Reddit reviews Complete Cantonese Beginner to Intermediate Course: Learn to read, write, speak and understand a new language (Teach Yourself Complete)

I agree with the other comment. Learn how to speak and listen pretty well first before you move on to reading and writing.

Here is a great resource to get you started. From what I've seen, it has a slow and steady pace: https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Cantonese-Beginner-Intermediate-Course/dp/1473600820/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=teach+yourself+cantonese&qid=1549931605&s=gateway&sr=8-1

Find a tutor on iTalki. Watch movies and Youtube channels--you can find a lot of suggestions searching this subreddit.

Add oil!

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> What's the best way to learn conversational cantonese without learning the characters?

If you are buying textbooks, many of them (1, 2) use some sort of romanization, be it the Yale system or Jyutping. The books may also come with audio files too, so you can listen and recite.

It's a Textbook. It's good, but most of the value comes through the dialogues, which are also hosted on lingq.com (paid resource).

Are you Taiwanese? I'm just curious how someone would be able to write traditional characters so well and not already speak Cantonese.

Best option would be to enroll in a course, at least in the beginning to get your pronunciation correct/the fundamentals. If that's too expensive you could try this book. I've recommended it to friends and it's been helpful. If you don't want to pay I'm sure you can find a pdf somewhere.

Beyond that, just talk/hang out with hkers. Old people may give you a hard time but younger generation Hkers are generally very happy to see a foreigner speaking Cantonese.

Edit: TV shows are good too but they speak pretty quickly and with difficult vocab so maybe watch some targeted towards kids.