Cantonese Listening Tasks
Who is this material for?
Cantonese Listening Tasks consists of short dialogues that take place in a variety of everyday contexts. It has been developed for beginner or intermediate Cantonese learners to practise listening to the dialect. The tasks are shown in English, and so they can be used both by learners who read Chinese and those who do not.
What does this material contain?
This material contains a total of 16 units, each of which consists of two or more dialogues arising from a theme. Your task is to listen to the dialogues and answer the comprehension questions.
| Unit 1 | What fruit do you like most? | Unit 9 | How do you want to spend this weekend? |
| Unit 2 | Do you live with your family? | Unit 10 | How much are the roses? |
| Unit 3 | What’s your new telephone number? | Unit 11 | Who’ll do the washing-up tonight? |
| Unit 4 | What do you do in the morning? | Unit 12 | Which movie are we seeing today? |
| Unit 5 | What’s your dream-date like? | Unit 13 | It’s cold today! |
| Unit 6 | I want to rent a flat. | Unit 14 | How do you relieve stress? |
| Unit 7 | Taxi, please. | Unit 15 | I just came back from holiday! |
| Unit 8 | How much is it? | Unit 16 | I am sick today. |
To support your listening and to help you gain more from the dialogues, all the dialogues are provided with:
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An English gloss
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A transcription in Chinese characters
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Yale romanisation
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You can turn on and off these support features according to your needs.
How to use this site?
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We suggest that you first listen to the dialogues without referring to any of the support features. Just read the questions and listen for the answers. This encourages you to focus on meaning while you listen, instead of being distracted by individual sounds or expressions. |
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After the listening, you can check the answers by clicking on the key button. You can toggle between reading the comprehension questions and the key easily with these buttons. |
You may want to study the dialogues more closely after the listening task. You can use any (or any combinations) of the support features to help you do so. For example:
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You can read the dialogue aloud with the help of Yale romanisation. |
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If you do not read Chinese, you can use the English gloss to find out the meaning of certain expressions. |
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If you read Chinese, you can see the complete script of the dialogues from the transcription. |
Technical matters
The dialogues have been recorded in Real Media format. You need to have either Windows Media Player or Real Player to listen to the sound files. Click on the hyperlinks to download the software if you do not already have them.