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Fearful of being forced into marriage against your will? Concerned your prospective husband may be murderous scum and your family putting political allegiances above your health and longevity? Our advanced Cantonese lesson today is a listening test offering practical advice to the modern woman. If you've already been learning Cantonese for a while listen in and see how much you understand.

Note: our Cantonese lesson for today is an advanced listening test. This means we have a relatively lengthy dialogue followed by a short quiz that tests your comprehension. Try listening to our dialogue once and then taking the test. And if you don't quite understand what you've heard? Look for the answers using our annotated online transcript with its word-by-word mouseover popups.

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, this podcast will be a bit advanced for you; get started by listening to our Critical Phrases series for Absolute Beginners. Once you've worked through them, join us here for a quick look at asking to borrow things, as well as another way to make requests in general.

And if you have any questions or comments, feel free to write us at [email protected] or leave a note in our discussion section below.

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 earlier lesson in which we learned that Cantonese speakers are particularly fond of turning odd emotional exclamations into high frequency words? Well heavens if there isn't another example lurking in this lesson, along with a dramatic Cantonese dialogue that is several degrees towards strange. But we think you'll enjoy it. So listen in, and good luck!

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 placed the damn thing on the desk last night and it doesn't have legs so where on earth could it have gone?

Our beginner Cantonese lessons are all dialogue-based lessons that move at the speed you'll hear Cantonese spoken in Hong Kong. So if you're totally new to Cantonese you may find this a bit difficult to dissect. So if you're learning and want to practice these sentences over and over, be sure to visit our online transcript and vocabulary pages, where every sentence and word in our dialogue is accompanied by special audio recordings you can play over and over again. And let us know if you have any questions in the comment section below!

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 nothing short of performance art.

We wondered about this for a long time, especially considering the heat and humidity that envelops the island every summer. But then we met Nicole, who is slowly sharing Hong Kong's secrets with us. "We don't really have a lot of choice in the matter," she said, before adding "and I think there's something wrong with you guys biologically." Our table was littered with empty bottles of mango and raspberry juice purchased at the local store. "But we also don't drink so much juice, and that makes a difference too."

Learning Cantonese? In our advanced show for today we unleash Nicole and the rest of our team in a podcast filled-to-the-brim with our non-expert and possibly-dangerous opinions about your relationship problems. Don't have relationship problems you say? Then prepare to pass judgment on others' problems, because in this episode we delve into the perennial question of who should pay for what in a Hong Kong relationship.

Have a problem and looking for unvarnished advice from people who aren't related to you? The good news is that we've got a solution: write us at [email protected] and let us know what's bothering you. If you're lucky, we'll feature your problem (properly anonymized) in a future podcast. And let us know what you think of the show too.

If you've listened to our previous Critical Verb lessons, our fourth installment won't contain anything terribly surprising. Rather than a surprise appearance by David Bowie and impromptu studio versions of China Girl (working on it...), we just review the verbs "to eat", "to want" and "to give". So there is a lot to review here, but also some new stuff as well. In particular, we'll teach you how to put verbs into the past tense, and negate them once they're there.

Learning Cantonese? We've come a long way since our first Cantonese lesson. Back then we started with the tones and learned some basic phrases in Cantonese before moving on to simple sentences using adjectives. After that we moved on to high-frequency nouns and then finally more complex sentences involving verbs. That's a lot of ground to cover, so feel proud about how much you've done. And be sure to come back later this week when our first dialogue-based lesson makes its debut.

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.

For those of you who've been here here a while, join us for a test that starts by reviewing the three glottal stops you'll need to know how to pronounce. And then we have a range of questions covering everything from grammar patterns everything we've taught to date. We hope you find it challenging, and also useful as a way to reinforce the materials we've already learned. As always, questions are welcome on our site, or via email at [email protected].

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 desires. By the time this lesson is over you'll be able to tell others what you like, what you want and how you feel too. And for extra measure we also practice two new types of questions: making yes/no questions by repeating multi-character verbs and practicing the all-powerful "meh-sentence". So listen up. You'll master this stuff in no time.

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 tense you'll use to tell someone what you are studying, or in any other situation where the action is ongoing.

If you're completely new to Cantonese, chances are this lesson is too difficult for you. Start instead with our four Critical Phrases lessons and come back when you've covered the materials there. Our goal with this series is to introduce some basic sentences structures you'll hear again and again when using verbs in Cantonese. And by the time this series is done, you'll be ready to move on to our more advanced dialogue-based lessons.