Among 47 Hong Kong college students, tasks of verbal memory and naming speed administered in both Cantonese and English were moderately associated and were correlated with English reading comprehension but not with spelling in Chinese. Chinese spelling was associated with a survey on enjoyment of reading and a version of the Title Recognition Test (e.g., Cunningham & Stanovich, 1990), as well as speeded character naming. Results suggest that some phonological processing abilities are transferrable across languages and that orthographic and experiential factors are also helpful in adults' processing of Chinese.

Key words: phonological processing, bilingualism, reading