Each of the below learning paths prescribe a recommended set of tasks, books, courses, etc. to help you put together a study plan. Remember the Break Diver's Creed: No Rules. No Excuses. No Regrets. Go make it happen!
Beginner
- You should probably start with Mandarin Chinese first, but that’s just a recommendation.
- Find learning materials where you can learn the basics of Cantonese in daily life.
- Follow the instructions from your resources and practice the pronunciation.
- Start with building your vocabulary, and be sure to learn basic vocabulary that you’ll use in daily life scenarios first.
- Repetition is very important at this stage: you need to review vocabulary constantly.
- Don’t be afraid to ask questions. If you don’t understand something, ASK SOMEONE!
- Visit our “resources” section for Cantonese and review each of the “beginner” resources.
- Come join the Break Diving community and meet others pursuing this same dive!
Intermediate
- By the intermediate stage, you should start understanding the differences between Chinese Mandarin and Cantonese, and your tones should be fairly consistent and largely accurate.
- Start mastering the grammar rules and try to apply them when you speak.
- Be brave and talk to some native Cantonese speakers. They can give you important feedback to help you to understand where you need to improve.
- Practice reading some books or news articles out loud in Cantonese.
- Visit our “resources” section for Cantonese and review each of the “intermediate” resources.
- Come join the Break Diving community and meet others pursuing this same dive!
Advanced
- By this stage, you should be very familiar with Cantonese and should have no problems conversing with a Cantonese native.
- Your goal will be to continue building vocabulary. Vocab, vocab, vocab.
- At this point, you should also learn some Southern China culture -- that will help you to understand where some of the vocabularies come from.
- You should be able to read some articles in Cantonese and understand the bigger picture.
- Visit our “resources” section for Cantonese and review each of the “advanced” resources
- Come join the Break Diving community and meet others pursuing this same dive!