes are subject to irregular updating. I may respond to popular questions/suggestions.

IMPORTANT: please refer to the full text that I keep on updating

第一堂

你好

你好嗎？

你好。

你太太好嗎？

佢好好。

練習一翻譯

你好。

佢好嗎？

佢太太好嗎？

佢太太好好。

練習三聽讀

第

大

睇

太太

堂

空

好

浩

茶

嗎

佢

女

Notes:

1. Welcome (back) to this course and I am practically writing my own course right here. Wix has quite a few technical limitations. So, I ask you to use notes in conjunction with the full text file (CSV and on GitHub).

2. As Assimil Cantonese would say, Chinese characters are pretty much out of the scope of discussion in this course. Other than Assimil's own Chinese script course book, my advice is to use general learning materials except that Cantonese has unique or exclusive characters unseen in Mandarin/other Chinese languages. I may explain as I move along.

3. Here, 嗎 maa3 is the first ever particle that you see in Cantonese or a question marker. Many native speakers find it difficult to explain where to use 嗎 (or homophone 嘛), 呀 aa3 (as question marker). My simple advice is learn in context.

4. 太太 taai3 taai2 is a polite term of someone's wife, i.e. 我太太 ngo5 taai3 taai2 (my wife). Other people can also use 你太太 nei5 taai3 taai2 (your wife), 佢太太 keoi5 taai3 taai2 (their wife).

5. This course text contained 練習一 lin6 zaap6 jat1, 練習三 lin6 zaap6 saam1 and some other headings. I transcribe all of them like in every other Assimil course text. The first lessons contain pronunciations of certain characters and I cover them.