In addition to what I learn from my mom and dad, siblings and Ving Tsun community – this list of resources include a mix of books and online resources that I reference to fill in the supplementary info for each entry and to help further contextualize my learning in general.
Books
Cheung, C., Zhang, Z., & Li, T. (2008, July). Cantonese (5th edition). Lonely Planet Publications Pty Ltd.
A Cantonese pocket-sized phrasebook published by Lonely Planet.
This was the first Cantonese book I was able to find and purchase as a kid in high school. It was also the first time I saw the language I speak at home, contextualized in English. It's written with a certain sense of humor, cultural-awareness and familiarity that definitely got some laughs from my siblings and I, because of its references to colloquial phrases with meanings that are generally read in-between-the-lines and are understood, but unspoken.
The phrasebook is mostly intended for travel to Hong Kong. There are color-coded pages (visible from the side of the book) that break up the book into visual sections: "a-z phrasebuilder", "practical", "social", "food", "safe travel", "dictionary". Within the sections, the phrases are organized into sub-categories, for example in the "social" section, "meeting people", "interests", "feelings and opinions", "going out", "romance", "beliefs and cultural differences", "art", "sport" and "outdoors". For some laughs, definitely check out the "romance" section for, "asking someone out", "pickup lines", "rejections", then "getting closer" and so on with tips on "sweet nothings", "it's not you, it's them", "problems", "leaving".
Helpful as a native speaker, to quickly remember certain words by searching through phrases. This is also helpful when trying to find the right character for a spoken word by finding them contextually in a phrase.
Chik, H. (2000). Chinese-English Dictionary: Cantonese in Yale Ramonization, Mandarin in Pinyin.
A great physical dictionary that includes a radical index, number of strokes index and a Cantonese romanization index.
Found this resource as recommended by Sue Marguerite (who has spent 33 years living in Hong Kong) in her Cantonese Corner Youtube channel (listed below). I was inspired by the radical index and found it incredibly helpful to be able to see related words by radical and by romanization
Ching, C. B. (2009). Cantonese for Everyone (Jyutping version) (First edition). The Commercial Press (H.K.) Ltd.
An introductory book to learning Cantonese with a CD included.
Purchased this book at a bookstore on Lantau Island in Hong Kong. In the Preface, Chow Bun Ching writes that the book is "principally designed for newcomers to Hong Kong (especially international students) who wish to overcome the language barrier in their new living environment. The aim of the course is to introduce the fundamental structure of the Cantonese language as well as common auseful Cantonese vocabulary, phrases and expressions that can immediately be put to use in daily life" The emphasis will be on the practical side of the language use, so as to meet everyday's need while residing in Hong Kong." I appreciate the very encouraging perspective of the title and the author.
This book is helpful in establishing a foundation and structure to learning Cantonese. My intention with purchasing this introductory book was a way to become more familiar with learning how to write Cantonese.
On the other hand, it was my first time exposed to the Jyutping system of phonetic transrciption and I struggled with it. I realized that I'm much more comfortable with Yale phonetization as it's more similar to how I might phonetically romanticize Cantonese in English. Fortunately, Chow Bun Ching offers two versions of the book in Jyutping and Yale. What's great though is I realized how helpful Jyutping was for a Mandarin speaking friend and how quickly – comfortably and accurately they were able to prounounce some Cantonese words.
Kwan, C. W. (1996). The right word in Cantonese. (Enlarged edition). The Commercial Press (Hong Kong) LTD.
Great quick reference book for everyday Cantonese. Organized by English words in alphabetical order. Each page has three columns, English words on the left, Yale romanization in the center and Cantonese characters on the right.
Found this resource as recommended by Sue Marguerite.
Prof Leung, Jing. (Jan 2000). Rots & Branches of Wing Tsun (First Edition) Leung's Publications.
A book lent to me by my sifu, Sifu Miguel Hernandez. Referenced the glossary of Ving Tsun terms with Cantonese characters. Helpful and interesting Ving Tsun contextual info.
(1996)General Chinese-English DictionaryChung Hwa Book Co.,(H.K.) LTD.
A dictionary that is intended for a Cantonese reader, with publication date, preface and page headings written in Cantonese characters. There are 903 pages of words printed in what seems like 6.5 pt font (don't quote me on that). The entries are as follows: Cantonese Characters, followed by English definition. There is no English-equivalent word for the Cantonese word, just an English definition.
Definitely not meant for an English reader to find words, but certainly helpful to learn new written Cantonese words. This is a fun, open-the-book-to-a-random-page-and-discover-a-new-word type book. So you can learn a new Cantonese word with an English definition, but unless you know how to read the Cantonese word, you won't know how to pronounce. How I use: open the book, find an interesting English definition, ask my Dad about the Cantonese characters with a magnifying glass to learn how to pronounce and then looking up the Cantonese character in an online dictionary for some more context.
Digital Resources
214 Chinese Radicals: What Do They All Mean? A Handy Guide. (2022, December 8). Berlitz. https://www.berlitz.com/blog/chinese-radicals-list
Provides radical number and radical variations
Cantonese Radicals - CantoneseClass101. (n.d.). CantoneseClass101. https://www.cantoneseclass101.com/chinese-radicals/
Provides Cantonese Jyutping phonetization and radical variation. Radicals are organized into sections by stroke count. Like this because it's specific to Cantonese.
CantoDict. (2003, November). Adam Sheik. http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary
Amazing collaborative Cantonese Dictionary project contributed. Can search by character, English meaning, English word. For specs, shows stroke count, Jyutping and the reference radical with the radical's number. It also includes a list of "compounds", different combinations of words that the character is used in, along with examples.
The dictionary shows a search frequency too, which is interesting.
Google Translate. (n.d.). Google. https://translate.google.com/
Google Translate - Cantonese Traditional https://translate.google.com/?sl=auto&tl=zh-TW&text=cantonese%0A&op=translate Helpful as a speak-into tool to translate oral language into characters and phrases, especially if not familiar with writing Cantonese characters.
Hong Kong Vision. (2023, May 21). Chinese character → Cantonese Pinyin Converter. https://hongkongvision.com/tool/cc_py_conv_en
Translates a character or multiple words at once to any pinyin/romanization system including Yale with tone numbers, Yale with accents, JyutPing, Cantonese pinyin, Sydney Lau, Guangdong romanization and "Lai style". It also lets you choose between different formats for the info to appear in: including pinyin with character, just pinyin or pinyin above characters – which is really helpful.
This is great for translating multiple words at once. Sometimes with translating just one word, it gives you multiple versions of the romanizations with different accents and numbers.
Linguee | Chinese-English dictionary. (n.d.). Linguee.com. https://www.linguee.com/chinese-english/
Great way to see Cantonese words and phrases in context from actual text - pulls and aggregates info from different cultural online resources.
Listen to Cantonese text read aloud - Cantonese resources. (n.d.). https://www.cantonesetools.org/en/cantonese-text-to-sound
Cantonese Tools https://www.cantonesetools.org/en/cantonese-text-to-sound Translates a character to Jyutping, and also provides sound! Does not show any other related words.
Marguerite, S. (2018). CantoneseCorner. CantoneseCorner. https://www.youtube.com/@CantoneseCorner
A great channel by Sue Marguerite (who had spent 33 years living in Hong Kong) which contextualizes learning Cantonese from the perspective of an English speaker. She is very passionate and enjoyable to learn from as there is a care for the spoken language, the written language and the culture.
Pleco Software Incorporated. (n.d.). CC-Canto - A Cantonese dictionary for everyone. https://cantonese.org/
Another awesome open-source Cantonese-to-English dictionary with over 22,000 entries. "The initial release of CC-Canto was developed by a team of about a dozen paid freelance editors - native Cantonese speakers..."
The search tool allows input by english word, romanization, or Cantonese character. The search interface also lists related words with multiple definitions making it a useful browsing tool as well. The entries don't include sound. Can only effectively search one word at a time (rather than a phrase).
The Chinese Radicals | HSK Academy. (n.d.). https://hsk.academy/en/learn/the-chinese-radicals https://hsk.academy/en/learn/the-chinese-radicals
This has a helpful explanation for why there is one "key radical" associated with a character which is the radical to reference by in a dictionary.