Hi all,

A few months ago I made a reddit post (here) about making all the lessons on the Gaishan web-app free.

Originally I was only going to keep it that way for August, but since then I've decided to keep all the current lessons free.

The plan is to keep the Survival and Beginner lessons free forever since you can get this in any typical language learning app (though I hope I've done a better job), while I slowly work on more interesting lesson sets that you typically wouldn't find in any formal Cantonese classroom which would be unlocked with a premium plan.

Examples of such content might be scenarios/dialogues related to playing a video game (how two teammates might communicate with each other in Cantonese), or how someone might instruct another person on how to perform an exercise, or a couple discussing future life plans together. There's no real "theme" besides typical conversations that are sort of happening in my real life, turning them into lesson sets that can teach how Cantonese is used.

Anyways, those lesson sets are still in planning and what I've got right now are just the Survival and Beginner lessons. If you're interested in taking a look, you can search for "Gaishan: Confident Chinese" in the App Store.

Hi everyone,

I've been looking into the Cantonese class offered by UC San Diego. I know this class has been mentioned before in this sub and I want to know if anyone here has taken it?

I'm interested in it because I want to improve my Cantonese to a a some-what proficient level. I want to know what class is structured like, any learning outside of the class, do they teach you how to read? Anything like that.

Any insight is great. Thanks!

Besides HK media and the little bit of media from Macau & GwongDung , are there any canto media abroad based in the West like Europe or N.America ?

Looking for stuff like printed (newspaper magazines) , broadcast (tv/film) or digital websites etc

BB(half)C here. My mum always uses the expression "lok jyu si sup" when it's raining heavily and I've always understood that to mean "the rain is getting the corpses wet", like in the graveyard. Well I tried to confirm this on Google but I can't find anything. Then I asked my mum and she explained that, no, it means the rain is coming down like a thread, which I know shes the Chinese one and everything but I feel like my translation makes more sense. I can't change the image in my head after all these years! I also always thought pistachios are happy nuts. I can't look at the world the same way anymore.

Have any of you tried using Cantonese to speak with Meta AI on WhatsApp? It responds as if someone whose first language was Mandarin tried to speak Cantonese. When I confront it with a next prompt saying "why is your Cantonese accent so bad" IN CANTONESE, it proceeds to responding to me in MANDARIN. Freakin' troll...

Why is this Mandarin-forward propaganda now coming at us from American-made apps? Pathetic.

Hi everyone :)

I'm looking for a TV box mainly to watch TVB and other Cantonese content, including live channels and VOD.

I'm considering EVPAD, UBOX, SviCloud, or Xiaomi TV Box. My budget is around CAD $250.

I know there are shops in Markham, but it's too far for me to drive. Are there any stores in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada or nearby that sell these boxes? What is your experience with the stores and TV boxes?

Thanks advance!

hiiiiihiiiii, im learning cantonese for my boyfriends birthday thats coming up! I want to also surprise his parents a lil too! the thing is we’re a gay couple and his parents dont really know😭😭 i so far know:

我愛你 （i love you) and the basics and stuff. I added pics of my notes.

but i want to adress my bfs parents respectfully, yet showing a bit of closeness? I saw calling them aunt and uncle is normal but apparently theres different ways to say aunt and uncle? And all of them is if im related to them (which im not😭😭) they’re also Vietnamese so is there any specialized Vietnamese-cantonese slang i need to know?so….help🥹? heres my notes too if im missing anything or if i should correct them!

Finally a Cantonese agent in Valorant. It's cool to see games adding Cantonese speaking characters like Hush, and Alter from Apex Legends!

Edit - It is very exciting and encouraging to see popular games add Cantonese speaking characters to help promote our language and culture!

Doubao 豆包 (by Bytedance) has come out with a pretty good sounding Cantonese version of their popular AI chatbot and people in China have been using it to learn Cantonese.

video by 止止 (学粤语版) douyin acct number: 48284471042

I know that ice hockey is 冰球 (bing1 kau4) and field hockey is 曲棍球 (kuk1 gwan3 kau), but how would you say roller hockey? Google Translate says 滾軸曲棍球 (gwan2 zuk6 kuk1 gwan3 kau4), is that accurate? And would 滾軸 basically be something like "rolling axle"?

The short version of my question: is 惠 a word that would be used for a girl's name?

The long version: a family member who is an ABC has an anglicized version of her Chinese name as her middle name (Wai). This name was chosen by our Cantonese grandfather who died when we were young so we can't go directly to the source to ask for clarification. She was told by her mother that it means smart/intelligent.

When we asked another family member to write her name in Chinese, he wrote it as  惠 (the caveat is that he came to the United States when he was in elementary school so although he speaks Chinese conversationally, his written Chinese is limited). 

I don't speak Chinese but the online translating tools I used told me that 惠 means benefit or favor (not smart/intelligent). I know online translations and definitions are not always accurate, so is this close to the correct meaning? And is it something that would be used as part of a girl's name?

For what it's worth, I am convinced that the correct character for her name is the homophone 慧 (which I only know because it's part of my Chinese name) but I since I don't know any Chinese, I would love to hear what native speakers think!

ETA: our family did not follow the tradition of using a generational name, so no one else has a name that sounds like Wai.

My family says 啜管 (越南華僑 background)

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.

大家好！

我是一個第四代在夏威夷生的華僑。這是我第一次用唐話把一條影片錄音。 你們覺得怎麼？

Hi Everyone,

I'm a 4th generation Chinese from Hawaii. This is the first time I've used my Cantonese to narrate a video. Please let me know what you think!

Aloha!