Lonely Planet Cantonese Phrasebook

Lonely Planet once again comes through with a concise, easy to use, beautifully set up phrase book. Chocked with useful cultural info and tips if visiting China, the book is well sectioned, allowing you to get the word or phrase you are looking for fast. Its tiny size makes it easy to travel with even if you have only a small patch pocket. A must have for those who are tackling Cantonese.

A lot of info is stuffed in a small pocket book. It will come handy if you are traveling to Hong Kong or Guang-dong region. Here are a couple of things I liked about this book. (1)Even though the fonts are small (ie, pocket version), it does not strain the eyes because the paper is high quality and has colored fonts. (2)It has the Chinese characters next to all the sentences and words. I did not like those books which only have the romanization but no Chinese characters. In the long run you really need to know them. (3) A lot of handy info/words/sentences included (such as 'I want to make love to you' or 'leave me alone!') I have two reasons I can't give 5 stars: (1) It does NOT use the 'standard Yale' system--it could be a little confusing to those using Yale system (why don't everybody just use Yale???);(2)right off the bat, I noticed couple typo/errors in the pronounciation--I would use as a reference, not the primary source of studying Cantonese. Overall, I think it is a worth investment, especially considering the low cost.