Useful website and apps for self learning Cantonese
1. Bing Microsoft Translator
https://www.bing.com/translator
Bing Translator is a really good website for translating Cantonese to English. They don’t have jyutping provided but it is really accurate in a strange way. Most of the foul language here is translated perfectly.
2. Pleco –Phone dictionary for learning Mandarin and Cantonese
Pros: Pleco is useful for learning the pronounciation of Cantonese. Also they will teach you how to write Chinese character in correct order. For Cantonese it is free. You have to go to the setting and change it to ” Enable Cantonese”. Cons: They sometimes mix up mandarin and cantonese vocabularies. Which is quite confusing for learners.
3. ABC Cantonese Dictionary – Plug-in of Pleco $29.99USD
https://www.pleco.com/2017/06/25/abc-cantonese-dictionary-now-available/
Pros: If you are advance level student. ABC dictionary would be useful for learning slangs. Cons: It is not useful for beginners. And it cost money.
4. CantoDict – cantonese.sheik.co.uk
http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/
Pros: CantoDict is more useful than Pleco. As you can use google search directly to get an accurate answer. You just need to put “keyword + sheik” in google and they will show you accurate result. Cons: The vocabulary in sheik is not as much as Pleco.
5. Learn Cantonese! – Useful information and phrases
http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/
You can get more information of learning basic Cantonese here.
7. Online Cantonese Input tool
http://www.cantoneseinput.com/?lang=en
Pros: You can use this tool to type Cantonese without installing any software or apps. Cons: Chinese character only. No English translation is provided.
8. Google Cantonese Input in Gboard
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.inputmethod.latin&hl=en_US
Gboard settings -> Languages -> Add Keyboards, and look for Cantonese.
Google Cantonese is a very strong typing app for typing Chinese. 4 ways are provided for both native Cantonese speakers and foreigners. You can also do writing and voice typing. And the voice typing is super fast and accurate. If you want to use voice typing in Cantonese, you have to change the phone setting in your google voice input.
9. Cantonese Reader Online & Cantonese To Jyutping Converter
https://www.chineseconverter.com/cantonesetools/en/cantonese-text-to-sound
https://www.chineseconverter.com/cantonesetools/en/cantonese-to-jyutping
This is a good website for self learning. You can copy the Chinese characters and paste it to this website. They will generate the Chinese characters into Romanzie character. Also you can play the sound of each word.
10. Google Chrome Cantonese Input Plug-in
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/google-input-tools/mclkkofklkfljcocdinagocijmpgbhab?hl=en
This is an useful Cantonese Input Plugin which only be used at Chrome. Please enable typing Cantonese in the setting.
How to install this plug-in in google Chrome:
11. AnkiApp
AnkiApp is a really convenient tool if you are really lazy to make your own flash card. There are many languages you can learn from AnkiApp. Users can make their own Anki flash card and share their own card to other users. You just need to search Cantonese flash card and download them for your own use.
12. Cantonese Audio Book – Little Prince
Little Prince is a really good book for learning languages. A well- known Chinese KOL in Weixin QQ own a website. And he create a set of audio book for learning the Cantonese version of Little Prince. This is a really useful website for advance level foreigners or native Chinese kids to learn Cantonese.
13. Cantonese Class 101 Youtube Channel
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUSDi1a8z_zh9BKrg8VMNGA
Cantonese101 is not free but their Youtube Channel is free! Lots of useful daily use Cantonese phrases in their Youtube Channel. You can watch it for free. But if you pay for their course. You can discuss with the teacher in Cantonese 101 about your grammar mistake and problems.
14. Cantonese Podcast – Chatty Cantonese
Chatty Cantonese is a free Apple Podcast. They discuss about Cantonese and languages phenomenon in society in the Podcast. It is suitable for advance level learner. They didn’t speak too fast.
15 .Cantonese Pronunciation App
CanPro (Cantonese Pronunciation App) is a mobile language app for practising Cantonese pronunciations and learning common Cantonese expressions. In this app, users need to match the Chinese characters in a Cantonese expression with their respective romanized forms after listening to the pronunciations. The expressions of CanPro were selected, on the basis of usage frequency, from a digitized Cantonese language database with around 800,000 characters (https://hkcc.eduhk.hk/). This beta version has 99 expressions. More expressions will be added later.
Apple User Download Here
Google User Download Here
16. Cantonese YouTube Channel – 點 Cook Guide
Martin is a Cantonese Speaking YouTuber base in Hong Kong. All his videos are in Cantonese and with English Subtitle. His channel both entertaining and useful.
https://www.youtube.com/@dim_cook_guide
17. Transitional Characters Learning: Lexical items with English Explanations for Fundamental Chinese Learning in Hong Kong Schools
https://www.edbchinese.hk/lexlist_en/index.jsp
This website is really useful for both expat and Chinese speakers to learn traditional Chinese characters. They provide all both speaking Cantonese expressions and written Chinese expression in this website. And they have animations for you to learn the traditional Chinese characters.
18. HK Anime
There many Cantonese Animation in this website. You can find a Cantonese animation here and find the English subtitle from the other website to practice your Cantonese listening skill.
Here is one of my favorite Japanese Animation with Cantonese Dub and English Sub:
Rent a Girl Friend ENGLISH SUB:https://www.bilibili.tv/en/video/2002492461
Rent a Girl Friend Cantonese DUB : https://www.hkanime.com/animal/623x1x1