How to Make a Cantonese Instagram Reel
A Cantonese Instagram Reel uses spoken Hong Kong Cantonese, a 9:16 frame, and a title a local viewer can read in the first three seconds.
A Cantonese Instagram Reel is a vertical video spoken in Hong Kong Cantonese, usually 15 to 60 seconds. Subtitles in written Chinese are not a substitute for the voice. Local viewers decide in the first line whether the speaker actually talks the way they do.
Write the script the way you speak
Speak the line out loud before you type it. Hong Kong Cantonese is not translated Mandarin with a different soundtrack. Words such as 咗, 喺, 唔使, and 點樣 belong in the spoken track. The on-screen title can be shorter than the spoken line, but it should be a phrase a Hong Kong viewer would say.
A useful shape:
- Title in the first three seconds, four to eight characters if you can.
- One local problem, in one sentence.
- One thing to do.
- One ask, often a comment or a DM, said in Cantonese.
Keep English brand names if that is how you say them. Code-switching is normal. A stiff full-Mandarin script with a Cantonese label on top will sound wrong the moment the voice starts.
Put a Hong Kong voice on a locked host
Scro is built for this cut. You record into the mic or upload a Cantonese take. Voice cloning includes Hong Kong Cantonese among 21 languages, so the next Reel can use the same voice. The host's face stays locked, which matters if you are posting every week and do not want a new person each time.
You approve the host still before the talking clip renders. The editor trims silence and lays captions in one of 13 styles, with fonts that can hold Chinese and English together. Export 9:16. A finished Cantonese host Reel is on the examples page.
A bakery example
A small bakery wants weekday traffic.
- Title: "Wednesday bun, half price."
- Spoken: say it in Cantonese, including the time and the branch, in one breath.
- Picture: the host, waist up, same seat as last week.
- Ask: "Comment if you want the pork one kept."
Do not open with the shop logo. The price and the day are the hook. The logo can sit in the caption.
Make a Cantonese Instagram Reel. If you also need a version where you never appear, read how to make a Reel without showing your face.