The five Cantonese phrases that do 80% of the work
First time? Do this
- Audio is built in. Tap any phrase to hear it in a native voice — pre-recorded and cached, so it just works offline, no setup. (The voice bar can still pick a phone voice as a backup.)
- Phrases — drilled by situation: the cha chaan teng, dai pai dongs, directions, the ferry. Hit play, then say it back out loud.
- Sounds — tones and characters, tap to hear how each one sounds. Ten minutes here pays off the most.
- Customs — know before you go. The unspoken rules, what politeness actually asks of you, how much English there really is, and where the language shifts between regions. This is where travellers give themselves away.
- Practice — hear / read / recall / speak. Use it on the plane.
Right thing, right moment.
Tap a chip to jump to a scene — or just search. Common holds the go-anywhere basics (hello, thanks, where's the toilet); a few phrases like drinks live under more than one scene.
You can type in either language — both sides are searched.
Common — useful everywhere · greetings · basics · the toilet
Greetings & manners · the social handshake
At the restaurant · ordering & dining
Bars & nights out · your scene
Wine & spirits · tasting & buying
Finding your way · asking directions
Taxis & getting around · rides & fares
On the water · ferries & boats
Shops & getting by · everyday
Sea & scenery · quick vocab
Numbers · prices & counting
- Tens and ones glue into a single compact word. 21 is simply 二十一 (yi-sap-YAT, "two-ten-one") — no linking word needed, unlike English "twenty-ONE".
- 萬 (ten-thousand), not "thousand", is the pivot. Chinese counts in blocks of four digits: after 千 (yat-CHIN, 1,000) the next new word is 萬 (MAAN) for 10,000, not a bigger "thousand". 120,000 is thought of as "12 maahn" (十二萬, sap-yi-MAAN), not "120 thousand" — reading a Chinese price in English needs this regrouping.
- There's no native word for "million" — it's built from 萬 (MAAN). 1,000,000 is 一百萬 (yat-baak-MAAN, literally "one hundred ten-thousand") rather than an atomic word of its own — always work it out as 100 × 10,000.
- 100 and 1,000 both need a leading 一 (YAT, "one"). Cantonese always says the leading "one": 一百 (yat-BAAK, 100) and 一千 (yat-CHIN, 1,000), never a bare 百 (BAAK) or 千 (CHIN) alone in speech.
- 二 (YI) and 兩 (LEUNG) are both "two" — but not interchangeable. 二 (YI) is used in numerals and counting sequences like 二十 (yi-SAP, "20"), while 兩 (LEUNG) is used with a measure word for quantities — 兩個人 (leung-go-YAN, "two people"), 兩蚊 (leung-MUN, "two dollars"). Picking the wrong one is one of the first mistakes learners make.
Same characters as Mandarin, a totally different soundtrack.
Cantonese keeps six tones and word endings that Mandarin dropped centuries ago, so a phrase that looks the same on a menu can sound nothing alike. Read the CAPS in this kit as pitch, not punch.
Knowing what a letter sounds like isn't the same as being able to make it. These four are where English mouths actually go wrong: what to do, what to stop doing, and a native recording you can slow down and copy.
What your mouth doesEvery syllable carries a pitch shape — flat-high, rising, mid-flat, low-falling, low-rising, low-flat — and changing the pitch changes the word entirely, not just the emphasis. Keep your throat relaxed and let the pitch glide smoothly.
The mistakeEnglish speakers try to show meaning by getting louder or leaning on a syllable harder — Cantonese tone is about pitch shape, not volume, so a loud flat tone still sounds like the wrong word.
What your mouth doesPush a light puff of air out for the "p" sound, and keep zero breath for the "b" sound — both are technically voiceless in Cantonese, so breath is the only cue that tells them apart.
The mistakeEnglish speakers rely on vibrating vocal cords to tell b from p — that cue doesn't exist here, so a breathy "g" where none belongs can land as a different syllable entirely.
What your mouth doesWhen a syllable ends in p, t, or k, your mouth reaches the closing position — lips together for p, tongue on the ridge for t, back of tongue up for k — and simply stops there. No puff of air escapes at the end.
The mistakeEnglish speakers instinctively release the final consonant with a little burst of air; in Cantonese that release turns a clipped, closed syllable into something that sounds like an extra vowel got added.
What your mouth does唔 (m̀h, MM, "not") is just a nasal hum — press your lips together and hum through your nose, similar to an "mm-hm", held level with no vowel sound at all.
The mistakeEnglish speakers want to add a vowel (like "muh") in front of it, but that changes the word — practise saying just the hum by itself first.
- Tone changes the word, not the mood. Cantonese runs six tones across every syllable — said with a rising pitch, gáu is "nine" (九, GAU); said high and flat, gāu is a different word altogether (交, GAU, "to hand over"). Pitch is grammar here, not emotion.
- No stress accent like English. Cantonese doesn't lean on one syllable in a sentence the way English does — every syllable keeps roughly equal weight, so the CAPS in this kit mark pitch prominence, not loudness.
- Breath, not voice, splits consonant pairs. b/p, d/t and g/k are told apart by a puff of air, not by vibrating your vocal cords the way English b/p does.
- Endings stop dead — no release. Syllables ending in -p -t -k close and hold; nothing bursts out the end the way English "stop" does.
- One character, one syllable, one meaning. Every Chinese character is exactly one spoken syllable and carries its own meaning — words are built by stringing two or more characters together, not by adding endings or prefixes.
A spoken language with its own way of writing
Like Mandarin, Cantonese has no conjugation, no plurals and no gender, so the grammar looks easy until the word order catches you. Some things come after the verb that English puts first: 我行先 (ngoh-haang-SIN), I'll go first, is literally I go first. Comparisons run through the word 過 (GWOH), past, so he is taller than me is 佢高過我 (keui-gou-GWOH-ngoh), he tall-past me. And when you give something, the thing comes before the person, which is why the kit's menu request is 唔該畀個菜牌我 (m-goy-bei-go-choi-PAAI-ngoh): please give a menu me.
Written Cantonese is not the Chinese on the front page. Newspapers, laws and road signs follow standard written Chinese, which reads closer to Mandarin than to anything said aloud in Hong Kong. But menus, adverts, comics and every phone chat are written the way people talk, with characters that standard Chinese does not use: 係 (HAI), is; 唔 (MM), not; 冇 (MOU), haven't; 佢 (KEUI), he or she; 嘅 (GE), the possessive; 嘢 (YEH), thing. Spot two of them on a sign and you know it is speaking to locals.
The characters depend on which side of the border you stand. Hong Kong and Macau write traditional characters, the ones in this kit. Guangdong, like the rest of the mainland, officially uses simplified ones, so the noodles on a Guangzhou menu are 面 (MEEN) while the same noodles in Hong Kong are 麵 (MEEN). Old shop signs in Guangzhou often keep the traditional forms anyway.
Numbers and money have street forms. Twenty is often squeezed into one syllable, 廿 (YAH), so twenty-five is 廿五 (yah-NG), and thirty can be 卅 (sa-AH). On the clock, each numeral marks five minutes and is called a 字 (JI), so 三點三個字 (saam-dim-saam-go-JI) is a quarter past three. In Hong Kong a dollar is 蚊 (MUN) — the kit's 兩蚊 (leung-MUN) is two dollars — and ten cents is 毫 (HOU).
Tones make the jokes. With six of them and so many syllables sounding nearly alike, Cantonese puns constantly, and the Lunar New Year table is built on it: 髮菜蠔豉 (faat-choi-hou-SI), black moss with dried oysters, sounds like 發財好市 (faat-choi-hou-SI), get rich and do good business. Mishearing a tone is not just a mistake here; it is sometimes the whole point.
Six tones, short endings, and a particle on every sentence
Cantonese kept sounds that Mandarin lost centuries ago, and they are the first thing an English mouth notices. Syllables can end in -m, -p, -t and -k as well as -n and -ng: three is 三 (SAAM), ten is 十 (SAP), six is 六 (LUK), each closed off sharply. Words can also begin with ng, the sound in the middle of singer — 我 (NGOH), I — and five, 五 (NG), is that sound alone with no vowel at all. You will hear plenty of young Hong Kongers soften these, saying LAY-hoh for 你好 (NAY-hoh) and OH for 我 (NGOH); it is a recognised habit, nicknamed lazy sounds, and either version is understood.
The music is in the endings. Where English shows mood by lifting or dropping the whole sentence, Cantonese has already used pitch for its six tones, so it hangs a small particle on the end instead. 呀 (AH) softens a question, 喇 (LA) marks something done or changed, 㗎 (GAA) adds an emphatic it's like that, 咩 (MEH) turns a sentence into surprise. The kit's phrases are full of them — 好味呀！ (hou-MEI-ah), 唔使找喇 (m-sai-JAAU-la) — and they are not decoration. Leave them off and you sound like a telegram. Start with the numbers, which you will hear in every shop, and with 唔該 (m-GOY), which you will say fifty times a day.
The rules nobody prints on the menu.
Your Cantonese rarely outs you. These do. Read once, and you'll move differently.
Learn the tea-cup finger tap
When someone refills your tea, tap two fingers lightly on the table — 叩指禮 (kau-JI-lai, "finger-knock etiquette") — instead of saying thank you every single time. The story traces to an emperor travelling in disguise; it's still everywhere today.
Don't stand your chopsticks up in rice
Sticking chopsticks upright in a bowl of rice echoes the incense sticks burned at a funeral. Rest them across the bowl, or on a chopstick rest, between bites.
Tipping isn't expected
Restaurants, taxis and hotels in mainland China don't expect a tip, and offering one can just confuse the person you hand it to. Good service is thanked with words, not cash.
Match the toast, or say so upfront
At a meal with baijiu, someone will raise a glass with 飲勝 (YUM-sing, "cheers") — literally "drink to victory", and it means drain the glass. If you'd rather sip, say 隨意 (CHEUI-yi) before the first toast, not after.
Skip clocks and the number four as gifts
A clock as a gift — 送鐘 (SUNG-zung) — is an exact homophone for "seeing someone off at their deathbed", and the number 四 (SEI) sounds just like "death". Avoid both as gifts or quantities.
Cash is nearly obsolete
Almost everyone pays with a phone, scanning a QR code through WeChat Pay or Alipay for anything from a taxi to a single bottle of water. Carry a little cash as backup — small vendors don't always want to break a big note.
Offer and receive with both hands
Business cards, gifts, and money are handed over and accepted with both hands, or at least a supported right hand — a small gesture that reads as respectful rather than formal.
Meals are shared, not ordered solo
Dishes land in the centre of the table for everyone's chopsticks, rice is often more of a background filler than the main event, and whoever is hosting steers the best pieces toward their guests.
Don't clear your plate completely
Finishing every last bite as a guest can read as a signal the portions were too small. Leaving a little behind is the polite way to say you're full and happy.
"Face" shapes how requests land
Public criticism, a flat refusal, or making someone look foolish in front of others costs 面子 (MIN-ji, "face") — for you and for them. A soft "maybe" or a redirected question is often a polite no.
The plates and glasses worth going out of your way for — each with the name as you'd say it out loud.
Six things that catch visitors out
Yum cha starts with the tea, not the food. 飲茶 (yam-CHAH) means drinking tea, and the first question at the table is which one: 普洱 (bou-LEI), dark and earthy, 香片 (heung-PIN), jasmine, or 鐵觀音 (tit-gun-YAM). Trolleys are now rare; most places give you a paper order sheet, the 點心紙 (dim-sum-JI), to tick and hand over. When the pot runs dry, leave its lid ajar, and someone will come to fill it without a word.
Locals rinse their bowls before they eat. At many restaurants in Guangzhou and Hong Kong you will watch the table pour hot tea into their bowls, swirl the chopsticks and spoons through it and tip it into a spare dish. It is a habit as much as hygiene, and you may join in. In Guangzhou the crockery often arrives sealed in plastic, with a small charge on the bill for it.
A cha chaan teng has its own rules. In Hong Kong's tea-and-coffee diners you share a table with strangers, 搭檯 (daap-TOI), order the moment you sit and leave soon after you finish. Try 鴛鴦 (yin-YEUNG), coffee and milk tea in one cup, or 凍檸茶 (dung-ning-CHAH), iced lemon tea, with a 菠蘿油 (bo-lo-YAU), a pineapple bun with a slab of cold butter inside. A cold drink usually costs a couple of dollars more than a hot one.
Hong Kong pays differently from the mainland. Many sit-down restaurants add a ten per cent service charge to the bill, so there is nothing more to leave. Cash in Hong Kong dollars is still common, especially in markets and older shops, and the Octopus card pays for the MTR, buses, ferries and convenience stores. Mainland payment apps are accepted in many shops but not all.
At Lunar New Year, carry red envelopes. 利是 (lai-SI) are small red packets of money, given by married people to children and unmarried friends and, in Hong Kong, to the doorman, the building cleaner and anyone else who looks after you through the year. The notes should be new and crisp. Greet everyone with 恭喜發財 (gung-hei-faat-CHOI), wishing them prosperity, and do not be surprised when children answer with 利是逗來 (lai-si-DAU-loi), hand over the red packet.
Do not cut a pear to share. In Cantonese, pear, 梨 (LEI), sounds exactly like 離 (LEI), to part, so splitting one between two people sounds like splitting up. Each person gets their own. It is the same logic that makes eight lucky, because 八 (BAAT) rhymes with prosperity, and it is why a Hong Kong car plate full of eights can fetch a fortune at auction.
Cantonese, Mandarin or English, depending on the side of the border
Cantonese, 廣東話 (gwong-dung-WA), is the everyday language of the Pearl River Delta: Guangzhou, Foshan and the towns around them, much of Guangxi, and Hong Kong and Macau, where it is the language of home, street, radio and television alike. It was also the language of the first Chinatowns abroad, which is why dim sum, wonton and char siu reached English in Cantonese rather than Mandarin. In Guangdong itself, Putonghua is the language of school and officialdom, and most people below retirement age speak both; Shenzhen, a city built by migrants from every province, runs largely in Mandarin.
Hong Kong is the place where English goes furthest. Chinese and English are both official, street signs are bilingual, and MTR announcements come in Cantonese, Mandarin and English, in that order. Hotels, Central and the airport manage easily. A cha chaan teng in Sham Shui Po or a market stall in Mong Kok is another matter: the menu may have English, the person taking your order may not. Macau puts Portuguese on every official sign, but only a small minority speak it; Cantonese is the street language, with Mandarin common in the casinos and English in the big hotels.
Cantonese has a reputation, among the Chinese themselves, as the hard one, and few visitors try it. That is the opportunity. A clear 唔該 (m-GOY) or 早晨 (JOU-sahn) from a foreigner gets a double take, then a grin, and very often a slower, kinder answer. If you have some Mandarin, it will work in Guangzhou; in Hong Kong, the Cantonese in this kit gets the warmer reception, with English the usual fallback.
Fast is polite here
Hong Kong service is brisk, and that is a courtesy. In a city where tables turn fast and the queue is at the door, a waiter who drops the menu, takes the order and walks off without a smile is doing the job well. Order quickly, raise a hand and call 唔該！ (m-GOY) when you want something, and do not wait to be asked whether everything is all right; nobody will ask. Guangzhou is gentler in pace but runs on the same assumption: efficiency is respect.
The street has names for you. A hawker will call a young man 靚仔 (leng-JAI) and a young woman 靚女 (leng-NEUI), handsome and pretty, and it is ordinary, not flirting. Older women are 阿姨 (a-YI), auntie; an elderly man 阿伯 (a-BAAK); a driver or a chef 師傅 (si-FU). For anyone in an office or an official seat, use the kit's surname plus 先生 (sin-SAANG) or 小姐 (siu-JE), which in Hong Kong carries none of the awkwardness it can on the mainland.
Turning things down takes one short phrase. When the shop offers a plastic bag, the waiter another pot, or a seller one more thing, 唔使喇，唔該 (m-sai-LA, m-GOY), no need, thanks, is the polite and final answer. At the table, 夠喇 (gau-LA), that's enough, stops the refills. Neither needs softening or an excuse, and adding one only invites a second offer.
Thanks come in sizes. The kit already separates 唔該 (m-GOY) for a service from 多謝 (DOH-jeh) for a gift. Add 晒 (SAAI) to either to make it bigger: 唔該晒 (m-goy-SAAI) is thanks very much for all that, the line for someone who walked you to the right exit. To someone who has worked hard on your behalf — a guide at the end of a long day, the cook who made something off the menu — say 辛苦晒 (san-fu-SAAI), thank you for all your trouble.
Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Macau, and the delta between them
Guangzhou is where the language takes its name and its standard: the speech of the old Xiguan quarter is the reference accent for Cantonese everywhere. The city runs on morning tea, 早茶 (jou-CHAH), and the great teahouses fill with retirees and newspapers from early in the morning. Mandarin works in every shop, but the older streets around Shangxiajiu and Shamian Island still argue, bargain and gossip in Cantonese.
Hong Kong Cantonese is full of English, borrowed and respelled: 巴士 (ba-SI) is a bus, 的士 (DIK-si) a taxi, 士多 (si-DOH) a corner store, 多士 (doh-SI) toast, 芝士 (ji-SI) cheese, and 拜拜 (BAAI-baai) closes every phone call. Office talk drops whole English words into Cantonese sentences without a pause. To a Guangzhou ear it sounds quick and mixed; to a Hong Kong one, Guangzhou sounds a little formal.
The delta towns each have a claim. Foshan is the kung fu town, home of Wong Fei-hung and Ip Man and of a long tradition of lion dance and Cantonese opera. Shunde, next door, was named a UNESCO City of Gastronomy in 2014; go for 雙皮奶 (seung-pei-NAAI), a set milk pudding with two skins. To the southwest, the Siyi counties around Taishan speak Taishanese, a relative of Cantonese that is hard for Guangzhou people to follow and was the language of the earliest Chinese communities in North America.
Macau speaks Cantonese with Portuguese street names over its head. The money is the pataca, though Hong Kong dollars are widely accepted, often with change given back in patacas. The pastry to try is the Portuguese egg tart, 葡撻 (pou-TAAT), with a scorched top, and the old town around Senado Square is paved in Portuguese wave-pattern stone. Crossing between Macau, Hong Kong and Guangdong means passing through immigration each time, so keep your passport to hand on every ferry and bridge bus.
Guides for this trip
Test the four channels.
Understanding Cantonese by ear, reading, recall, and your own mouth. Quick rounds — do them twice.