Cantonese is an official language of Hong Kong and Macau, and the dominant dialect of Chinese spoken in the province of Guangdong. Spoken by nearly 60 million people worldwide, it is understood by much of the Chinese diaspora population across the world and rivals Mandarin as the lingua franca of south China and ethnic Chinese living abroad. Unique among all the Chinese dialects, Cantonese also has a writing system that is distinct from Mandarin Chinese and makes use of characters generally not understood by non-Cantonese speakers. Contains 4,000 dictionary entries, and each entry includes Cantonese characters and intuitive phonetics. Also provides concise grammar and pronunciation sections.