Cantonese Course Outline

The Cactus Course Outlines provide a learning framework for the Cactus Foreign Language Evening Courses. They are designed to provide you with a good idea of what you might cover over a 10-week period, and include typical themes, grammar and vocabulary fields. They are flexible rather than prescriptive, in that our teachers may decide to adapt their learning plans to the specific level, aims and interests of their classes. Use the tabs below to view the relevant Chinese Cantonese course outline for your level. If you want to cover the same course outline in a shorter period of time, we also offer One-Week Online Courses and 5-week Courses.

Beginner 1

Topics & Vocabulary
  • Greetings in normal and polite ways
  • Introducing yourself or someone else using various titles
  • Useful expressions
  • Numbers 1- 99
  • Asking for and offering information
  • Likes & dislikes
  • Eating & drinking in a restaurant or a tea house
  • Expressing days
  • Family and friends
  • Asking for help start with “chíng mahn” 請問
  • Meeting friends and doing things together
  • Inviting friends for a meal
Grammar
  • Global basic sentences with to be “haih”係, to have “yáuh”有, to do “jouh”做 and negative forms
  • Sentences with adjective structure without to be
  • Past, and “the situation has changed” with a functional marker “jo là” 佐啦
  • Pronouns – subject “ngóh” 我, possessive “ge” 喞
  • Singular vs. Plural
  • Auxiliary words e.g. “séung” 想
  • Word order in sentences
  • Question forms – affirmative, negative and question
  • Classifiers (e.g. a cup of tea = “yat bui chàh” 一杯茶 )
  • Particles such as “a” 啊 “jèk” 渣
  • Two functions of “hóu” 好
Cultural Content
  • Chinese names
  • Hand shaking etc.
  • “Beliefs” – lucky/unlucky numbers and colours
  • Cantonese dietary habits e.g. “Yam chàh” 飲茶 and “Dín sam” 點心
  • Characters and calligraphy
Skills Work
  • Extensive practice of Cantonese Pinyin and tones
  • Lots of speaking practice
  • Lots of listening practice
  • Lots of reading practice
  • Recognizing pictograph characters
  • Reading simple characters practice

Beginner 2

Topics & Vocabulary
  • Shopping and asking about prices, sizes and colours
  • Saying thank you in different ways
  • Making a complaint
  • Making an apology with “deui mjyuh” 對唔住
  • Expressing various emotions using adjectives
  • Making an excuse, using “yiu” 要
  • Express days of the week in different ways
  • Getting around by transport
  • Asking direction and location
  • Planning a holiday
  • Four directions
Grammar
  • Review & practise previous level grammar (e.g. through mixed tense work – present/past)
  • Present continuous with different patterns e.g. “haih” 係
  • Past and future with time words “kàhm yaht” 噙日 & “tīng yaht”
  • Modal verbs such as “sīk” 識 & “hó yíh” 可以 “wuih” 會
  • Comparison using “béi” 比 and the superlatives ‘jeui’ 最
  • Ordinal numbers using “daih” 第
  • Time phrases – adverbs of frequency such as “sáu sìn” 首先, “yìhn hauh” 然後
  • “Wh”s
  • Expressing excessiveness with “taai” 太 + adj. + “là” 啦
  • More about classifiers (e.g. a cup of tea/two boxes of chocolates.)
Cultural Content
  • Various festivals e.g. Chinese New Year
  • Major dialects in Chinese language
  • Various forms of Cantonese
  • Cantonese and Pidgin English
Skills Work
  • Lots of Pinyin and tones practice
  • Lots of speaking practice
  • Lots of listening practice
  • Lots of reading practice
  • Recognizing pictograph characters
  • Lots of simple characters writing practice

Beginner 3

Topics & Vocabulary
  • Talking about the weather
  • Expressing years and days
  • About going on holiday
  • About leisure activities
  • Express your opinions on keeping fit
  • Most common kind of sports
  • Common feelings and emotions
  • Entertainment, watching football and seeing a film
  • Saying how you are feeling
  • Seeing a doctor
  • Hobbies
Grammar
  • Review & practise previous level grammar
  • Conditional sentences with ‘when’
  • Approximate numbers
  • Present perfect with particle “gwo” 過
  • Building up phrases such as “gòi” 該 + v + “là” 啦
  • Understanding potential verb phrases with “dāk” 得/ “m” 唔
  • Complex sentences such as “yān waih” 因為… “só yíh” 所以…
  • “Māt yéh” 乜嘢 in affirmative sentences
  • Attributive clause with “gē” 喞
  • Making adverbs from adjectives
  • More about the superlatives ‘jeui’ 最
  • Continuing action
  • Four character phrases
Cultural Content
  • Customs of celebration e.g. special food for Chinese New Year
  • Famous Chinese Kong Fu
  • Chinese and Western medicine
  • Some Cantonese adopted in English such as Typhoon, Mahjong
Skills Work
  • Pronunciation – key sound practice
  • Lots of speaking and listening practice
  • Reading short essay practice
  • Recognizing characters and writing common characters practice

Elementary 1

Topics & Vocabulary
  • Paying a compliment re e.g. new clothes, new house
  • More about directions words
  • How to express likes and dislikes
  • Leisure time, playing Mahjong 麻將
  • Fashion
  • Express one’s judgements
  • Citizens and Policemen
  • All the major colours
  • Discussing gambling
  • School life
  • How to say large numbers
Grammar
  • Review & practise previous level grammar (e.g. through mixed tense work – present/past)
  • Verb endings
  • Future with “wuih” 會
  • Result of actions with words e.g. “hóu là” 好啦
  • Action with verb complement
  • Present continuous e.g. “hai douh”
  • Comparative/superlative “gàng” 更/“jeui” 最
  • Making more adjectives with ‘hóu” 好
  • Making sentences shorter
  • Frequency of time expressions
  • Passive construction with “beih” 被
  • More about classifiers
Cultural Content
  • Two biggest symbols – dragon, the Dragon-boat Festival
  • One of the most ancient Chinese arts – pottery
  • Education system in China
  • Colour symbolism in Chinese culture
  • Mahjong 麻將 and fantan
  • Religions
Skills Work
  • Lots of speaking practice
  • Lots of listening practice
  • Pronunciation practice
  • Reading short essay practice
  • Writing common characters practice
  • Translating from Chinese to English, and vice versa

Elementary 2

Topics & Vocabulary
  • Travelling
  • Checking in at the airport
  • Expressing clock time
  • Talking about driving
  • About being lucky
  • Problems with a photograph on an immigration application
  • How to use active and passive verbs
  • About proximity and distance
  • How to build up complicated descriptive phrases
  • Command sentences
Grammar
  • Review & practice previous level grammar (e.g. through mixed tense/aspect work – present/past/future simple/continuous/perfect)
  • Consolidate & extend the following concepts & structures:
  • Duration expressions
  • Completely with verb ending “saai”
  • Compound sentences e.g. “lihn … dou…”
  • Giving advice using v + “duo dī” 多啲
  • Passive construction with “beih” 被
  • Relative clauses
  • More negative forms e.g. “mòuh” 無
  • Conjunctions
  • Complement of degree construction v + “dāk” 得 + adj.
  • All the comparison forms
Cultural content
  • Cantonese opera
  • Chinese lunar calendar
  • “Kèihpòuh” 旗袍 and “Cheongsam” 長衫
  • Laughing and smiling
  • Driving on the right hand side
Skills Work
  • Extensive speaking/active practice
  • Extensive listening and reading practice
  • Lots of writing practice

Elementary 3

Topics & Vocabulary
  • Law and order
  • Crimes
  • Speaking different languages
  • Banking and finance
  • In the bank
  • Impact of recession
  • Continents and Oceans
  • Telling how you would like your meat to be done
  • In the post office
  • Where can I post my parcel?
Grammar
  • Review, consolidate & extend previous level grammar
  • Present perfect
  • ore slang phrases
  • Emphasizing the conclusion e.g. “jauh” 就… “dihng la” 定喇
  • Various complex sentences e.g. “jí yáuh” 只有… “chòih” 才…
  • Wide range of functions’ structure “haih” 係 … “lahk”勒
  • Building up more adverbial phrases for speaker emphasis e.g. “kèih saht” 其實
  • Word order corresponding to sequence of events
  • Idiomatic expressions and colloquialisms
  • Exclamatory expressions
  • Understanding some phrasal verbs e.g. “fan gaau” 瞓覺, “fan yat gaau” 瞓一覺
  • Final particle for identification
Cultural Content
  • Greetings with Chinese culture
  • Hong Kong’s return to China
  • Cantonese and Mandarin
  • “Mihn jí ” 面子
  • Provinces and cities
Skills Work
  • Extensive speaking/active practice
  • Extensive reading practice
  • Extensive listening practice
  • Creative writing
  • Translation from Chinese into English and vice versa.

Intermediate 1

Topics & Vocabulary
  • Review, consolidate and extend, including:
  • Talking about hobbies and changing hobbies
  • Describing an accident
  • Talking about weekly routine
  • Grocery shopping
  • Ordering food
  • Planning a trip
Grammar
  • Review, consolidate and extend, including:
  • Using more slang words to make sentences
  • Complex sentences
  • Conjunctions
  • Narratives
  • Patterns of word formation and abbreviations
  • Reduplication and onomatopoeia
Cultural Content
  • Grocery shopping in traditional market
  • Cooking methods
Skills Work
  • Extensive speaking and listening practice in a conversational context
  • Spontaneous language exchange
  • Foundation work on Cantonese allophones
  • Technical exercise on native-like pronunciation
  • Guided script writing
  • Holding a discussion, sharing ideas and making decisions
  • Translation from Chinese into English and vice versa via news titles, video clips, pictures

Intermediate 2

Topics & Vocabulary
  • Review, consolidate and extend, including:
  • Re-telling world-famous stories
  • Employment: interviewing and being interviewed
  • Talking about own job
  • Recipes and cooking
  • Keeping a pet
Grammar
  • Review, consolidate and extend, including:
  • Verb-object compounds
  • Differentiation between adjectives and stative verbs
  • Revisiting classifiers and their more advanced usage
  • Topicalization in sentence structure
  • Introducing the essential “non-functional” word
Cultural Content
  • Chinese dining etiquette
  • Face reading
Skills Work
  • Extensive speaking and listening practice in a conversational context
  • Spontaneous language exchange via recent news and role-plays
  • Continuous work on Cantonese allophones and native-like pronunciation
  • Guided script writing
  • Structured presentation
  • Translation from Chinese into English and vice versa via news titles, video clips, pictures

Intermediate 3

Topics & Vocabulary
  • Review, consolidate and extend, including:
  • Creative story-writing
  • Entertainment and activities
  • Commenting on experiences
  • Making recommendations
  • A day out with a Cantonese speaker
Grammar
  • Verbs in pure form and as co-verbs
  • Revisiting verb-endings and consolidate their use as aspect-makers
  • Verb endings used in resultative and causative sentences
  • Making comparisons
  • Cohesive devices in story telling
  • Quantification
  • Persuasive language
Cultural Content
  • Chinese wedding traditions
  • Idioms and proverbs
Skills Work
  • Extensive speaking and listening practice in a near-immersive language environment
  • Spontaneous language exchange via recent news and role-plays
  • Continuous work on native-like pronunciation
  • Independent script / story writing
  • Translation from Chinese into English and vice versa via news titles, video clips

Upper Intermediate Lower

Topics & Vocabulary
  • Review, consolidate and extend, including:
  • Social media
  • Personalities
  • Current trends e.g. fashion, pop-culture
  • Visiting a doctor, common diseases and illnesses
  • Living with a Cantonese speaker e.g. habits, social etiquettes
Grammar
  • Review, consolidate and extend, including:
  • Negative sentences
  • Forming questions and answers
  • Relative clauses
  • Subordinate clauses
  • Conditional Clauses
  • Reported speech
  • Cantonese speech conventions
  • Particles and interjections
  • Colloquial sentence structure
  • Code-mixing (code-switching) and loanword
Cultural Content
  • Extended family tree
  • Superstitions around Chinese Zodiacs and CNY
Skills Work
  • Extensive speaking and listening practice in a near-immersive language environment
  • Spontaneous language exchange via recent news and role-plays
  • Continuous work on native-like pronunciation
  • Independent script / story writing
  • Translation from Chinese into English and vice versa via news titles, video clips, pictures
  • Chinese characters formation

Upper Intermediate Higher

Topics & Vocabulary
  • Environmental issues
  • World / cultural figures
  • Exchanging conversations in a business context
  • Addictions and personal well-being
  • Euphemisms and taboo words
  • Animal world and extinction
Grammar
  • Review, consolidate and extend, including:
  • Categories of final particles and their natural application
  • Compound particles
  • Integrated use of colloquial sentence structure and code-switching
Cultural Content
  • Influential figures in Chinese culture
  • Folklore or idioms related to historical figures
  • Cantonese pop-culture
Skills Work
  • Extensive speaking and listening practice in a complete immersive language environment
  • Structured language exchange via discussions or debates
  • Accent reduction pronunciation drills
  • Independent writing in romanization
  • Translation from Chinese into English and vice versa via media e.g., news articles, video clips, pictures
  • Chinese characters writing / recognition

Advanced

Functional Language
  • Developing an argument and defending a point of view
  • Challenging arguments and opinions
  • Expressing beliefs and expressing opinions tentatively
  • Summarising information, ideas and arguments
  • Deducing and inferring
  • Justifying an argument
  • Expressing caution and expressing reservation
  • Expressing empathy and sympathy
  • Evaluating different standpoints
Lexis
  • Vocabulary specific to the topic and subject areas
  • Phrases and expressions relating to the language functions listed above
Topics and Culture
  • International events, current political and economic issues
  • The internet, global communication, social media
  • Diversity, equal opportunity, social injustice, human rights
  • The future of the planet, climate change, global warming
  • Well-being, mental health, stress management
Grammar
  • Inversion
  • Persuasive writing
  • Compound sentences
  • Coordinate clause
Pronunciation
  • The clear pronunciation of topic and subject-area specific vocabulary
  • Sounds with minimal interference from the first language
  • Various features of pronunciation which only occasionally deviate from an internationally intelligible model
  • A range of stress and intonation patterns, pitch and volume to convey subtle shifts in meaning and attitude

Proficient

Functional Language
  • All of the functions at Advanced level
  • Asserting
  • Denying
  • Softening and downplaying propositions
  • Contradicting
  • Implying
  • Affirming
Lexis
  • A good command of a very broad lexical repertoire
  • A wide range of idiomatic expressions and colloquialisms
  • Phrases and expressions relating to the language functions listed above
Topics and Culture
  • Global economy and the influence of global politics
  • The global rise of the far right in the 21st century
  • Internet fraud, scamming, money laundering
  • The impact of Covid on the workplace and across industry
  • Love, marriage and sexuality in the 21st Century
Grammar
  • Basic old Cantonese
  • Confucius proverbs
  • Switching to/from formal Cantonese and informal Cantonese
Pronunciation
  • Produce individual sounds so as to be fully understood, with only a rare sound that deviates from an internationally intelligible model
  • Stress and intonation patterns which are recognisably specific to the language without any lapses in intelligibility

Understanding Language Levels

If you are taking a language course with Cactus you can find out more about our language levels and how you can track your progress using the ‘can do statements’ below. These statements outline the key things that you should be able to say and understand once you have completed each level. Can do statements are officially recognised as a set of performance-related scales describing what a learner is able to do in a foreign language, in accordance with the CEFR (Common European Framework of Reference for Languages) and the CEFR defined levels.

CEFR Levels

If you are taking a language course with Cactus you can find out more about our language levels and how you can track your progress using the ‘can do statements’. These statements outline the key things that you should be able to say and understand once you have completed each level. Can do statements are officially recognised as a set of performance-related scales describing what a learner is able to do in a foreign language, in accordance with the CEFR (Common European Framework of Reference for Languages) and the CEFR defined levels.

Beginner (A1)

  • You can understand and use familiar everyday expressions and basic phrases aimed at the satisfaction of needs of a concrete type
  • You can introduce yourself and others
  • You can ask and answer questions about personal details such as where you live, what you do, people you know and things you have
  • You can ask and give directions
  • You can order food and drink
  • You can make very basic travel and accommodation arrangements
  • You can have a basic conversation, provided the other person talks slowly and clearly and is prepared to help.

Elementary (A2)

  • You can understand sentences and frequently used expressions related to areas including basic personal and family information, shopping, local geography and employment
  • You can communicate in simple and routine tasks, requiring a simple and direct exchange of information on familiar and routine matters
  • You can describe, in simple terms, aspects of your background, immediate environment and matters in areas of immediate need
  • You can comfortably ‘get by’ when visiting the country, albeit with some difficulty.

Intermediate (B1)

  • You can understand the main points of clear standard input on familiar matters regularly encountered in work, school, leisure, etc.
  • You can deal with most situations likely to arise whilst travelling in an area where the language is spoken
  • You can produce simple connected text on topics which are familiar or of personal interest
  • You can describe experiences and events
  • You can talk about dreams, hopes and ambitions
  • You can briefly give reasons and explanations for opinions and plans
  • You could consider working in the country using the language (e.g. bar/counter work, waiting service in cafes or basic office work).

Upper Intermediate (B2)

  • You can understand the main ideas of complex text on both concrete and abstract topics, including technical discussions in your field of specialisation.
  • You can interact with a degree of fluency and spontaneity that makes regular interaction with native speakers quite possible, without strain for either party.
  • You can produce clear, detailed text on a wide range of subjects and explain a viewpoint on a topical issue, giving the advantages and disadvantages of various options.
  • You can do business with speakers of the language in most run-of-the-mill situations.

Advanced (C1)

  • You can understand a wide range of demanding, longer texts, and recognise implicit meaning
  • You can express yourself fluently and spontaneously without much obvious searching for expressions
  • You can use the language flexibly and effectively for social, academic and professional purposes
  • You can produce clear, well-structured, detailed text on complex subjects, showing controlled use of organisational patterns, logical flow of text, and clear awareness of the audience.

Proficient (C2)

  • You can understand with ease virtually everything heard or read
  • You can summarise information from different spoken and written sources
  • You can reconstruct arguments and accounts in a coherent presentation
  • You can express yourself spontaneously, very fluently and precisely
  • You can differentiate finer shades of meaning, even in the most complex situations.

How to book with Cactus

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