This course aims to provide students with a thorough understanding of Cantonese through examining various issues in Cantonese grammar and Cantonese culture reflected in real life situations. Students will be exposed to the cultural, grammatical and contrastive perspectives of Cantonese, which involve issues like cultural phenomena in Hong Kong, linguistic variations from a social and dialectal perspective, why Cantonese needs a rich repertoire of verbal particles and sentence-final particles, and in what ways Cantonese is distinct, which influence the learning of Modern Standard Chinese and English (RP and GA). Through in-class group discussion and other activities, presentations/projects and home assignments, students will discover the amazing characteristics of Cantonese as a language system used in Hong Kong and beyond.

*** Please note that owing to the nature of the course, students are expected to have an understanding of written Chinese characters.