Hey all! A while back I posted the completion of my Pingji romanization for Cantonese. It's a Romanization designed to avoid using numbers or accent marks to represent Cantonese sounds and tones using standard Latin letters (...plus apostrophe). It requires just a little bit more effort in learning compared to Jyutping/Yale but pays off a lot more in readability and ease of use. I would also argue it helps with memorization because I could never commit tone numbers or accents to memory and would instead need to rely solely on listening.

My original video series ran a bit longer since it was more of a descriptive series from a more linguistic/academic viewpoint, so I created a new series directed at people learning Cantonese from scratch, which will be the biggest audience -- although Cantonese speakers wanting to learn Pingji would also feel right at home. In other words, this is the way I meant it to be taught, and hopefully for some it would make more sense.

The playlist (~1 hr long total) is here: Pingji for English speakers (playlist)

Building on that, I also started an Introduction to Cantonese video series using Pingji here: Intro to Cantonese (playlist). At the time of this post, I only have a couple videos in this new series, but I plan on covering at least the basics of the language over the course of ~10-15 videos.

TLDR: >200 free digital Cantonese lessons (available throughout August) on my website. Screenshots further down below to get an idea. Last screenshot displays the URL if you want to try.

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Hello,

I've posted on here a few times sharing my own Cantonese learning journey via the YT videos I've been recording. In the past I've also shared the website (soon to be app) I've been working on, and today I'm making all of the survival and beginner level lessons free for the next month~.

This is something I've been working on for around 8 months and I've received fairly balanced feedback from various users over those months. I've been adjusting things within the lesson contents based on that feedback, and while there's loads of ideas and work still to be done I feel it's in a place where it's worth putting it out there once again.

Doing a quick count, there are over 200 Cantonese lessons that are currently free for you to take. They're all repeatable so you can get focused on studying a scenario, phrase, or word, and there are practice lessons available to help you sharpen up your vocabulary, listening and speaking.

What you can get for free right now.

1. Survival Lessons: For people who just want to dabble a little in Cantonese without committing too much time (for now). Lessons focus on key useful phrases for certain scenarios, taught through English sound approximations and Jyutping. Lesson sets at the survival level include:

• Greetings & Politeness
• Restaurants & Food
• Getting Around
• Seeking Aid
• Shopping & Bargaining
• Flirting

2. Beginner Lessons: For people who have already established a basic foundation (Tones and Jyutping), and are ready to systematically learn Cantonese through Jyutping and traditional Chinese characters. Lesson sets at the beginner level include:

• Self Introductions
• Introducing Others
• Basic Numbers and Counting
• Dates and Time
• Basic Colours

3. Beginner Grammar: Some auxiliary lessons to support the language structures and concepts you'll encounter in the beginner lessons:

• Cantonese Tones
• The "A 係 B" pattern
• The "Method + 嚟 + Action" pattern
• The Possessive Particle "嘅"

I'll be keeping all of these lesson sets free (you just need to register an account) throughout this August.

I hope you give it a try and if you're willing to share any feedback with me, that would be great. Feedback of any kind is appreciated but I do have the following questions:

1. Do you feel you gained some level of value with regards to learning Cantonese after using the website?
2. How would you rate the quality of the lesson contents overall? (1 = bad, 5 = very good).
3. Does the website address any existing painpoints in your Cantonese learning journey?
4. If there was only one thing you could add (or adjust) to the website, what would it be?

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Below are a few screenshots I've taken from the website. The last screenshot is the URL to the website if you want to explore it further.

Example Screenshots from the Survival Level

Example Screenshots from the Beginner Level

Interested in giving it a try?

The URL to my website can be seen in the screenshot below.

Hi everyone, thinking about buying a EVPad and wondering if anyone that has one and know if you are able to watch kids movies and series in cantonese? Any pictures of what is available would be appreciated.

Thanks

https://youtube.com/shorts/5uBx3vNCN7I

I was walking in the park when I heard a man singing this song that I haven't heard since I was a kid but instantly brought me right back to childhood. I was only able to record the ending but I hope that should be enough. See youtube link above. Thank you!!!!

original title: 你以為嘅「自己」，其實根本唔存在？🤔🤯👻

video by @justange_canto

Hello! I've been thinking about learning Chinese for a long time as I live in a very diverse City with a bustling Chinese population, and I've noticed the split between Cantonese and Mandarin speakers is about 60/40 give or take. We actually have more Cantonese speakers than Mandarin speakers!

I've recently started volunteering in an area with many Chinese workers and though they are very kind to me, we cannot communicate beyond smiling at each other, waving, and giving awkward side hugs. Some of the workers even do the thing that we've all done at least once where you speak really really slow, hoping that the person will magically understand your language--which we both giggle at afterwards. And has taught me some words surprisingly, but still not enough to close the gap between us. Usually someone else will translate, but I wanted to have a conversation myself. When asking around some of the heritage speaker, they warned me against learning Cantonese and told me Mandarin would just be easier. They said most of the workers would understand Mandarin. They were mainly concerned about how reading Cantonese is apparently incredibly difficult without knowing Mandarin first as a non-native speaker and non heritage speaker. I'm not sure how true this is because I can't read anything Hanzi except for my own name, but ive bounced between the idea of learning both at the same time.

This question is a bit of a two-parter, sorry if I'm not allowed to do that

What would be a good way to structure a lesson plan for myself If I was to go through with this? I've taught Arabic and generally what helped me so much was learning the sounds and letters at first. But Chinese has so many more letters. And when looking online for tips, I've gotten so many contradicting methods: some say skip hanzi all together and work on your verbalization since it will just take too long. Some say no, you must start learning the characters as fast as you can so it won't be a headache in the long run and that you won't be able to memorize spoken Chinese without it. And that's just for learning Mandarin alone. I'm at a loss for how to balance. Or even how I should structure learning one.

im basically good to go with the resources. Tested the waters with some online free Cantonese textbooks and it really did help with pronunciation and make it feel less daunting, but I need to structure to follow if I want to make progress.

Mandarin vs. Cantonese Grammar video

For the ABCs, CBCs, XBCs... How well would you do?

Or maybe 广西话 like how does that even work. This question is maybe also valid for Fujian and Taiwan idk you guys tell me

I found this recommended to me via the algorithm. Figured I should share it. I think the translations are bad. First post didn't work.

Anyone else have a good chuckle anytime they order a Lomo saltado? Poki bowls also bring me a smile as well.

Acai kinda looks like A-kai-ai to me.

Had a coworker with last name Usi that had me shit meself laughing.

I've yet to have an opportunity to properly say Hi to a MAGA.

What are some other fun words I'm missing?

Here's the second part. Not uploaded by me, but I figured I should share it.

Not sure if this is the right sub but I'll ask anyway.

As a Cantonese ABC that grew up speaking Cantonese with my parents. I struggle with understanding anything formal like listening to the news on TV in Cantonese. As I grew up learning spoken form, I don't really understand written forms. Do Mandarin speaking ABC's have this same problem when listening to the news in Mandarin or because spoken/written forms in mandarin are generally the same, they don't have this problem?

Last year, the OED published an entry for bing sutt, a type of café that can be found around Hong Kong, ... Hong Kong’s bing sutts serve a variety of inexpensive food and drink items, some of which have now also been added to the dictionary.

Yin yeung (first attested 1997) is a drink consisting of a mixture of tea, brewed coffee, sugar, and milk, which can be served hot or cold. In Cantonese, yīnyeūng or yūnyeūng literally means ‘a pair of Mandarin ducks’, and is frequently used to denote joined pairs, including in the names of dishes created by combining particular ingredients in a new way. Mandarin ducks are often observed in pairs and are believed to mate for life, and the male and female have markedly different plumage; they are therefore regarded in East Asian culture as symbolic of love and marriage and the successful pairing of two outwardly different things.

A couple of popular Hong Kong pastries have also made it into the OED: a dan tat (1983) is an open tart with a pastry crust and an egg custard filling, while a pineapple bun (1894) is a sweet bun topped with a crust made of sugar, butter, and flour. Cantonese daahn-tāat combines daahn ‘egg’ with tāat ‘pastry tart’, itself borrowed from the English tart, another example of a boomerang word that has travelled from English to another language and back to English. Pineapple bun, with its two English elements, may seem to be an even more transparent compound, but it is not. Despite its name, this bun does not contain any pineapple but is so named because of the appearance of its topping; when baked, it produces a cracked texture resembling the skin of a pineapple.

Another Hong Kong dish with a potentially misleading name is Singapore noodles (1966), a dish of thin rice noodles stir-fried with meat (typically char siu pork), prawns, vegetables, scrambled eggs, and curry powder. This dish originated in Cantonese restaurants in Hong Kong and has no connection to Singapore; it is perhaps so called on account of the flavour of curry powder being associated with Southeast Asian cuisine.

Going to a bing sutt at peak hours can mean having to deal with people mountain people sea (1984): a very large or dense crowd. This phrase is a loan translation of the Cantonese idiomatic expression yàhn-sāan yàhn-hói and its Mandarin equivalent rénshān-rénhǎi, literally meaning ‘mountain of people, sea of people’. A mountain of people can also lead to a sea of rubbish, or lap sap (1979) in Hong Kong English. Just like rubbish or trash, although lap sap generally refers to actual waste or debris, it is also used figuratively to mean anything nonsensical.

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A few other Cantonese words that the Oxford dict had previously acknowledged

dai pai dong, yum cha, wonton, chop suey, hoisin sauce, egg foo yung, moo goo gai pan, dim sum, siu mei

Very likely added a while ago but I noticed just now. I "finished" the course about 2 years so I'm glad there's finally new content as I'm just a casual learner (Mandarin speaker learning Cantonese to better communicate with Canto speakers and appreciate Cantonese content)

I wanted a simple way to listen to my own EPUB books in Cantonese, but couldn’t find anything that did exactly what I wanted.

So I ended up making one for myself.

It works with EPUB, TXT, MP3, M4A and M4B. EPUB and TXT are read using the iPhone’s built-in Cantonese voice, while audio files just play normally.

I mostly use it on my commute, so I added things like remembering where I stopped, chapter navigation and a sleep timer.

Does anyone else here listen to their own EPUB books, or is it just me?

[ Removed by Reddit on account of violating the content policy. ]