Cantonese Grammar: A Comprehensive Guide to What Actually Matters

Here's the thing nobody tells you upfront: Cantonese grammar is weird. Not hard necessarily—actually, in a lot of ways it's simpler than the languages you learned in school. But it works differently enough that you need to know what you're getting into.

Look, you can find plenty of textbook resources that'll throw 500 pages of grammar rules at you. I'm not doing that. Instead, this guide to Cantonese grammar covers what actually matters when you're trying to understand and speak the language, based on what linguists agree on and what actually works for learners.

The Good News About Cantonese Grammar First

Before we get into the weird stuff, let's talk about what this language doesn't have:

No verb conjugation. I went, you go, he goes? Nope. In Cantonese, the verb stays the same no matter who's doing it or when they did it. 我去 (ngo5 heoi3) means "I go," "I went," "I'm going," "I will go"—whatever. You figure out the time from context or by adding time words.

No grammatical gender. No masculine/feminine nouns like French or Spanish. A table is a table. Done.

No plural forms. One dog, two dogs, ten dogs—they all use the same word: 狗 (gau2). If you need to specify "multiple dogs," you add 啲 (di1) or a number.

No articles. No "the," "a," or "an" to memorize rules about.

This is genuinely simpler than most European languages. The trade-off? All that information gets communicated differently—through particles, classifiers, and grammatical structure. That's where things get interesting.

The Six Tones (Yeah, You Need Them)

Here's the part everyone freaks out about: Cantonese has six tones. Mandarin has four. English has... basically none (we use pitch for emphasis, not meaning).

What does this mean practically? The same sound with different tones means completely different things. This isn't optional or "you'll pick it up later." Tones are the word.

The six tones break down like this:

You don't need to memorize those numbers. What you need is massive amounts of listening practice. Like, hours and hours of it. The research is clear on this: tone languages require audio input from day one, not whenever you "get around to it."

If you're using Anki decks or textbook materials without audio, you're screwing yourself. Seriously. Every word you learn needs to be learned with its tone, from native speaker audio. Not from your textbook's romanization, not from your best guess. From actual Cantonese speakers.

For more on how Chinese tones work across different varieties, check out our post on Chinese language tones.

It's Not Tense, It's Aspect (And This Concept Matters)

Here's something that trips up every English speaker: Cantonese doesn't have tenses. It has aspect markers instead.

What's the difference? Tense tells you when something happens (past, present, future). Aspect tells you how an action unfolds—is it completed? Ongoing? Have you experienced it before?

This is one of the most important grammar rules to understand early because aspect changes meaning in ways English speakers don't naturally think about.

Understanding Aspect Markers with Examples

咗 (zo2) - completed aspect

緊 (gan2) - continuous aspect / progressive

過 (gwo3) - experiential aspect

開 (hoi1) - habitual aspect

The verb itself doesn't change—you just stick these particles after it. Once you get used to thinking in aspect instead of tense reference, it actually makes a lot of sense.

For more on how Cantonese relates to Mandarin and other Chinese varieties, check out our post on whether Cantonese is a language or dialect.

Sentence-Final Particles: Where Meaning and Mood Live

This is where Cantonese gets spicy. Those little sounds at the end of sentences? They're not just filler. They completely change the meaning and indicate the speaker's mood or attitude.

Final particles are one of the richest features of colloquial Cantonese speech. You cannot speak naturally without them.

啊 (aa3) makes things friendly or sarcastic, depending on your tone. 嘅 (ge3) adds subtle emphasis. 呢 (ne1) softens questions. 㗎 (gaa3) stresses a point.

The same sentence structure with different particles can mean totally different things:

You cannot learn these from a textbook description. You need to hear them in context, repeatedly, until your brain starts to intuitively understand what each particle does. This is why learning from real content beats memorizing lists every single time.

And here's the kicker: you can stack multiple final particles at the end of one sentence. Mandarin can't do this. Cantonese has one of the most comprehensive particle systems of any Chinese language.

Basic Sentence Structure: The SVO Pattern

Basic Cantonese follows Subject-Verb-Object order, just like English:

我 (I) + 睇 (watch) + 戲 (movie) = "I watch a movie"

But when you add more information, there's a reliable pattern:

Time + Subject + Manner + Place + Verb + Object

Example sentence structure: 我 (I) + 上個禮拜 (last week) + 同朋友一齊 (with friends) + 喺戲院 (at cinema) + 睇咗 (watched) + 呢場戲 (this movie)

Time goes early. Place goes before the verb. Duration comes after the verb. Once you know the pattern, it's consistent.

The Cantonese language is also topic-prominent, meaning you can move things around for emphasis if you're clear about what you're talking about. But honestly? Stick to this basic sentence structure until you're intermediate. Don't overthink it.

Classifiers: A Core Grammatical Concept

English speakers think of counting as simple: one dog, two dogs, three dogs. Just add a number.

Cantonese (and other Chinese languages) require a classifier between the number and the noun. Different categories of things use different classifiers—this is a fundamental grammar rule you'll encounter constantly.

Common classifier examples:

So "one dog" is 一隻狗 (jat1 zek3 gau2), "two books" is 兩本書 (loeng5 bun2 syu1), "three cars" is 三架車 (saam1 gaa3 ce1).

The good news? The most common classifier, 個, works for a huge number of nouns. Start with that one and expand gradually as a learner.

The other good news? You learn classifiers best by just encountering them with vocabulary. When you see "cup of water" enough times in actual speech or written Cantonese, 杯水 (bui1 seoi2) just becomes a unit in your brain. Don't stress about memorizing all the classifiers in advance—that's a waste of time.

Negation: Simple Pattern Recognition

Most Cantonese negation words start with "m-"—a useful pattern to remember:

To negate a verb, just stick 唔 in front:

The only exception is 有 (jau5) "to have," which becomes 冇 (mou5) "don't have" instead of using 唔.

That's it. No complex conjugation tables. Negation in Cantonese follows a much simpler pattern than in European languages.

Examples of negation in different contexts:

Pronouns and Possessive Forms

Cantonese pronouns are straightforward. Unlike some languages, they don't change form based on whether they're the subject or object of a sentence:

Personal pronouns:

Possessive forms use 嘅 (ge3):

But here's a cool trick: classifiers can sometimes replace the possessive marker:

This is specific to Cantonese grammar—Mandarin doesn't allow this structure.

Questions: Two Main Patterns

Pattern 1: Just add rising intonation at the end. Turn any statement into a question by making your voice go up.

你去？ (nei5 heoi3?) - "You're going?"

Pattern 2: Use the "A-not-A" structure—basically ask "do or don't?"

你去唔去？ (nei5 heoi3 m4 heoi3?) - "Are you going or not going?"

Both patterns work reliably. The second one is more explicit.

For question words (who, what, where), they just sit in the same position as the answer would—no English-style question inversion:

This sentence structure is simpler than English question formation.

Comparison Structures

To say something is "more X than Y," you use 過 (gwo3) after the adjective:

佢高過我 (keoi5 gou1 gwo3 ngo5) - "He's taller than me" (literally: "He tall-than me")

That's different from Mandarin comparison structure, which uses 比 (bǐ) before the comparison standard. Just another example where Cantonese and Mandarin diverge in their grammatical structure.

More comparison examples:

What About Characters and Written Cantonese?

Yeah, Cantonese uses Chinese characters. Traditional ones, specifically, in Hong Kong.

But here's the thing: grammar and characters are separate skills. You can learn to speak and understand Cantonese without reading a single character. Should you eventually learn them? Yeah, probably, especially if you want to actually live the language. But you don't need to tackle characters and grammar simultaneously on day one.

When you do start with characters, the same principle applies: learn them in context, from real sentences you're already hearing and understanding. Not from isolated character lists in a textbook.

Written Chinese used in Hong Kong can be either formal (based on written Mandarin but read with Cantonese pronunciation) or colloquial written Cantonese. Most everyday texting and casual writing uses the colloquial form with Cantonese-specific characters.

Adverbs and Time Reference

Since Cantonese doesn't use tense, adverbs become crucial for time reference:

Time adverbs:

Example phrase showing time reference:

The time word 尋日 (yesterday) establishes when, while 咗 indicates the completed aspect. This combination gives you all the temporal information you need.

The Real Challenge: Not the Grammar Rules

Here's what the research shows: Cantonese is an FSI Category 4 language. That means the Foreign Service Institute estimates it takes around 2,200 classroom hours to reach a fluent level.

But here's the thing—the grammar isn't why. The Cantonese grammar rules are actually pretty straightforward once you understand the logic. The challenge is:

Traditional textbook resources suck at all of these things. They give you formal written Chinese read with Cantonese pronunciation. They have mediocre audio. They teach characters before speech. They don't give you nearly enough particle practice in actual context.

What works better for learning Cantonese? Learning from actual Cantonese content—shows, YouTube, conversations—where you hear real people using real Cantonese with all its particles and tones and natural flow.

How Migaku Actually Helps With This Comprehensive Grammar Guide

Look, I'm not going to tell you that you can skip all the hard work. Cantonese takes time, and there's no magic app that'll make you fluent in 30 days.

But here's what Migaku does that textbook lessons and apps don't: it lets you learn grammar from real content instead of made-up textbook sentences.

You can watch Hong Kong shows on Netflix with the Migaku browser extension, and when you hit a sentence with 咗 or 緊 or a bunch of final particles stacked up, you can instantly look up what's going on, add that whole sentence to your flashcards, and review it later. You're not memorizing "咗 = completed aspect" from a table. You're learning "oh, that's how native speakers use 咗 when talking about finishing dinner."

The extension works with YouTube too, so all those Cantonese vloggers and cooking channels and street interviews from Hong Kong—that's your comprehensive grammar textbook. Real grammar rules in action. How people actually speak.

And since Migaku uses spaced repetition for your flashcards, those particles and aspect markers and classifiers stick because you're reviewing them in actual context with real examples—not as isolated grammar rules.

The mobile app syncs everything, so you can review on your commute. The grammar concepts you're learning aren't some abstract lesson—they're the actual patterns you heard someone use while talking about their day or reviewing a restaurant or whatever.

That's how you get from "I understand the grammar rule" as a concept to "I can actually use this naturally as a speaker." From real content, with real context, reviewed with spaced repetition.

You can try the whole thing free for 10 days. No credit card required. Just connect it to Netflix or YouTube and start learning from stuff you'd actually want to watch anyway.