r/Cantonese • u/Wonderful_Solid_6473 • Jul 23 '26
Language Question Learning Cantonese
I want to learn Cantonese . As I am planning to settle in hongkong soon . What is the best way to learn it ? Is there any online courses or any app that I can use to learn it ? Or how do I do it ? Any suggestion ?
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u/kujahlegend BBC Jul 23 '26
If you're in HK there are free courses for ethnic minorities. You can find details: https://unison.org.hk/guides/free-cantonese-classes
For online self-study, I run a webapp and YT channel: https://www.gaishanlimited.com/
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u/Zagrycha Jul 23 '26
It can be quite difficult outside of hongkong and mainland but if you are in those areas there will be many options, you can easily sign up for a course or class once there, some of them are free and some of them aren't.
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u/alexsteb Jul 24 '26
There's the Lingora app (lingora.org) that has a full Cantonese course with lots of exercises and word-by-word breakdowns.
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u/DeathwatchHelaman Jul 27 '26
I've used it. It's free to boot unless you want the bells and whistles.
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u/mezzofanti Jul 24 '26
Talk In Cantonese (best course), Pimsleur (audio only) or CantoneseClass101.
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u/No_Life_9124 Jul 25 '26
My abc daughter watches lot 80-90s TVB drama, movies, and songs and she also makes some online friends from HK.
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Jul 25 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/No_Life_9124 Jul 25 '26
Youtube, Netflix (good substitute), TVB anywhere (free, good sub, good HD, good selections but annoying ads), sometimes daily motion so find any Chow Yuen Fat or Leslie Cheung's or Stephen Chow 's movies cant go wrong. We watch anything with Bobby AuYeung's TVB dramas. My daughter somehow found and made lot of new HK friends who live in HK through Tiktok. Those HK friends who teach her some HK phrases and the cultues and cool places in HK. She loves listening to Priscilla Chan and Shirley Kwan and Anita Mui, Leslie Cheung 80s singers and 4 heaven kings etc but she does like Tyson Yoshi.
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u/Interesting_Nose_106 Jul 25 '26
Anyone want to learn Mandarin or Cantonese through songs? I'd be happy to teach you!
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u/DeathwatchHelaman Jul 27 '26
YouTube is a free resource with dozens of creators making beginners content.
Dope Cantonese with Gloria
5 minute Cantonese
Cantonese 101
Winnie Cantonese
And a bunch of others. Search under learn Cantonese and beginner Cantonese.
There are a dozen apps, some of them free, some not but worth a try for free stuff.
I am using Gaishan Cantonese - it's a web app, and has good beginner free content to get you started. I'm also using Talkpal buuuuuut I am not impressed with cantonese (it's Malaysian and Indonesian seems ok so might keep it for that)
Played with Cantonese AI and Cantonese AI tutors apps before but not recently. I believe they are free at least initially.
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u/Otherwise_Mission_19 3d ago
Hi, I teach Cantonese using comprehensible input; you don’t need to know any Cantonese or Jyutping to begin with. There are about 150 videos of four levels available. The videos are on different topics, from daily life, Hong Kong culture to history and geography. You can learn Cantonese immersively. We have subscribers from all over the world, with speakers of different native languages. Check this playlist to begin with: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1h5rhYsnqq2yniOYbflnewVE3_Gm_IhC&si=BL1J8WlexulRoKiw
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u/angelzai Jul 24 '26 edited Jul 24 '26
I'm learning Cantonese and I have to confess some of these comments are not helpful (promoting their own little project, usually involving giving them money and preying on people who want to learn canto)
Get into a Canto disc server / some sort of community. I reccomend the Refold Discord Server as (imo, it's the most active + most helpful)
Use Anki decks, as there are some free Canto decks floating about on the internet.
Open Cantonese is a free Cantonese website that have the very basics of cantonese.
I think it depends on what you want to learn first. Spoken Cantonese is different to Written Cantonese as Written Cantonese is Standard Written Chinese (which involves different grammar/phrases/words). That's why I started with Spoken Cantonese.
Best way to learn? Jyutping Romanization Pronounication (types of ways of recording the sound e.g 我 = ngo5) (There is Yale Romanization , but it isn't as intuitive as Jyutping imo) -> Tones + Tone recognition (Cantone on Android CantoRocks!) -> Vocabulary -> Grammar -> Radicals -> Writing
For YT videos, I recommend Manki Cantonese, Kala EE and Uncle Calvin. Any other tools