English-Cantonese Dictionary

Rating:
Summary: If you're waiting for THE dictionary, buy, but keep waiting
Review: This dictionary just came out as a companion to the Yale-in-China Chinese to English dictionary. It has a lot of the charm of the earlier volume: waterproof cover, handy size, useful appendices on grammar and pronunciation, and broad vocabulary. The English is not excessively British, and there are a lot of idioms which are nicely translated into equivalent Cantonese phrases. That being said, there are several real problems:
1. There are printing errors in the pronunciation section where the IPA symbol for Cantonese phoneme "s" is the IPA letter pronounced "sh"--a BAD error, especially for beginners, especially as Cantonese uses no "sh" sound.
2. There are many English spelling errors, not such a big deal most times.
3. Worse, there are errors in the Cantonese transliteration, putting in entirely wrong words by leaving out letters. This was a minor problem in the earlier Chinese-to-English book in only a few words. But when you're using the book to learn the pronunciation, such errors are especially annoying.
4. English synonyms often have different Cantonese translations, for instance check out "maybe" and "perhaps"--this is a minor problem.
5. There are no Chinese characters in this book. While it makes the printing a lot simpler, it hinders the mastery of phrases, not knowing the precise meaning of particles which are homonyms with identical English spelling and tone, but different connotations in Cantonese. If you want to write a translation, you're on your own! I'm not sure this was a great editorial decision.
6. As always happens in a first edition, many idioms are lacking, but I can't complain too much about this.
7. The books are somewhat flimsy--my copy of the earlier text is about 3 months old, and a section has already fallen out. For a reference book, this is not good.
Overall, not a bad reference for pronunciation of Cantonese, with some useful grammar, but with significant flaws.