Cantonese and Mandarin for Complete Beginners (简体/繁體)

Learn essential Cantonese greetings and common phrases for beginners, with vocabulary, pronunciation notes, traditional and simplified characters, and practice exercises for speaking and reading.

Learn to ask about nationalities in Cantonese and to state where you are from, using country vocabulary and practice translations with examples like China, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan.

Learn essential weather vocabulary in Cantonese and Mandarin, including seasons, rain, snow, clouds, wind, and temperatures. Practice with a weather forecast listening exercise and spoken sentences about today’s conditions.

Learn Cantonese family vocabulary and basic relationships, from mother and father to siblings, grandparents, and in-law terms, with translation and listening exercises to reinforce memory.

Build beginner Cantonese vocabulary for hobbies and everyday activities like traveling, drawing, cooking, reading, taking photos, and playing chess. Then practice forming and translating sentences.

Learn to tell the time in Cantonese with numbers and morning, afternoon, and evening terms, practice reading clocks, and prepare for a revision exercise in the next lesson.

Engage in revision of learned Cantonese through translation tasks, including English to Chinese and Chinese to English, plus a weather listening exercise. Prepare for the next lesson with targeted practice.

This lesson introduces basic Cantonese adjectives and common words, including pronouns, verbs, and phrases for daily activities. It explains the absence of a present continuous distinction.

Explore Cantonese numbers, including percentages and decimals, through practice with real examples from 21 to 10,000 and currencies like yen, focusing on number formation patterns.

Explore common city locations in Cantonese, including railway station, subway, bus stops, library, museum, hospital, post office, hotel, cinema, and more, with practice writing and translation exercises.

Explore daily routines in Cantonese and Mandarin, learning days of the week and months, common frequency expressions, and practical sentence patterns for talking about habits and schedules.

Practice basic Cantonese vocabulary for fruits and vegetables and food and drink, exploring diet and preferences. Build speaking skills through example sentences, dialogues, and exercises.

Explore education and school vocabulary in Cantonese and Mandarin, including primary and secondary school, university, and common classroom terms, with example sentences and translation practice.

Explore going shopping for clothes, teaching color terms, clothing items, and how to describe what people are wearing, with matching exercises.

Revisit prior Cantonese lessons through translation and inquiry exercises in this final lesson, reinforcing basic conversational skills to get by in everyday situations.

Learn essential fruit vocabulary in Mandarin and Cantonese, including ping guo for apple, banana, strawberry, grape, watermelon, pineapple, mango, lemon, orange, and cherry, with basic pronunciation notes.

Master body parts and clothing vocabulary in Cantonese and Mandarin for complete beginners, while practicing with a review of fruits from lesson two.

Learn colors and shapes in cantonese and mandarin for complete beginners, covering orange, yellow, blue, black, purple, pink, and shapes like rectangle, square, triangle, circular, trapezoid, parallelogram.

Learn essential family vocabulary in Mandarin and Cantonese, including paternal and maternal relatives and common foods like rice, noodles, and dumplings, with guided practice.

Learn days of the week in Cantonese and Mandarin for complete beginners while reviewing family and weather vocabulary with practice translating terms into English.

Learn essential means of transportation vocabulary in a Chinese beginners course. Explore common tableware such as cups, plates, knives, and chopsticks.

Master essential stationery vocabulary (pencil, pen, ruler, glue, scissors, pencil box, sharpener) and school subjects (math, physics, chemistry, music, geography, science, politics, history) in Cantonese and Mandarin for complete beginners.

Review lessons 7–12 by revisiting furniture, appliances, jobs, transportation, numbers, and days of the week, with basic dialogues like what do you do for a living.

Learn country names and room function vocabulary in Cantonese and Mandarin, with sentence review and a quick exercise translating kitchen, bathroom, dining room, living room, study, balcony, and attic.

Review core vocabulary from lessons 1–14, including greetings and introductions, and essential phrases. Cover fruits, body parts, animals, colors, furniture, jobs, days, weather, transport, and numbers.

Learn how to ask 'which country are you from' in Chinese and identify nationalities such as British and Chinese. Practice forming questions with ma and complete the Chinese exercise.

learn to name countries and languages in Cantonese and Mandarin, using pronunciation cues and country prompts, then practice writing them in English through a timed exercise.

Explore lesson 18 city places vocabulary in Cantonese and Mandarin. Practice naming hospital, post office, cinema, restaurant, hotel, bank, supermarket, zoo, museum, train station, park, church, and classroom.

Learn how to ask and answer how old you are in Chinese, study numbers one through twelve and the months, and practice family vocab and simple sentences for beginners.

Engage in translation practice by converting a paragraph into Chinese and back to English. Practice basic conversational phrases, including introductions, family, daily activities, and common topics like animals and colors.

Master basic sports vocabulary in Chinese through lesson 21, covering basketball, football, volleyball, table tennis, swimming, running, and more, and practice simple conversations about which sport you like.

Discover common hobbies in Cantonese and Mandarin, from sports like football, basketball, ping pong, and swimming to activities such as reading, listening to music, watching movies, and playing chess.

Learn to tell time in Chinese, practice numbers and daily schedule phrases, and distinguish whole hours from times with minutes across morning, afternoon, and evening dialogues.

Master lesson 25 revision iii by revisiting lessons 16 to 24, practicing beginner Cantonese and Mandarin concepts, pronunciations, and essential phrases for complete beginners.

Learn how to say what you would like to drink, eat (rice and tea), or do this afternoon in Mandarin and Cantonese, plus basic shopping phrases.

Explore lesson 29 and learn to express ability in Chinese using can and can't, practice asking can you speak Chinese, and write and read Chinese characters through dialogues on food.

Learn to express ongoing actions in Chinese using the present continuous, distinguish past, present, and future with time words, and practice travel dialogues toward a b1 level.

Master the present continuous tense, including its negative form, through everyday actions and dialogue examples such as doing homework, brushing teeth, washing, getting dressed, cleaning, and playing tennis.

Explore the past tense through weather questions like what was the weather yesterday in Beijing, and practice using future tense with time words, modal verbs, and phrases to describe conditions.

Explore childhood memories through past tense sentences in Cantonese and Mandarin, with dialogues and relatable activities like riding bikes, visiting grandparents, going to movies, picnics, shopping, and museums.

Learn the future tense in Chinese through dialogue-driven weather conversations and practice using the auxiliary verb to express will, won't, and future plans.

Learn to make plans in Cantonese and Mandarin through dialogues about shopping, traveling to Beijing, and scheduling activities, including September as the best time to visit Beijing and expressing preferences.

Explore how adverbs modify verbs and adjectives, express degree, scope, and time, and form adverbial and prepositional phrases with examples like very, often, and in China.

Learn how to form affirmative–negative questions in Chinese (Cantonese and Mandarin) by juxtaposing affirmative and negative predicate forms, using verb and adjective patterns with practical examples and exercises.

Explore revision of common tenses in Cantonese and Mandarin, focusing on the present continuous and future tense, with practical dialogues for planning a holiday and ordering at a restaurant.

Learn daily routine phrases in Mandarin and Cantonese, including getting up at six every day, telling time, jogging, dining out, and office dialogues.

Master basic Chinese word order by identifying the subject, predicate, and object, and placing attributes before head words, with examples of possession, time, place, and other modifiers.