Best Resources to Learn Cantonese for Intermediate Learners

Today, I’m going to take a slight detour and talk about some of the best resources to learn Cantonese I’ve found for you guys.

(Note: I will keep this updated with new resources I find, and from recommendations submitted by readers.)

Last updated: 26th July, 2017 12nd July, 2017 11st July, 2017 1st July, 2017 19th June, 2017 9th May, 2017.

Why Cantonese resources for intermediate learners?

As you’ve seen up in the title, however, this post is specifically designed for intermediate learners up.

Why did I not list resources for beginners learning Cantonese?

This is again, by no means, discriminating against folks starting out – but because Google is much cleverer, and much quicker than me in providing suitable resources for beginners, I thought I’d hastily stop myself from trying to top a Google search, and focus on providing resources that Google might not uncover.

Let’s start off with some of the criteria I would like to see when vetting resources.

Criteria for great Cantonese resources

To start off with, what exactly qualifies this list as the best resources to learn Cantonese?

Let’s have a look.

1. Enough materials. This is quite obvious, but if a resource, be it an audio series, videos or text, amounts to maybe seven articles, or five video clips, you’ll burn through them pretty quickly. Unfortunately, I’ve seen so many resources that last about an hour and you’re pretty much out of resources again. They maybe worthy additions, but I tend to steer away from places that have too few materials.
2. Created by native speakers, for native speakers. I’m sure you’ll know this, but after a certain point, you’ll be hard pressed to find materials designed specifically for foreigners. Why? Because after an intermediate stage, it’s just not helpful to have things like restricted vocabulary lists, impose restrictions on grammar used and so forth. At that point, it’s time to start moving on to native level materials. Don’t be fooled that “native” materials are excessively hard – there are materials that span a wide spectrum of abilities, and there’s definitely something out there for you suited to your level.
3. Targeted towards an older audience. I recently stumbled upon a resource that talks about Imperial China, as well as idioms with animated cartoons. Unfortunately, it was designed primarily for Hong Kong school children, and the appeal is just lost when adults look at it. It was both presented in way that’s unsuitable for non-children learners, and to top that off, the language used isn’t necessarily straightforward either, nor was it very useful in everyday life.
4. Appropriately themed. Choosing well designed resources that have appropriate themes is very important. Let’s think about it – we probably wouldn’t want to teach children English in class using Men’s Health, right? (I’m not criticizing the magazine in any way, just saying it’s not appropriate in this context.)
5. Specific to Cantonese, subtitles. Unfortunately, subtitles usually correspond to the written form of Chinese, not the spoken form. But even so, it’s the best we’ve got, so having some subtitles is better than nothing. Fortunately, in certain cases, the differences are slight, so we can actually make do even with written Chinese. Unfortunately, the differences can be huge sometimes, but we’ll talk more about that another time.
6. Clearly spoken / enunciated. I’m very much against using materials with audio that have unclear enunciation, in the sense that there might be people speaking in non-standard accents, or there might be many people speaking all at once. It makes it very hard to follow, but for reasons completely unrelated to linguistic ability – there’s just too much noise.
7. Caters to different interests and levels. We don’t want to just have resources specifically designed to a particular niche, like design, or politics, or food, we want to get a spectrum so different Cantonese learners with different interests can find something suitable to their tastes.

With this in mind, let’s have a look at some of my favourite resources that I would highly recommend to Cantonese learners.

Best resources to learn Cantonese online

Cantonese Resource #1: HK01

Difficulty rating: Upper intermediate

Subtitles: None

Type: Text

Theme: News

https://www.hk01.com/

HK01 is a newspaper publication that I’ve seen rise in popularity in recent years (the company was registered in 2015). HK01 describes itself as an online media company, with the website, an array of apps, and also a Youtube channel with reporters under its wing as its main products. I hopped on over a couple times when digging up good articles to use while teaching Cantonese, and just to read news personally – I feel it’s quite well written and well presented to me. And of course, nothing beats well formed language. 🙂

Unfortunately, it is written in the formal sort of Chinese. However, I will still encourage you to learn this through this style of discourse. I won’t elaborate on this here, suffice it to say that I believe learning Cantonese well requires not only a good ability to understand spoken language, but also written language. Once we’re familiar with written language, converting to spoken language and learning new words become much easier.

You might also want to hop on over to to their YouTube channel. There are an assortment of clips, not just news oriented ones. Unfortunately, not all of them are subtitled, and the ones that are use written Chinese as well. But then again, some subtitles is better than none, right?

YouTube channel: 香港01

 

Cantonese Resource #2: Apple Daily

Difficulty rating: Intermediate

Subtitles: Chinese

Type: Text / Video

Theme: News

http://hk.apple.nextmedia.com/

Out of all the newspaper publications, Apple Daily seems to use language closest to spoken language, or at least balances between the spoken and the written word. Apple Daily is notorious for being one of the loudest voices out there that isn’t afraid to say pretty much anything. Back in the days during the handover from Britain to China, a lot of newspapers chose to soften their tones with regards to criticizing the Chinese government on certain controversial issues. Not Apple Daily, and it enjoys a certain popularity among the Hong Kong audience. The style of their presentations uses an almost tabloid style rhetoric, with attention grabbing headlines and graphics, but I still think it’s an excellent resource for learning Cantonese.

Besides, some of the clips they post on there are actually quite hilarious, like this one here: 港鐵宣傳片爆公關災難！, that talks about the “crazy bag person” you might encounter riding the metro in Hong Kong (imagine someone with a really huge bag swinging around during rush hour in a full compartment).

If you’re interested in watching videos, great news – Apple Daily also has a YouTube channel where most clips are subtitled!

YouTube channel: 蘋果日報

Cantonese Resource #3: Messiah2048

Difficulty rating: Advanced

Subtitles: None (Some English)

Type: Video

Theme: Social issues, Legislative Council

Messiah2048 YouTube Channel

One of the more unusual advice I’ll dish out is to work on listening skills watching politicians speak. Why? Because compared to everyday speech, politicians usually tend to speak slower, clearer, and conforms to a stricter style of discourse that makes it not too difficult to follow along (not all of them, but the general rule of thumb is, the higher the rank of the politician, the easier it is to follow along – so if you follow that trend, yes, the President or Chief Executive as we have here in Hong Kong, is usually the easiest to understand).

This almost sounds counterintuitive because you’d think that dramas should be easier to listen to than news. I disagree. When I was trying to improve my listening in French and Japanese at various points in time, I have found that politicians speak in a way that makes it easy to understand, whereas dramas use too much colloquial language (and speak in a variety of registers) that make understanding difficult (think also cultural references, double entendre, slang, etc.).

Okay, I’ll stop my little rant here and get back to the main point. This channel is interesting, because it posts controversial clips of Legislative Council members or participants presenting in in the council. (As a side note, the Legislative Council would be the Hong Kong equivalent of the US Senate, or the British House of Lords.)

One of the more popular clips of a citizen complaining of various issues pertaining to retirement protection, very clearly enunciated. See if you can follow along and understand the gist of the clip:

 

Cantonese Resource #4: 香港事香港人

Deprecated resource. 🙁

Cantonese Resource #5: RTHK

Difficulty rating: Intermediate to Advanced

Subtitles: N/A

Type: Audio / Video

Theme: Social issues

http://podcast.rthk.hk/podcast/

It’s impossible to mention Hong Kong without its most famous Cantonese broadcast – RTHK. To be more precise, RTHK is an umbrella government-funded company that operates various radio channels and more recently, television channels in English, Cantonese and Mandarin.

It literally has a wealth of native level materials, comparably to the BBC in the UK. Not all of the programmes featured on the main site listed above have subtitles, but I will point you to some that do later on, because they represent a wealth of resources that are literally a goldmine for any Cantonese learner (subtitled videos!!). In any case, RTHK is pretty much the behemoth of everything you’ll want to find when it comes to discussing society related topics, including the Cultural Revolution, the aftermath of WWII, minimum wage legislation, hot topics in China, investing in the 21st century, the financial budget, population policy, history and culture, environmental policy, and even the Cantonese language itself!

So I just wanted to start of by linking to the main site, and point you to specific programmes which I think are excellent.

Cantonese Resource #6: 中國點點點: 閒話粵語

Difficulty rating: Lower Advanced

Subtitles: None

Type: Audio

Theme: Cantonese

中國點點點 RTHK

唱好粵語工尺譜 RTHK

This programme runs from Monday to Friday, and as of this writing, spans almost 1000 episodes. There are five programmes in this timeslot,

• 最緊要識法 zeoi3 gan2 jyu3 sik1 faat3 (The most important thing is to understand law),
• 對談中國 deoi3 taam4 zung1 gwok3 (China talks),
• 中國討論區；同聲同氣談天說地 zung1 gwok3 tou2 leon3 keoi1: tung4 seng1 tung4 hei3 taam4 tin1 soet3 dei6 (China discussion forums: anything goes),
• 點點評論；閱讀中國 dim2 dim2 ping4 leon6; jyut6 dok6 zung1 gwok3 (Dim Dim Reviews: Reading in China),
• 閒話粵語 haan4 waa2 jyut6 jyu5 (Casual Cantonese).

These form an excellent resource to improve your listening. The language used isn’t particularly difficult, but you might have to adjust for the native level of speaking, and certain specialized terms. This podcast in particular is hosted by a professor of Cantonese, where she dissects the Cantonese language and tells colourful stories, analyzing the language and gives a different perspective on what Cantonese is all about.

Could you follow along this clip and understand what she’s talking about?

粵語九聲 RTHK

Cantonese Resource #7: 香港故事， 香港故事 本土plus+

Difficulty rating: Intermediate

Subtitles: Chinese

Type: Video (documentary)

Theme: Hong Kong stories

香港故事(第23輯) – 香港人幫香港人

香港故事-本土 plus+

These two programmes are actually sub programmes under the umbrella 香港故事 heung1 gong2 gu3 si6 (Hong Kong stories). These are especially great – translating and quoting (could we coin a new portmanteau – “transquoting” here?) the description of one programme, which sums it up nicely:

In the different recesses of the Hong Kong society, there are those who thrive to do their best, and to give it their all in order to pursue their dreams and realize the deepest desires within them. Some seek happiness, pursue success, fight for recognition of their identities, and some continue to search for missing persons, explore the mysteries of the universe and seek direction in life. Let us listen to them talk about their Hong Kong stories.

The two links above actually point to specific clips that I thought are particularly interesting – one speaks of Frenchwoman who has married a Hongkonger and speaks Cantonese fluently, another talks about marginalization of mainland students when they arrive in Hong Kong.

Could you follow along and get the gist of the two?

***Cantonese Resource #8: 鏗鏘集

Difficulty rating: Upper Intermediate

Subtitles: Chinese

Type: Video (documentary)

Theme: Social issues, current affairs

鏗鏘集 RTHK

This is, hands down, one of THE best resources to learn Cantonese out there. It’s not just a programme – it’s actually a documentary (and yes, it has subtitles!). It literally touches on every single thing you can think about that’s worth talking about in society. It’s been running for over four and a half decades and you can bet you can learn something from these well put together documentary clips. I remember when I was a kid, one of my teachers used to recommend watching it to keep up with what’s going on in society, and in turn, I’m now giving this the highest level of recommendation as a Cantonese resource.

Let me give you a preview of some of the titles under this documentary series: STEM, Big Data, domestic helpers, judicial review, the Chief Executive’s promises, forty years in Hong Kong, an “e-age”, e-learning, fighting over land, living in tiny boxes (apartments), the Cultural Revolution, the “One Belt, One Road” initiative, etc. It’s not just a fantastic opportunity to learn Cantonese –  I suspect it’s like auditing a meaningful sociology class with a well rounded perspective on different sides of each topic discussed.

Could you follow along this clip and tell what it’s about?

家.傭之間 RTHK

As a side note, there’s a similar programme created by TVB that mirrors this documentary style called 星期日檔案 sing1 kei4 jat6 dong2 on3 (Sunday Files). You can watch them on YouTube just by keying in the programme name, or through archives available on the TVB site.

Cantonese Resource #9: TVB dramas and news

Difficulty rating: Advanced

Subtitles: Chinese

Type: Video

Theme: Dramas, News

http://mytv.tvb.com/tc

http://www.tvb.com/

http://news.tvb.com/

And of course, this post would be put to shame if I didn’t mention TVB dramas!

Dramas in Hong Kong work a bit differently than in other countries in the sense that TVB is pretty much the only producer of dramas, so the name “TVB” in Hong Kong is synonymous with “dramas”.

As required by law, programmes are required to have subtitles, so don’t worry – you’re covered there! Apart from dramas, there are news roundups, financial news and many other programmes, but I think you’re probably most interested in watching dramas.

Now, I don’t know whether these clips have broadcasting rights in regions outside of Hong Kong. They may be inaccessible to visitors with foreign IP addresses, but I hope not (if they do, I have a half workaround below.)

TVB is interesting in the sense that it distributes replays of episodes of currently airing dramas for free, but only for a limited period of time. So if you’re watching an ongoing drama, catch those episodes fast!

As a quick side note, when you access the player, you might see the clip without subtitles. The player the site uses (as of this writing) requires that you switch on subtitles manually, so you might have to fumble around a bit to get the subtitles on (as of this writing, it’s under the gear icon, and “Subtitles”).

I also threw in TVB news in there because it’s still an important news outlet. Feel free to follow along the news occasionally too.

Enjoy!

Cantonese Resource #10: Bob’s your Uncle

Difficulty rating: Intermediate

Subtitles: English, Chinese

Type: Video

Theme: Cooking

Bob’s Your Uncle YouTube Channel

If you love eating, you’ll love this channel – it’s a collection of professionally prepared cooking videos with a relaxing soundtrack and simply amazing dishes. For those of you gourmets and food lovers out there, this might just be the channel for you!

What’s so special about this channel is that it comes not only with subtitles, but bilingual subtitles – yeah that’s right, all videos come with English – Chinese dual subtitles!

As you follow along Bob’s channel (I assume that’s actually his real name, if not I apologize), you’ll see that Hongkongers’ tastes are actually quite broad, and that a lot of cuisines fit our palette quite well. We’re international that way, I guess.

See if you can spot a dish from your culture, and see what you like to eat – it’s a good chance to get cooking while listening to a cooking video in Cantonese!

 

**Cantonese Resource #11: 果籽

Difficulty rating: Intermediate

Subtitles: Chinese

Type: Video

Theme: Culture (travel, food, tech, automobile, makeup, culture)

果籽 YouTube Channel

I know I said that 鏗鏘集 (hang1 coeng1 zaap6) is my favourite programme by far, but if I had to pick another one, this would definitely qualify as one of the best resources to learn Cantonese. This is a casual channel covering many aspects of Hong Kong culture that are quite unique and on things we don’t usually think about. The average clip lasts only about 3 minutes, so you can get through them fairly quickly. And, of course, these clips are subtitled!

Let me transquote some titles from the channel to give you a better idea as to what things they talk about in Cantonese: the “jail” font on road signs, elderly citizens practising Muay Thai, hiking tips, a Chinese medicine company insisting on manufacturing medicine in Hong Kong, how to console emotionally distraught patients, sakura, Chinese graffiti to beautify some old stores, dog who serve as companions to autistic children, a new cure for inflamed noses, overpriced fruits, the first VR console in Hong Kong, and so much more.

I highly recommend this if you want to learn more about Hong Kong culture (they divide their channel up into a feature column, travel, food, tech, automobile, makeup and culture “hubs”), and listen along to some pretty casual clips phrased in simple, native Cantonese.

 

Cantonese Resource #12: 屯門畫室

Difficulty rating: Intermediate

Subtitles: Chinese

Type: Video

Theme: Art

屯門畫室 YouTube Channel

Of course, I wouldn’t want to alienate our artistic students out there. This channel, literally “Tuen Mun art studio” has many beginner art tutorials that cover topics like water colour, sketching, colouring the Secret Garden book, drawing an eye, using colour pencils, oil painting, and so many more awesome tutorials. The tutorials are amazing in presentation and explanation, and also some of the artwork is just wicked!

And from a Cantonese perspective, I’ve seen a couple of these videos with Chinese subtitles – I don’t know if they all are, though, but the voice and the audio quality makes it fairly okay to follow along, so I highly recommend this channel for art lovers.

See if you can follow along this hair sketching tutorial.

 

Cantonese Resource #13: 伯賴

Difficulty rating: Upper intermediate

Subtitles: Cantonese

Type: Video

Theme: Satire, humour

伯賴 YouTube Channel

I actually don’t know how to describe this channel. The channel creator talks about a wide variety of topics, again, transquoting, your ex’s wedding, ten stereotypical people you’ll meet in a family, foreign students, a one minute summary of Captain America, what you should do in class, and so on and so forth.

The clips are quite humorous, but not in the slapstick or direct kinda way, instead, the perspectives it presents these topics with are quite witty and at times funny. And best of all, this channel actually comes with Cantonese, yeah you read that right, not Chinese, subtitles!

Have a look at this clip and see if you can catch on to what he’s saying

 

Cantonese Resource #14: Doraemon in Cantonese

Difficulty rating: Intermediate

Subtitles: Chinese

Type: Video

Theme: Anime

叮噹 1

叮噹 2

叮噹 3

Almost all of us from my generation has, at one point in time, watched Doraemon dubbed in Cantonese. I have never been a huge fan of dubs when it came to anime. I’ve watched dubs in English, Cantonese and Mandarin before, and most of the weren’t very good. English is easily the strangest (every character’s voice feels too over enthusiastic), Cantonese was slightly better – perhaps there’s a certain degree of interchangeability between Asian cultures.

However!

With Doraemon, I actually think the Cantonese dubbed version outdoes the original Japanese voices – if you show a clip segment to someone from Hong Kong, they’ll immediately recognize it – especially the voice of Doraemon! The voice actor who dubbed Doraemon in Cantonese has an extremely distinctive voice, and gives it so much flavour I just have to recommend it to all of you who love anime. As with most other recommendations here, these are subtitled, so it should help you follow along without too much difficulty.

I can’t help but have the feeling these channels might be removed, so if they do, just pen in “多啦A夢” (do1 laai1 A mong6) in YouTube to search for more clips.

Cantonese Resource #15: Mira’s Garden

Difficulty rating: Intermediate

Subtitles: Chinese

Type: Video

Theme: Korean culture, travel

Mira’s Garden YouTube Channel

There’s been a bit of a Korean craze, or what we call 韓流 (hon4 lau4) the past few years all over the world. Hong Kong is no exception. And of course, a presentation of YouTubers is not complete with the individual YouTubers vlogging.

Mira’s channel is exclusively on videos to do with Korea, and you’ll find a lot of videos that switch back and forth between Cantonese and Korean (subtitled in Chinese). She covers so many things and really makes vlogging come to life through videos like weird potato chips, grocery shopping online, taking identification photos in Korea, delivery in Korea, skiing in Akita, Korean friends visiting Hong Kong.

If you’re similarly interested in Korean culture, and are looking for a Hong Konger’s perspective on it, check out Mira’s channel!

 

Cantonese Resource #16: Ling Cheng

Difficulty rating: Intermediate

Subtitles: Chinese

Type: Video

Theme: Korean culture, lifestyle, travel

Ling Chen’s YouTube Channel

Ling Cheng is another Hongkonger who vlogs almost exclusively on all things Korea. I’ll do these YouTubers injustice by ranting on with my descriptions – the videos they create are professional, they’re lively, and they do a really great job presenting various aspects of Korean culture.

Hop on over and check out some of Ling Cheng’s videos!

 

Cantonese Resource #17: Jason (大J)

Difficulty rating: Intermediate

Subtitles: Chinese

Type: Video

Theme: Lifestyle, Japanese culture, travel

Jason YouTube channel

On the other side of the spectrum, when I was growing up, it was JPop, Japanese food, anime and anything Japanese that swept across Asia. Jason is someone who’s studied in Japan, and speaks fluent Japanese. His channel isn’t just about Japan – it covers a lot of topics on lifestyle in Hong Kong, as well as some entries on his travel adventures. Transquoting again, some of his video titles include coke flavoured chips, Macau trip, a HKD 200 spoon, mushrooms growing on the balcony, creating instant snow, Valentine’s, Plants vs Zombies, squeezing an egg single handedly, etc.

It’s really great fun, hop on over and check out Jason’s channel!

 

 

Cantonese Resource #20: Open Rice

Difficulty rating: Intermediate

Subtitles: N/A

Type: Text

Theme: Food

https://www.openrice.com/zh/hongkong

https://www.openrice.com/en/hongkong

A mention of Hong Kong would be incomplete without the addition of our own version of Yelp, but exclusively for restaurants.

“OpenRice” is a transliteration of the Cantonese phrase “開飯啦” (hoi1 faan6 laa3), which means something along the lines of “bon appétit” or “let’s eat”. Okay that’s great, but why would I recommend a restaurant review site as a Cantonese learning resource?

When people say that Cantonese isn’t used in its spoken form when written, they’re wrong again. 🙂 The fact of the matter is that we Hongkongers are proud of our heritage, and a large part of it includes the Cantonese language. As such, as much as possible, on Facebook, Tumblr, and sites like OpenRice, a lot of stuff is actually written in Cantonese, not written Chinese.

So, the next time you’re in town, or you’re in one of the countries covered by OpenRice, you might want to spend a bit of time learning Cantonese by reading reviews written by local people – to get a sense of how Cantonese is actually used in real life, as opposed to the formal presentations used in textbooks.

For food lovers, this is a must have resource!

Cantonese Resource #21: Discuss forum

Difficulty rating: Intermediate – Lower advanced

Subtitles: N/A

Type: Text

Theme: Diverse

http://www.discuss.com.hk/index.php

Discuss is easiest the most popular, most frequented Cantonese forum by Hongkongers. Pretty much anything goes in this forum – if you can think of the topic, it’s probably somewhere stashed in the torrent of posts in the forum. And as with a forum, the language used is much closer to Cantonese than it is written Chinese, but you’ll also see examples of where the two converge – Chinese that strikes a balance between spoken and written Chinese.

The other day I was browsing randomly, and found this post: 九十後寧缺不請？ . It’s titled “[I’d] rather leave the position vacant than to hire someone born in the 90’s”. I felt it was a pretty interesting read.

Could you follow along to see what it’s about?

Cantonese Resource #22: Better Me

Difficulty rating: Intermediate

Subtitles: N/A

Type: Text

Theme: Habits

This is a site I discovered recently on Facebook. It’s a blog that’s devoted to developing good habits. Hosted on Tumblr, it features a gorgeous design, with beautiful graphics and just short paragraphs of text to complement different habits the creators recommend we follow.

This is a bit different than what I’ve recommended so far, because it’s written in the written sort of Cantonese. However, as I’ve mentioned before, a presentation of Cantonese that’s only spoken is one that’s incomplete. I also understand that reading long chunks of text is really hard for learners who’re just starting with characters, so I feel that this is a great place to start getting used to reading short paragraphs, and the topics aren’t too difficult either.

This is an interesting post you might wanna check out: 好習慣：忙唔代表你醒.

Could you summarize what it’s about?

Cantonese Resource #23: Cantonese speaking foreigners in HK

Difficulty rating: Upper intermediate

Subtitles: Some

Type: Video

Theme: Foreigners speaking really good Cantonese

Cantonese Speaking Foreigners (YouTube)

This is a channel I randomly discovered the other day. It doesn’t have a lot of videos, but the theme of the videos is enough to warrant a place in this list. Someone has gone to the trouble of compiling a list of videos of foreigners who speak Cantonese at a very advanced or even native level. Apart from just videos you can watch to learn Cantonese, this is living proof that despite the various difficulties associated with learning the language, it’s possible. Hopefully, watching others who have attained a high level of proficiency in Cantonese will motivate you when things get tough!

It’s true that this channel isn’t updated and is a bit old, but the clips are still relevant and really well made.

This clip in particular stood out to me…can you understand the gist of what they’re talking about?

 

Cantonese Resource #24: HKTV

Difficulty rating: Intermediate – Advanced

Subtitles: Yes (written Chinese)

Type: Video

Theme: A HK based television station

HKTV YouTube Channel

HKTV is a television station based in Hong Kong. While not as well known as TVB, it’s certainly got some interesting dramas  on there that’s worth checking out. The style, plot, and genre of dramas are actually quite different from TVB’s (from what I’ve seen so far), so I feel it could be useful in expanding your exposure to Cantonese dramas.

I highly encourage you to check it out for clips that talk about different things, like this one on exploring nature:

 

Cantonese Resource #25: 櫻桃小丸子

Difficulty rating: Intermediate

Subtitles: Yes (written Chinese)

Type: Video

Theme: Japanese anime

櫻桃小丸子 YouTube Channel

櫻桃小丸子, or jing1 tou4 siu2 jyun2 zi2, is a popular Japanese anime show aimed at children. The original Japanese show, for those Japanese anime fans out there, reads “Chibi Maruko chan” (literally means “Tiny Maruko), and it’s centered around Maruko’s (surprise surprise 🙂 ) life. As you can imagine, the vocabulary isn’t super sophisticated, so you can get a lot of really good life related vocabulary from watching this series, even more so than Doraemon, which we mentioned above, because unlike Doraemon, which talks about high tech gadgets and at times has magical themed plots, the stories are quite relatable.

Check out the first episode below to see them talking about cakes (and more).  😉

 

Cantonese Resource #26: Asha’s channel

Difficulty rating: Intermediate

Subtitles: No

Type: Video

Theme: Lifestyle

ASHA’s YouTube Channel

I have no idea why I didn’t think of Asha’s channel when compiling this list. Asha’s a fully bilingual Hongkonger who puts up a lot of videos on really fun stuff about life in general. You can also join her when she does a live broadcast on YouTube and interact with her and other channel subscribers, overall it’s just great fun. I recently watched a video of her talking about how Hongkongers have adopted and then localized certain words of English and turned them into “Hong Kong English words”. Can you follow along this clip?

 

Cantonese Resource #27: HK Golden 香港高登

Difficulty rating: Intermediate

Subtitles: N/A

Type: Tech news

Theme: Tech

http://www.hkgolden.com/

This is probably one of the most popular forum for all things tech. Spanning over 125,000 members, as well as over 6.1 million articles, for those of you tech lovers, this is a must-go-to place if you want to familiarize yourself with the latest tech related words. The best part is, a part (if not all) of these articles are actually written in Cantonese, yes that’s right, lots of Cantonese goodness to scour over!

What makes this an excellent resource is that the articles are all quite short, and they have a lot of photos, so the content is accessible even to intermediate learners who haven’t got too many characters under their belts.

If you like tech stuff, this is something you’ll want to add to your daily scroll. 🙂

Cantonese Resource #28: Stakk

Difficulty rating: Intermediate

Subtitles: Yes, Chinese

Type: Video

Theme: Culture, Media, Interviews

Stakk Factory Facebook

This has been appearing a lot in recent months on my Facebook feed, and it’s a lot of fun, so I thought I’d share it with everyone. Stakk is a media company based in Hong Kong, and they often make lots of fun videos on Hong Kong culture, and I’ve seen many interesting videos they’ve produced on things like office culture, trivia, and the videos where they do interviews are particularly interesting.

Do check them out if you have time!

Cantonese Resource #29: Bomba Funny Life

Difficulty rating: Upper-Intermediate

Subtitles: Yes, Chinese

Type: Video

Theme: Culture, Media, Comedy

Bomba Funny Life YouTube Channel

In their own words, their channel, Bomba or 笨吧 (ban6 baa6, “stupid, right?”) is “無聊鎖事開心事拍攝花絮，一一在此與你分享” (mou4 liu4 so2 si6 hoi1 sam1 si6 paak3 sip3 faa1 seoi5, jat1 jat1 zoi6 ci2 jyu5 nei5 fan1 hoeng2, “mundane, trivial happy things and camera behind-the-scenes, shared with everyone here”).

And that’s exactly it – they create a huge lot of interesting culture topics, from the perspective of young people. Check out some of the titles of their videos: “男生最想遇到的七種女生” (naam4 sang1 zeoi3 soeng2 jyu6 dou3 dik1 cat1 zung2 neoi5 sang1, seven types of gals guys wanna meet most), 不同人的打交方法 (bat1 tung4 jan4 dik1 daa2 gaau1 fong1 faat3, how different people fight), “自製思樂冰，兩秒結冰” (zi6 zai3 si1 lok6 bing1, loeng5 miu5 git3 bing1, self-made Slurpee, frozen in two seconds).

 

Cantonese Resource #30: Pat Pat English

Difficulty rating: Intermediate

Subtitles: Yes, Cantonese!

Type: Video

Theme: Language

Pat Pat English YouTube Channel

I’ve always thought that a good way to learn the target language is to see how natives of that language learn your native language, in this case, English. And in this channel, once again, we’ve struck gold – Cantonese subtitles! In this series of videos, you’ll hear how Cantonese natives show you how to translate Cantonese colloquialisms into English (or identify their equivalents).

Check out some of their titles: “秒殺英文係咩” (What’s miu5 saat3 in English), ” 周身蟻英文係咩” (What’s zau1 san1 ngai5 in English),  “二五仔英文係咩” (What’s ji6 m5 zai2 in English).

 

Cantonese Resource #31: UWants

Difficulty rating: Intermediate

Subtitles: N/A

Type: Text

Theme: Forum

http://www.uwants.com/

If you enjoyed HKGolden, and Discuss, this is probably something you’ll enjoy as well! Similar to HKGolden, its front page features news on mobile games, TV/computer games, anime/manga, but don’t be fooled – it also has forums that pretty much cover every topic you can imagine, including lifestyle, entertainment, tech, school, academics, shopping, pets, investment, beauty, etc.

Because this is a HK forum, you’ll see Cantonese written down everywhere – this is great practice if you want to practise reading/recognizing characters, and if something really catches your eye, it’s a great opportunity to participate as a forum member.

Cantonese Resource #32: 毛記電視

Difficulty rating: Upper-Intermediate

Subtitles: Yes, Cantonese!

Type: Text / Video

Theme: Society, comedic take on current affairs, culture

http://www.tvmost.com.hk/

In their own words, they’re “面向廣大無情網民，毛記電視不惜工本，斥資近四位數字，每日攝製超過1,200秒毛聊新聞、資訊、綜藝及戲劇節目” (min6 hoeng3 gwong2 daai6 mou4 cing4 mong5 man4, mou4 gei3 din6 si6 bat1 sik1 gung1 bun2, caak3 zi1 gan6 sei3 wai2 sou3 zi6, mui5 jat6 sip3 zai3 ciu1 gwo3 1,200 miu5 mou4 liu4 san1 man2, zi1 seon3, zung1 ngai6 kap6 hei3 kek6 zi5 muk6, “Catered to netizens, TV Most, without any regards to the cost, spend over four figures to create more than 1,200 seconds of mundane news, information, entertainment  and comedy programmes”) – the parody/comedy element practically screams at you in every clip, so if you’re feeling in need of a bit of edutainment for the day, this is the site to check out!

For those of you astute readers, you might have noticed that 毛記電視 sounds very similar to 無線電視, even some elements are parodied after programmes in 無線電視 (or TVB), like 星期三檔案 (sing1 kei4 saam1 dong2 on3, a documentary).

Apart from some hilarious videos, there’s a really good mix of culture news articles. Check out some of their titles: 點解我而家先知有個咁聰明嘅食粟米方法㗎 (dim2 gaai2 ngo5 ji4 gaa1 sin1 zi1 jau5 go3 cung1 ming4 ge3 sik6 suk1 mai5 fong1 faat3 gaa3, why didn’t I know about this clever method of eating corn before), 日本便利店呢款三文治簡直係雞蛋控必食呀 (jat6 bun2 bin6 lei6 dim3 ni1 fun2 saam1 man4 zi6 gaan2 zik6 hai6 gai1 daan2 hung3 bit1 sik6 aa3, this egg sandwich found in Japanese convenience stores is a must have for egg lovers),主持做做下天氣直播畀風吹走 現場同事狂恥笑 (zyu2 ci4 zou6 zou6 haa5 tin1 hei3 zik6 bo3 bei2 fung1 ceoi1 zau2 jin6 coeng4 tung4 si6 kwong4 ci2 siu3, the host was blown away by the wind during a weather forecast, colleagues who were at the scene laughed shamelessly).

Handover 20th Anniversary Quiz

Cantonese Resource #33: 麥兜 (mak6 dau1)

Difficulty rating: Upper Intermediate

Subtitles: Yes, Written Chinese

Type: Video

Theme: Comedy, Hong Kong cartoon

麥兜 YouTube (1)

麥兜 YouTube (2)

I can’t believe I forgot about this! I remember when I was a kid, this was the coolest thing around (among kids anyway) – this is a cartoon featuring a pig like character designed by Hong Kong cartoonists Alice Mak and Brian Tse, and the videos are hilarious!

Follow those skits and you’ll be able to pick up quite a lot of vocabulary and really local expressions, not to mention they’re just fun to watch lol. Some of the titles included are: tongue twisters, family kung fu, picking a wife, English time, etc.

Here’s a sample video, follow along – it’s really great fun!

 

Cantonese Resource #34: 要聞港聞 (jiu3 man4 gong2 man4)

Difficulty rating: Intermediate

Subtitles: N/A

Type: Text

Theme: Hong Kong news

蘋果日報 要聞港聞

This is actually a resource submitted by a reader – it’s a subsection of Apple Daily, where the main news of the day is repeated, but in Cantonese – that’s right, written in oral Cantonese, not written Chinese!

The great thing about this resource is that the news pieces are fairly short, so you can get through them quite quickly – there’s also videos in some articles, so you can follow along the video and use the text as a supplement to your learning.

The only thing I’d caution is that if you use this – you need to save the link, or print out the article, because it only archives 10 pages of the most recent articles (that’s still a lot, maybe 200 articles or so).

 

Cantonese Resource #35: mingjai14

Difficulty rating: Upper intermediate

Subtitles: Some Cantonese, Some SWC

Type: Video

Theme: Lifestyle, culture

銘仔 mingjai

I don’t usually see many Youtubers from Hong Kong, and of those I do see, many of them are rarely as old as this channel. mingjai4, or 銘仔 (ming5 zai2) started Youtubing since 2010 (ancient history in Internet years lol), and talks about a variety of things. It’s kind of hard to generalize exactly what’s on his channel, but I saw a few interesting video titles that you might want to check out.

意外upgrade上商務 (ji3 ngoi6 upgrade soeng5 soeng1 mou6) Accidentally got upgraded to business class

近距離接觸火山 (kan5 keoi5 lei4 zip3 zuk1 fo2 saan1) Point blanc contact with a volcano

香港搵食真心分享 (hoeng1 gong2 wan2 sik6 zan1 sam1 fan1 hoeng2) Genuine thoughts on making a living in Hong Kong

If I have to say so myself, one of the more well rounded Youtubers who share a mix of clips on interesting topics in a very genuine way.

 

Cantonese Resource #36: FHMedia and FHProductionHK

Difficulty rating: Upper intermediate

Subtitles: Cantonese!

Type: Video

Theme: Lifestyle, culture

FH Production HK

FH Media

In terms of production quality and originality, this is possibly one of the best YouTube channels I’ve seen, and yes, many videos come with Cantonese subtitles!

One of the most striking features of this channel is that while it features people in its videos, the actors (the protagonists) who appear in them wear masks (Stitch from Lilo and Stich and Rilakumma the bear if I’m not mistaken)! Why they decided to do that I’m not sure, perhaps for branding purposes, but don’t let it deter you, the content they have on there is really interesting.

Here are some interesting titles I saw in the channel worth checking out:

我來自 Youtube (ngo5 loi4 zi6 YouTube) I come from YouTube

唱K小神棍 (coeng3 kei1 siu2 san4 gwan3) Karaoke guy

我在香港兼職的日子 (ngo5 zoi6 hoeng1 gong2 gim1 zik1 dik1 jat6 zi2) My part time days in Hong Kong

 

Cantonese Resource #37: Arm Channel TV

Difficulty rating: Intermediate

Subtitles: Cantonese!

Type: Video

Theme: Lifestyle, culture

This is a pretty fun channel that has a few signature series: 微電影 (mei4 din6 jing2) microfilms, 搞作短劇 (gaau2 zok3 dyun2 kek6) short prank videos, 名賣廣告 (ming4 maai6 gwong2 gou3) obvious ads, 名人暗訪 (ming4 jan4 am3 fong2) interviews with famous people, 街頭訪問 (gaai1 tau4 fong2 man6) street interviews.

Here are a couple of titles you might find interesting:

你有冇試過偷食？nei5 jau5 mou5 si3 gwo3 tau1 sik6? Have you eaten food sneakily before?

柴灣行路去上水 caai4 waan1 haang4 lou6 heoi3 soeng6 seoi2 Walking from Chai Wan to Sheung Shui

兼職女友 Part time job as a girlfriend

 

Cantonese Resource #38: MtzCherry

Difficulty rating: Intermediate

Subtitles: Some Cantonese!

Type: Video

Theme: Cantonese language, culture

This is a very special channel, but the creator of this channel talks mianly about Cantonese! Yes, that’s right, fun tutorials on Cantonese, as well as interesting cultural episodes. If you’re just starting out with Cantonese, this is another really good, relaxing resource to learn some of the basics, but for intermediate Cantonese learners, there are some great videos with Cantonese subtitles as well.

Here are a few of the more recent titles:

重慶大廈冒險記 cung4 hing3 daai6 haa6 mou6 him2 gei3 Adventures in Chunking Mansion

15公里行路挑戰 sap6 m5 gung1 lei5 haang4 lou6 tiu1 zin3 15 km walking challenge

喺韓國維修三叔 踩單車去超市 hai2 hon4 gwok3 wai4 sau1 saam1 suk1 caai2 daan1 ce1 heoi3 ciu1 si5 Getting my phone fixed and biking to the supermarket

 

Cantonese Resource #39: 笑波子

Difficulty rating: Intermediate

Subtitles: Some Cantonese!

Type: Video

Theme: Culture, lifestyle

Another really fun channel covering some really creative videos – really worth checking out! And mor importantly, some of them come with Cantonese subtitles, but it seems that at first glance, nearly all of them come with subtitles of some sort (English, SWC or Cantonese).

Here are some fun titles you might want to see:

GEM plays with Lie Detector

When Owner is away, what will the dog do? VERY TOUCHING!!!

【每秒45米】挑戰世界第一個100MPH過山車？快到耳鳴叫救命… mui5 miu5 sei3 sap6 m5 mai5 tiu1 zin3 sai3 gaai3 dai6 jat1 go3 jat1 baak3 mph gwo3 saan1 ce1? faai3 dou3 ji5 ming4 giu3 gau3 meng6 45 m/s Challenging the world’s first 100 mph roller coaster? It’s so fast my ears wanna scream help…

 

What we’ve covered

So, about 4000 5000 6000 7000 words later, I feel that we’ve covered a lot of ground in terms of digging up the best resources to learn Cantonese as an intermediate or above learner.

To sum up, we’ve come up with a list of resources that are

1. Catered to intermediate Cantonese learners or above
2. Created by native speakers
3. Cover a range of topics, from politics and news, to art, food and lifestyle
4. Have a good volume of materials under each programme / channel / resource
5. And most importantly, they’re (mostly) subtitled

You’ll also see that these Cantonese resources are specifically electronic resources. For paper based resources like books, I’d like to cover that maybe in a separate post, because the dynamics of using online resources and books are quite different (in my opinion anyway).

I genuinely hope this will help you with learning Cantonese. Many people say that there are very few Cantonese resources out there, however, that isn’t true. If you go through these resources, over time, you’ll see that Hong Kong is truly a place where the East meets the West. It’s evident from a macro perspective – the unique political, economic and social environment of Hong Kong, as well as a micro perspective – how Hongkongers tend to fuse what we learn from other cultures with Chinese culture to bring about this phenomenon we call “Hong Kong culture”.

Do you agree these are some of the best resources to learn Cantonese? Do you use other online materials that I haven’t listed here? Do you want to watch or listen to something in Cantonese that’s not covered here?

Let me know in the comments below!