Best app to learn Cantonese: every app that teaches it, compared
你好nay-HOH“hello” in Cantonese
Start with Pimsleur ($149.95 a year) to hear and say Hong Kong Cantonese from the first lesson, or Glossika (about $199 a year) for sentences from A1 to C1, written in traditional characters with Jyutping. Duolingo has no Cantonese course for English speakers. Add uTalk or Drops for everyday words, Pleco as a free dictionary that searches by Jyutping, and a tutor on italki or Preply to correct your tones.
Prices checked 6 Sept to 12 Oct 2026 · How we check
Our picks
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Best to start speaking Cantonese
Pimsleur
Audio course
$149.95 a year$12.50 a month, billed yearly · Premium
Why it's here. Half-hour audio lessons get you answering aloud, which suits a commute or a walk. Download lessons before you leave and you can practise without a connection.
Free: No free tier; 7-day free trial on subscriptions.
Skip it if you want to read and write, or want something free: it is audio first, with a 7-day trial.
One level of 30 daily lessons, about 15 hours, in the Cantonese of Hong Kong.
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Best free way to talk with Cantonese speakers
Tandem
Language exchange
$39.99 a year$3.33 a month, billed yearly · Tandem Pro Intro
Why it's here. Talk and write to native speakers while helping them with your language. It is a free way to find conversation partners, though it works best when you are willing to help each other.
Free: Free account with many features; Tandem Pro unlocks the rest.
Skip it if you want lessons: it finds you conversation partners, it does not teach.
300 languages
12 of the 41 apps we cover list Cantonese; 10 of them have a free tier.
Cantonese is the Chinese of Hong Kong, Macau and Guangdong, and of many Chinese communities abroad. It is a different spoken language from Mandarin, with more tones, and far fewer apps teach it: most of the big courses teach Mandarin only. Hong Kong writes it in traditional characters, and learners spell its sounds with a romanisation, most often Jyutping, which marks each tone with a number.
What a year of Cantonese costs
Every app that teaches Cantonese and sells a yearly plan, cheapest first, from the plans on each app's own pages. Not on it, because they sell no yearly plan in dollars: Gus on the Go and Pleco.
The yearly planPaying month to month for 12 months
- uTalkone language about $30 · $59.88 if you pay monthly
- Tandemall its languages · free tier $39.99
- Dropsall its languages · free tier $69.99 · $132 if you pay monthly
- Clozemasterall its languages · free tier $79.99 · $155.88 if you pay monthly
- LingQall its languages · free tier $119.99 · $179.88 if you pay monthly
- Talkpalall its languages · free tier $119.99 · $239.88 if you pay monthly
- Mango Languagesall its languages about $120 · $167.88 if you pay monthly
- Pimsleurone language $149.95 · $239.40 if you pay monthly
- Lingall its languages · free tier $149.99 · $203.88 if you pay monthly
- Glossikaone language about $199 · $239.88 if you pay monthly
How far each Cantonese course goes
Each app's Cantonese course as its maker describes it: the level it says the course reaches, and how big it is. 1 of the 7 courses state a CEFR level; the rest use their own levels or state none. A course's level is what its lessons cover, not proof that you will reach it. Sizes are each maker's own measure (words, hours, lessons or units), so they cannot be compared directly. Read from each maker's pages on 12 Oct 2026. What the CEFR levels mean.
| App and course | How far it goes | How big it is | Writing system |
|---|---|---|---|
| GlossikaCantonese · Glossika: Cantonese course | A1 to C1 | 5,000+ words and sentences | Traditional characters, with Jyutping |
| ClozemasterCantonese · nothing stated on Clozemaster: Cantonese | Not stated | Not stated | Not stated |
| DropsCantonese · nothing stated on Drops: Cantonese | Not stated | Not stated | Not stated |
| LingQCantonese library · LingQ: learn Cantonese | Not stated | Thousands of hours of audio lessons with transcripts | Not stated |
| PimsleurChinese (Cantonese) · Pimsleur: Cantonese lifetime course | Not stated | One level: 30 daily lessons, about 15 hours | Not stated |
| PlecoCantonese dictionary add-ons · Google Play: Pleco listing | Not stated | Not stated | Jyutping or Yale romanisation; Cantonese dictionaries and audio are add-ons |
| uTalkCantonese (Traditional Chinese) · uTalk: Cantonese | Not stated | 2,500+ words and phrases in 60+ topics | Traditional characters |
Every app that teaches Cantonese
Recommended first within each type of app. Sort any column or filter by what matters to you.
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| Best for | Free tier | Speech | Tutor | Offline | CEFR | Refund or trial | Where to buy | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Course apps | |||||||||||
| Mango LanguagesCourse app | Free through many public libraries | About $120 a year$10 a month, billed yearly | $13.99 | — | Free sample Free trial on both personal plans; the first lesson of any language is free; 10 endangered and indigenous language courses are free; free full access through participating public libraries | No | No | Yes | A1 to B1by course | Free trial on Individual and Family plans; cancel before it ends and you are not charged | |
| LingCourse app | Asian and less-taught languages | $149.99 a year$12.50 a month, billed yearly | $16.99 | — | Free to keep using Free tier with limited lessons and limited dialogue practice, with ads | Yes | Live online tutors, booked separately through Ling Live. | — | — | 7-day free trial on the 12-month plan; 30-day money-back refund for yearly and lifetime subscriptions bought via Ling web (app-store purchases follow Apple's or Google's refund policy) | |
| Gus on the GoCourse app | A toddler's first words, bought once | — | — | — | No | — | — | — | — | — | |
| Audio courses | |||||||||||
| PimsleurAudio course | Audio lessons for a commute | $149.95 a year$12.50 a month, billed yearly | $19.95one language | $798 | No | Yes | — | Yes | — | 7-day free trial on subscriptions; 30 Day money back guarantee on purchases | |
| GlossikaAudio course | Sentence drills by ear | About $199 a year$16.58 a month, billed yearly | $19.99one language | — | Free trial 7-day full access with no credit card, plus a permanent Freemium tier covering nine minoritized languages | No | No | Yes | A1 to C1by course | 7-day free trial with no credit card; monthly payments are non-refundable, annual plans refundable pro rata within 60 days of purchase | |
| Vocabulary and flashcard apps | |||||||||||
| ClozemasterVocabulary and flashcards | Free vocabulary practice in context | $79.99 a year$6.67 a month, billed yearly | $12.99 | — | Free to keep using Free account with up to 30 sentences a day; Pro adds unlimited play and advanced features | — | — | Yes · on Pro, in the mobile app | — | 30-day money back guarantee on the Yearly plan; no refunds on Monthly plans | |
| uTalkVocabulary and flashcards | Phrases in 160 languages | About $30 a year$2.50 a month, billed yearly | $4.99 | — | Free sample Starter Words, a free 26-word pack in every language, plus an online demo at demo.utalk.com | No | No | Yes | A1 to A2by course | 28-day money-back guarantee | |
| DropsVocabulary and flashcards | Five-minute vocabulary sessions | $69.99 a year$5.83 a month, billed yearly | $11 | $150 | Free to keep using Free access capped at 5 minutes of play every 10 hours, with topics unlocked one at a time through gameplay | — | — | Yes | — | 7-day free trial on the Yearly plan; affiliate terms reference a 14-day refund period | |
| PlecoVocabulary and flashcards | Looking up any Chinese word, by drawing or camera | FreeBasic Bundle: $29.99 once | — | $59.99 | Free to keep using The dictionary is free for good, with two dictionaries, handwriting lookup, 500 stroke-order animations and no ads; the full flashcard system, camera lookup and the document reader are add-ons you buy once. | — | — | — | — | — | |
| Learning from real video, text and audio | |||||||||||
| LingQImmersion (video, reading) | Reading and listening to real content | $119.99 a year$10 a month, billed yearly | $14.99 | — | Free to keep using Free account capped at 20 saved words and phrases, 5 lessons created from imported content, and 1 audio playlist | — | — | Yes | — | Full refund during the first 30 days of an initial Premium subscription; no partial-month or unused-month refunds afterward. | |
| AI conversation practice | |||||||||||
| TalkpalAI conversation practice | AI conversation practice in many languages | $119.99 a year$10 a month, billed yearly | $19.99 | — | Free to keep using The Basic plan: 10 minutes of chat a day, with progress tracking and pronunciation checks. | Yes | No | No | — | A 14-day free trial for new users. Bought from Talkpal directly: a full refund if you ask within 30 days of a charge; not for app store purchases. | |
| Language exchange | |||||||||||
| TandemLanguage exchange | Language exchange with native speakers | $39.99 a year$3.33 a month, billed yearly | — | — | Free to keep using Free account with many features; Tandem Pro unlocks the rest | No | No | — | — | Google Play purchases refundable within 14 days of a 1-month subscription or 30 days of a 3-month or 12-month subscription; iOS refunds requested from iTunes within 14 days | |
Which to choose
You want to speak Cantonese from the first day
Pimsleur
Pimsleur's Cantonese course is one level of 30 audio lessons, about 15 hours, in the Cantonese spoken in Hong Kong: you answer aloud and copy the tones you hear. That one level is all Pimsleur sells in Cantonese, so plan what comes after it. Premium is $149.95 a year for one language, after a 7-day free trial.
You want a course that goes further
Glossika
Glossika's Cantonese course runs from A1 to C1 through 5,000+ sentences recorded by native speakers, each written in traditional characters with Jyutping. It drills sentences by ear rather than explaining grammar, and a placement test lets you skip what you know. It is about $199 a year after 7 days of full access.
You want everyday words and phrases
uTalk or Drops
uTalk's Cantonese has more than 2,500 everyday words and phrases in 60+ topics, recorded by native speakers and written in traditional characters, and its Starter Words pack is free. Drops teaches Cantonese words in five-minute picture games, free for 5 minutes every 10 hours. Clozemaster has Cantonese sentences with the most common words first, 30 a day free, once you know the basics.
You want to look words up and read
Pleco and LingQ
Pleco, the free Chinese dictionary, shows and searches Cantonese in Jyutping or Yale, with a free 22,000-entry Cantonese-English dictionary to download; more Cantonese dictionaries and Cantonese audio are paid add-ons. LingQ's Cantonese library has thousands of hours of audio with transcripts, made by native speakers for native speakers, so it suits learners past the basics.
You want a person to talk to
italki or Preply, or Tandem for free
italki and Preply both list Cantonese teachers, who set their own price for a lesson. Tandem pairs you free with Cantonese speakers who are learning your language, and Talkpal's AI tutor speaks Cantonese too, 10 minutes a day on its free plan.
Questions people ask
What is the best app to learn Cantonese?
To speak from day one, Pimsleur's Hong Kong course, one level of 30 lessons. For a longer course, Glossika, which runs from A1 to C1 in sentences with Jyutping. Beside either, uTalk or Drops for words, Pleco as your dictionary and a tutor on italki or Preply. The table lists every app that teaches Cantonese, with its price.
Does Duolingo teach Cantonese?
Not to English speakers. Duolingo lists its Chinese (Cantonese) course among the courses for people who speak Chinese (Simplified), and not among its courses for English speakers (both lists read on duolingo.com on 12 Oct 2026).
Should I learn Jyutping?
It helps from the start. Jyutping spells each Cantonese syllable in Latin letters with a number for its tone, as in gam1 jat6, "today". Glossika prints it under every sentence, and Pleco searches by Jyutping or by the older Yale system.
Is there a free app to learn Cantonese?
No full course is free, but several free tools help: Pleco's dictionary, Tandem's language partners, Clozemaster's 30 sentences a day, Drops' five minutes every 10 hours and uTalk's Starter Words. Mango Languages' Cantonese course is free through participating public libraries.
Is Cantonese the same as Mandarin?
No. They are different spoken languages, though both are written in Chinese characters: Hong Kong uses traditional characters, mainland China simplified ones for Mandarin. For Mandarin, see the best apps to learn Chinese.