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I'm on Lesson 9, and on a recent visit to Chinatown I was already able to understand some words and phrases.A little booklet tells you how to use the disks and how you'll know when you're ready to advance to the next lesson. I'm in my 50s and an absolute beginner at Cantonese. Although the instructions suggest one lesson per day, I find I usually need 3-5 plays for each lesson before I feel I'm ready. The speakers are clear and easy to follow, the words and conversations are useful right from the start, and the 30 minute format is manageable. I play the disks on my way to work.Each lesson incorporates what you learned on previous disks into the new conversations, so there's plenty of reinforcement while you learn new words and sentences--no need to feel overwhelmed. You might need more or less repetitions. I feel confident that I'll be "conversational" in basic Cantonese in a few weeks.I'm really pleased with this product.
I've listened to many a language tape for several languages, and while I've never adored any of them, this one is just too painful to listen to. The first few discs consist of a voice saying a phrase, then silence while you repeat, then another phrase, silence, then back to the old phrase, silence, etc. Lots of long pauses and repetition, which could be helpful for someone, but was completely unappealing and boring for me.
I am trying to learn Cantonese because my son-in-law's family speak it and I want to encourage my daughter to learn it. I was amazed that I could understand some of what he said within a week.
I listen to it on the way to work. I now know the chinese girls at work often talk about eating.I rcommend it over Berlitz or the other brands. I am up to lesson 12 and it really works. Not enough vocabulary for general use, but it gets you off to a wonderful start. This is taylored to the cantonese language and it teaches you in a natural way.Warning. If you have the Basic Contonese, the first five discs are the same.
Although the conversational Cantonese used is correct.many of the word phrases could be greatly improved with more commonplace word usage and phrases. A small written booklet - written in the romanized Yale system for conversational Cantonese would be most help for those of us 21yrs. and older:who's native tongue is English.
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