Learn to read Cantonese
A short, active path into reading Cantonese: see how a character is built out of a meaning half and a sound half, learn the sixty characters a fable runs on, meet the grammar words 係 唔 嘅 咗 that mark written Cantonese out from Mandarin, and read a short story before opening your first book.
Into your first book
- Start with the Green Hill fables, which use deliberately limited language, rather than a full-length classic.
- Read the Cantonese line before looking across at the English.
- Take the meaning of an unknown character and keep going; do not stop to learn it.
- Expect no pronunciation line beside a Cantonese book — read for meaning and let the sound come later.
- After Green Hill, move to Winnie-the-Pooh, then Doctor Dolittle.
A book will have longer sentences and characters you have never seen. That is not a sign you started too early. This path has shown you what to notice while a tap on the word handles the rest: which half of a character carries its meaning, the little words that mark who did what, the stage word after a verb, and the sixty-odd characters a fable actually leans on. One habit matters more than anything else: keep going. Take the meaning and move on — you will meet the character again in four pages and learn it then, in context, which is how anybody has ever learned a word.