Cantonese/Conversational Cantonese One

Néih hóu 你好! Welcome to Cantonese One! This self-paced course will help introduce students to the basic spoken Cantonese Chinese language as learned spoken in Hong Kong, Macau, and Guangzhou. This course is meant to be as practical as possible for the person that simply wants to pick up some Cantonese before their next trip.


 * Those wishing to learn Chinese Characters can do so by using the translation tool Simplified Chinese to Traditional Chinese translation tool on Google while studying these lessions in combination with a Cantonese Input Method Editor (IME) for the Yale Romanization or an online Cantonese/Yale dictionary. Also for students without a good Cantonese IME, studying the characters in the vocabulary lists in the following regular full spoken and written Chinese language courses including Mandarin One, for simplified characters, or Cantonese One, for traditional characters, is another approach to learning the characters.

Lesson One

 * Chapter One - Pronouncing Single Syllables
 * The tones and Yale Romanization.
 * Finals and Initials
 * Chapter One Quiz

Lesson Two

 * Chapter Two - Pronouncing Syllables in Combination
 * Numbers 1-10
 * Brief Chinese History
 * Chapter Two Quiz

Lesson Three

 * Chapter Three Vocabulary - ! (Hello!)
 * Introductions
 * Chinese Names
 * Numbers 11-99
 * Asking for Help
 * Chapter Three Quiz
 * Chapters One-Three Test

Lesson Four

 * Chapter Four Vocabulary - . (Glad to meet you.)
 * Introduction to Chinese Writing
 * Grammer - Pronouns
 * Numbers 100-300

Lesson Five

 * Chapter Four Quiz

Lesson Six

 * Chapter Five Vocabulary - ? (Do you have brothers or sisters?)
 * Family

Lesson Seven

 * Celebrations and Festivals
 * Chapter Five Quiz

Lesson Eight

 * Chapter Six Vocabulary - ? (Is there anything you have to do now?)
 * Writing Chinese Characters

Lesson Nine

 * Chapter Six Quiz
 * Chapters Four-Six Test

Lesson Ten

 * Chapter Seven Vocabulary - ? (Well, then what do you sell?)
 * Shopping, How Much?

Lesson Eleven

 * Chapter Seven Quiz

Lesson Twelve

 * Chapter Eight Vocabulary - ? (Do you have any rooms?)

Lesson Thirteen

 * Chapter Eight Quiz

Lesson Fourteen

 * Chapter Nine Vocabulary - ? (How long do you plan to stay?)

Lesson Fifteen

 * Chapter Nine Quiz
 * Final Exam

Required Texts

 * Cantonese Wikibook

Required Free Software

 * MDBG Free English - Cantonese/Mandarin Dictionary
 * Shared Talk Language Exchange Network - for email and chatting with fluent speakers
 * Lab Recording: Cantonese syllables recorded on the Cantones_sounds.zip file from chinese-lessons.com.

Supplemental Materials

 * A comprehensive Cantonese (Yale) - English Dictionary