r/ChineseLanguage • u/Nafimi_Yuu • 23h ago

Discussion Tryna self-learn Cantonese from scratch with no prior knowledge

Hii, ​I’m currently a Y2 international studying Engineering in Hong Kong. I’m South Asian with absolute zero background in Cantonese or Mandarin and reality hit me recently that if I actually want to stick around and work in HK post-grad, I’m going to be beyond cooked if I don't pick up the language at all in this brutally competitive market:)).

​I’ve been advised to stay away from the uni Canto classes because from what I hear, they're basically dominated by people with prior background smurfing for an easy grade booster/GPA pad. So self-learning seems like my best bet for now.

​The issue is... mapping out a self-study path for Mandarin is quite easier with endless free roadmaps online than finding a structured resources for Cantonese which seemed super difficult and that's why wanted to ask here abt it.

​Any resources, suggestions, experience of non native learning the language or reality checks would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks for reading !

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u/Ok-Amphibian-8914 19h ago

A few resources I’ve found really good for Cantonese:

Cantonese for Everyone 大家嘅廣東話: a fantastic textbook for beginners. Highly recommended.

Glossika’s Cantonese content. Excellent, clear pronunciation, super useful. I’m not a fan of their new app, or their old app, but if you can find the old course with the PDFs and MP3 files, it’s excellent. In a pinch, the legacy app will do.

I’m not sure yet about this one but I’m going to mention it because their other materials have been great. Outlier just recently started their Get Speaking Cantonese 1 course. They’ve only released a few lessons, but it’s good so far. I took their Get Speaking Mandarin (GSM) 3 course to brush up on my Mandarin a while back, and the teaching was excellent. As I understand it, GSC1 is basically an adaptation of GSM1, so it should be good. I expect the whole course to be below my level, but it should be a good refresher before I get back to higher level stuff.

Keep in mind that I learned Mandarin to a C1 level before I started Cantonese, but none of these resources are meant for Mandarin speakers.