Cantonese chinese is mostly spoken in the Hong Kong area and the province of Guandong.

Learning Cantonese Chinese can be quite a challenge, especially due to the fact, that the written languageis nothing like the Western system. Also, the intonation of the words gives them a VERY different meaning, which means that a beginner is very likely to create some quite funny and possibly also embarassing situations...

It's therefore easiest to learn Cantonese by listening to tapes or MP3 files that are specifically prepared to teach Cantonese to students. The most reputed and well proven audios are produced by Pimsleur.

The Pimsleur Cantonese audio books are a great way to learn Cantonese in a relaxed, efficient and fun way. These Pimsleur audios are prepared specifically to make learning Cantonese efficient, fun and also to speed up the language learning process. By simply listening to theCantonese lessons repetedly, you pick up the language very much the same as you learned your first languge when you were a baby.

There is now statistical data on the exact number of Cantonese speakers. The regions where the most people speak Cantonese are Guangdong and some parts of Guangxi in southern mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau.

The dialects of Cantonese are quite numerous. The Cantonese dialect that is spoken by the most people is the Guangzhou dialect, also simply referd to as "Cantonese". The Guangzhou dialect can be called the "lingua franca" in the Guangdong province and also in most of the overseas Cantonese speaking diaspora. It is also spoken in Hong Kong.

Here's a short guide to the pronunciation of the Cantonese language, using English words as examples:

a: - is pronounced as in ‘father'

ai: - is pronounced as in the ‘i' in ‘find'

au:- is pronounced as the ‘ou' in ‘bout'

e: - is pronounced as in ‘let'

ei: - is pronounced as the ‘a' in ‘say'

eu: - is pronounced as ‘e' + the ‘ur' in ‘urn'

i: - is pronounced as the ‘ee' in ‘see'

iu: - is pronounced similar to ‘you'

o: - is pronounced as in ‘got'

oi: - is pronounced an in the ‘oy' in ‘boy'

oo: - is pronounced as in ‘soon'

ou: - is pronounced as the rod ‘owe'

u: - is pronounced as in ‘put'

ue: - is pronounced as in ‘sue'

ui: - is pronounced as ‘oo' + ‘ee'

j: - is pronounced as the ‘dz' in ‘thuds'

ch: as the ‘ts' in ‘tsar'

ng: as in ‘sing'

Here just a few Cantonese phrases so that you may try and play with the words a bit. It will be a lot easier just listening to the Cantonese audios and then repeating, but give it a try, it's fun:

Hello, how are you? - nehih ho ma?

Fine - geih ho

Goodbye - baahih baahih/joih gin

Thanks - M goih

Excuse me - M goih

Do you speak English? - Nehih sik m sik gong ying man a?

I don't understand - Ngoh m mihng

Do you have any rooms? - Yahuh mo fong a?

How much per night? - Geih doh chin yat mahahn a?

How much is this? - Ni goh geih doh chin a?