Popup Cantonese

We meet the teary-eyed couple over drinks Lan Kwai Fong. Their story is pretty typical for Hong Kong and goes something like this: girl meets boy, they fall in love and maybe even move in together. He gets a raise and she gets a promotion and life is going well... right up until the family finds out. And then within days family relations hit a crisis point and rumours surface that a distant uncle...

Learning Cantonese? Let your other textbooks teach you office pleasantries. At Popup Cantonese we're all about the watercooler gossip: who is sleeping with whom, who was spotted drunk at Lan Kwai Fong last night, and the perfect angle of descent for really sticking it to the worst of your office chums. Or maybe you landed that job at HSBC and your office environment is amazingly good. In which cas...

"I'm not sure if I should get the Aston Martin or the Jaguar XKR," Nicole stared at the glossy automotive magazine, her lunch lying untouched on the table. The growing stream of celebrity endorsements on everything from instant noodles to motor oil was taking its toll on everyone's favorite Cantonese podcaster. "I just wish it were easier to compare high-end performance cars," she sighed.... Learn...

We'd been cornered outside a 7/11 and were getting a lecture on professional ethics. "It's a simple exchange," the professor said. "You contribute a little bit to the cause and we're endlessly grateful in return." Our thoughts on this gentleman's forwardness notwithstanding, the prospect of such a boundless return on investment did stimulate a little charity on our part. Learning Cantonese? You've...

Now that you've lived in Hong Kong for a day or two, you might feel the need to venture out to buy some essentials like food, clothing and water. In other countries this would be a pretty routine affair. Go down to the corner store, flash that winning smile and walk out with your arms full of free goods. Sadly, in Hong Kong's relentlessly capitalist society, people expect you to pay. And that's wh...

This podcast is dedicated to a certain ex-coworker of ours known widely throughout Hong Kong for his uncanny abilities in the art of pen theft. No matter how many we'd buy or where we'd hide them, by the end of the week every single writing instrument in the office would have magically gravitated to his desk. And he was always on the hunt for more. If you're just getting started learning Cantonese...

Learning Cantonese? This lesson is about the art of the denial. Which is highly-critical language you may just find yourself using the next time you sweep through Hong Kong on business, or just want to disavow any knowledge once again of that little incident it would be best if everyone just forgot. Because it was years ago. And who is really keeping track, anyway? Also... do you remember that ear...

In our introduction series, we taught you the most simple way to ask where things are in Cantonese. In this lesson, we introduce another way to find out who has taken your stuff. This is the difference between asking "where is my wallet" and "where's my wallet gone". The first is emotionally neutral, while the second is more colloquial and signals your frustration with the fact that you clearly pl...

One of the most impressive things about Hong Kong is the absolutely incredible bladder control you will find on display throughout the city. Forget about the Chinese acrobatic acts featuring intense young Buddhists smashing their forearms through concrete cinderblocks. Considering the amount of bottled water locals go through ever day, the Hong Kong ability to stay focused under pressure is nothin...

Learning Cantonese? We're almost finished our Critical Verb series and are onto more dialogue-based lessons. And we've covered a lot of ground, which means our listening test for today is actually pretty difficult. If you've just started to learn Cantonese and stumbled across us, we encourage you to go back and start with our first Critical Phrases lesson. You'll be up to this level in no time. Fo...

Learning Cantonese? We're almost finished our Critical Verb series and are onto more dialogue-based lessons. And we've covered a lot of ground, which means our listening test for today is actually pretty difficult. If you've just started to learn Cantonese and stumbled across us, we encourage you to go back and start with our first Critical Phrases lesson. You'll be up to this level in no time. Fo...

Meh? In any other language it would be an expression of boredom or contempt. Which goes to show what living on an island will get you, because in Cantonese people have elevated this sound to a critical part of everyday language. And we guarantee that it doesn't mean what you think.... Learning Cantonese? Our third critical verbs lesson introduces verbs you can use to express your emotions and desi...

Learning Cantonese? Today Brendan and Nicole introduce four key verbs you'll need to talk about speaking Cantonese. You'll have heard some of these before, which is why we move fairly quickly through the basics and throw some more difficult sentences your way. These review putting statements into the negative and asking questions, and then move on to the present progressive tense. This is the tens...

Want to learn Cantonese? Our earlier lessons managed to cover the life essentials: food, water and flirting. But after two weeks in Hong Kong it's probably about time you learned some verbs. After all, success rates inviting strangers to dinner plummet alarmingly when your only way of asking them is to repeat the word for restaurant over and over again. Time to get some verbs in your repertoire. T...

My attorney resembled nothing so much as a madman, half-crazed under the Hong Kong sun, and gesticulating wildly as he tried to convince the cab driver to take us to the best hotel on the island, or - failing that - any hotel at all. The exact cause of his distress was lost on his skeptical subject, although any English speaker within earshot would have grokked his meaning almost instantly, if onl...

Learning Cantonese? Our third Cantonese listening test ramps up the difficulty level a degree. Now that we're nearing the end of our introductory series, we expect you to be starting to piece things together, which is why we throw you into the deep end today with questions that combine and build upon everything we've covered to date. The fifteen questions we present today are designed to reinforce...

Learning Cantonese? We've all heard the horror stories, of friends of friends who came to Hong Kong for a nice beach vacation only to find themselves trapped at Hong Kong Disney for two weeks straight, shocked at the general lack of English on the island and unable to muster the courage to find their way to the closest subway, bus or taxi.... While we'll leave finding the beach as a self-study exe...

Learning Cantonese? By this point we're a bit over an hour into our series for learning the Cantonese language. We've covered the tones, learned some of the most critical phrases in the Cantonese, and reviewed how to make simple sentences with adjectives. We've also had a single lesson teaching all of the important pronouns and how to make them plural. In this lesson, we extend our knowledge to co...

Ever wanted to tell someone you didn't understand anything they said, and then realized that required speaking Cantonese yourself? This sort of communicative slip-up happens all the time to those new to Hong Kong or the Cantonese language. And that's why our first Critical Nouns lesson reviews the six most important pronouns in the Cantonese language. Because no matter what you want to say, we wan...

Could they do it, we could hear you thinking? Could the geniuses behind Popup Cantonese come up with yet another lesson on adjectives? And could it be just as essential for our continued survival as a species as our previous lessons? We think the answer is yes. So join Brendan and Nicole today for this podcast as we put an end to constant hunger and fatigue by learning three more super useful adje...

Stories of the time you pantomimed the "iceman dance" at the Kowloon Star ferry terminal are still being told in bars throughout the New Territories. So while we know people speak quickly in Hong Kong, this is a lesson on preserving dignity. In it, we'll teach you how to get people to calm down and speak more slowly, without the need for theatrics. In our third Critical Adjectives lesson we cover...

Learning Cantonese? With our first set of Critical Phrases lessons complete and our Critical Adjectives set nearing completion, we want to take a break from our regular programming today and give you a quick way to test your progress and reinforce the Cantonese you've already learned. So if you've just started to learn Cantonese take this fifteen question quiz designed to test your retention of wh...

While the words we focus on today may not be Shakespeare, it's hard to write anything without using one of good, bad, easy or difficult. Everyone starts somewhere. So if you're just starting to learn Cantonese join us for this Cantonese podcast and in just a few minutes you'll be ready to praise (or denounce) random things or people in Cantonese, not to mention telling random strangers in Hong Kon...

Want to learn Cantonese? In this series for absolute beginners to Cantonese, we teach some of the most high-frequency adjectives in the language. In this lesson we learn how to say "right" and "wrong", and how to use these two words in simple sentences. Listen up, and in another five minutes you'll be able to tell others they're right, or take advantage of your newfound Cantonese to assert alpha p...

Today we want to take a break from our gauntlet of Cantonese podcasts and provide you with a quick way to test your progress and reinforce the Cantonese you've already learned. We're going to do this by giving you a quick listening test to measure your comprehension of spoken Cantonese, and your ability to pick up on the six tones in Cantonese. The words and phrases covered in this test are drawn...