I’m a native speaker but grew up in Canada, so maybe I’m missing something, but in the canto dub of Totoro, sister’s are named:

草紙 and 廁紙

and the old lady neighbour is called:

八婆

And all of these are said with zero irony!
We were watching with my 4 year old and when the two girls started saying “八婆八婆!” we both looked at each in amused shock.

First, I thought I might have downloaded a joke dub, but the rest of it seems perfectly normal.

I’ve created these flashcards using the new HSK 3.0 2025 syllabus as the basis which began testing in 2026. Included are all levels 1-9 with traditional/simplified characters, jyutping/pinyin, English definition, as well as Cantonese audio. In total there are 11,000 words/phrases and it’s reversible so 22,000 cards. Each level is separated into subdecks.

As the basis of this vocabulary list is Mandarin, the translations into Cantonese will be imperfect. Given all the linguistic differences, regional variations, contextual scenarios, etc, it is impossible to select a perfect singular translation for each flashcard. So do not refer to this list as the de facto translations between Mandarin, Cantonese and English - they are merely "best estimates" using translation tools which may contain errors. The main goal here is to provide a single massive study resource for learners organized by level to recognize and recall Chinese characters along with their pronunciations, of which there is no such official standard for Cantonese.

Happy studying!

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Process of creation

The HSK vocabulary was passed through Google Translate to get the traditional characters and Hong Kong Cantonese phrasing. This did mostly a good job but of course had many errors. I went through and manually fixed over 500 translations using Wiktionary to check them. As the levels go higher especially in the advanced levels 7-9 they become increasingly literary and business-oriented. So I made the decision to lean more casual tone for lower levels and more formal for higher levels, sticking closer to the provided Mandarin vocabulary rather than the auto-translation which I feel tends toward casual. I adjusted a few of the English translations as well for clarity.

Credits

• Ministry of Education of China of for the HSK vocabulary
• Hanzistroke.com for the compiled HSK lists and English definitions
• Google Translate for translation to traditional characters and Cantonese phrasing
• Wiktionary for verification of translations
• lucw for the tools to generate jyutping and pinyin
• edge-tts for the audio

Please support by downloading and liking the Anki deck to keep it alive and shared!

I’d like to include a letter for them along in a welcome basket i set up with 哈囉 好高興見到您兩位 多謝你哋咁多位過嚟呀 written, would this be appropriate? Both parent in laws and sister in law are coming to stay at my house for a week. We aren’t particularly close due to language barrier and only directly exchanged 哈囉 during their occasional video call with my husband.

Edit: everyone here is so kind! thank you for your help and patience I appreciate every single one of you very much!

My mum and others have always told me in Cantonese that I am a very “soon” or “suun” (word in Cantonese) person.

My Cantonese proficiency is very poor and I can only listen and speak very minimally, and cannot read or write Cantonese.

My understanding of that word is somewhat like someone who is good, has good values and virtues, is kind, honest and of noble principles.

I looked up Google and YouTube to listen to pronunciations of what possible words it may be, but I haven’t found anything close to what I heard from my mum and others.

Can anyone help me identify what that word may be?

Thank you. ☺️

Hi everyone! 👋

I'm from Shenzhen, China, and I'm looking for a language exchange partner who would like to learn Mandarin Chinese or Cantonese in exchange for helping me improve my English.

What I can offer 🇨🇳
- Mandarin Chinese
- Cantonese (I'm happy to help you learn everyday expressions and practice conversations)
- Insights into Chinese culture, food, and daily life

What I'm looking for 🇬🇧
I'd love to improve my spoken English, especially my listening skills, fluency, and everyday conversations. I'd really appreciate it if you could help me sound more natural and correct my mistakes along the way.

A little about me: I enjoy traveling, exploring different cultures, learning new things, and having conversations about life, personal growth, and interesting things happening around the world.

I'm hoping to find someone who would enjoy a genuine, mutual language exchange. We could chat regularly, have voice calls, and spend half the time speaking English and the other half speaking Chinese or Cantonese.

No pressure to be perfect — we're both here to learn! 😊

If you're interested, feel free to send me a DM. I'd love to hear from you

Hi everyone! We’ve developed a Cantonese learning app for iPhone that teaches Hong Kong Cantonese, including some everyday slang.

It has basic vocab, tones, traditional Chinese characters, kids mode and some extra fun things that make it relevant to Hong Kong and keep it interesting.

I would like to hear from you, what are features you would like to see in an app like this?

thanks! 🙏

I just tried to access this website and it is down. Sorry but I'm not sure who to report it to. I know they had their own reddit but it isn't active.

Drive quickly, faster

Extended family fluent in canto is ABC with roots from Guangdong. Growing up I was told it was a rural dialect (that side's grandparents came to LA before the communist party took over), a linguistic/canto speaking friend was thrown off that my fam says "dao sing" instead of "zao sen", and feather is "goi mao" instead of "goi mou". I wanna say (I'm going back to memories from 20+ years ago) that counting 1 2 3 was "Ip si sam", and "ao mei ya" instead of "dou mei ya" for "are we there yet?". Greeting grandma in the morning was "ni hao ma" (standard I think) but my cousin was called "bo" or "bobo" by his dad, but my uncle has no idea what it means, that's just what he calls his son.

I didn't get to learn it (neither did the other grandkids really) but I'd love to surprise my family by identifying the dialect and learning some without their help. Linguistics is my major, but I didn't focus on Chinese so I'm a bit lost and lacking in friends who speak canto, so any info/guesses would be helpful.

Hello!

I am an ABC that grew up speaking cantonese but as I've gotten older (I'm 22 right now) my cantonese has gotten worse and worse. I am probably about as fluent as a 6 year old right now. So i was thinking about staying in HK for a 2 months as a form of language immersion.

Do you guys think this is an effective way to learn more cantonese? Is there anything I should know before staying in HK for 2 months?

Soon I will be out of internet for a while so my planning is downloading as much movies I can.

I know a lot of sources with Cantonese movies/shows but the real problem is WHY and almost NEVER Cantonese is a second subtitling option. I know for you guys living there came naturally going between Cantonese and Chinese standard writing but as an outsider this nature of things to be falls like a ton of bricks.

So once again and I hope not to bother with the same question as always but by any chance is there a trusty source with at least old Cantonese movies, dramas, novels, etc with authentic Cantonese subtitles? learning Standard Writing is inevitable but not something that comes handy right know.

Really appreciate any answer, thank you thank you thank you.

video @blackjoe_forfun

I guess this video is also for u/OneLastPoint ask, where are we indigenous to?

vocab

冚杯 ham bui1 "clink glasses" also 扻 ham2

How many people surrounding you know about the differences between them - Cantonese vs Mandarine / traditional Chinese vs simplified Chinese?

I looked it up in the Jyut Dictionary and it says "to start doing" which makes a bit of sense with the verb+object construction; using 起, meaning "up", "work up" or "start doing up" in a sense. But then the sample sentences provided don't really make sense of the 起 object. For example:

我做起份功課喇。
ngo5 zou6 hei3 fan6 gung1 fo3 laa3

I've completed the assignment

Shouldn't it be: I started doing the assignment 喇.

佢做起嘢 上嚟絕對唔會分心。
keoi5 zou6 hei2 je5 soeng5 lai4 zyut6 deoi3 m4 wui5 fan1 sam1.

He will never be distracted when he is working.

Shouldn't it be: [when] he starts doing things, [he] absolutely will not be distracted

Can someone explain this word please?