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 Posted: Mon Jul 09, 2007 11:49 am
Foreword:Hello all! I asked a day ago if anyone was interested in some casual Cantonese lessons, and since Vajrabhairava was interested, I copied my lessons from one of my other guilds on to this one. I'll try to slowly churn out some lessons, but it might be quite slow.. So anyway, I don’t claim to be a perfect Cantonese speaker, or anything like that, but I have had a lot of experience. I might have to borrow heavily from a resource site I know (listed below) to help with lessons, but hopefully, I will be able to teach you people coherently. I will be teaching Cantonese as spoken in Hong Kong, and with some characters that I think are only used in Hong Kong for words only found in Cantonese (ie. Not in Mandarin) Also, this is quite informal, so the things I’ll teach will be quite conversational. I will not be teaching you how to write proper chinese, as I don’t really know how to do that. Proper written Cantonese is exactly the same as Mandarin. Now, I wasn’t really formally taught the language (dialect) so I’m just as new to this romanisation as you are, but bear with me. I’m no language expert either, so I won’t be using any words like conjugations, diphthongs or any of that jazz. Hopefully, I’ll be able to pass on my knowledge to you! Enjoy! Disclaimer: I haven’t actually asked for permission for any links, so let’s just hope they approve of my teaching spirit. Also: The main structure of my lessons are based on Dave’s wonderful Mandarin lessons of his own.
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Posted: Mon Jul 09, 2007 11:49 am
Introduction:
First of all, some of you may have asked: “What the hell is Cantonese? The short answer is, a dialect of Chinese spoken in the south. I hear it’s the second or third most widely spoken Chinese dialect, after Mandarin of course.
The second question would probably be: “And why would I want to learn the second most popular dialect of chinese?” That’s a very good question. While I can’t justify learning Cantonese over Mandarin, some of you might be able to. First of all, Cantonese is THE language of Hong Kong, an extremely important city for business. This could open up possibilities for people, though in reality, I doubt I’d be teaching you how to negotiate a deal… Guangdong (a province in China) also speaks Cantonese. It is an area bigger than England. Second of all, a very large number of overseas chinese speak it. This is mainly because people from Hong Kong fled abroad to escape the city falling back under the rule of Mainland China, which is a communist country. So if you want to impress your friends at school or at college or whatever, maybe you can do this. As an extra point, the number of Cantonese speakers is higher than Italian speakers.
Maybe some of you who already study a form of chinese will now be asking, “what’s the difference between Mandarin and Cantonese?” The answer is, both a lot and a little. You see, Cantonese is not a language. It is a dialect. Obviously, it will share a lot of similarities to other dialects. In fact, all dialects when written down, should be written in Mandarin. However, there are a lot of differences as well. There are differences in grammar between Cantonese and Mandarin. The words are said different. This isn’t dialects as we know it in English speaking countries. This is to the extent that the dialects are practically mutually unintelligible. I’ve heard some people say that it is as different, if not more as the Romance languages are from each other.
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Posted: Mon Jul 09, 2007 11:51 am
Lesson 1:
Pure basics
This isn’t even a proper lesson. It’s just telling you a bit more about the language itself.
You probably already know that Chinese is written in characters. They can stand alone, or be strung together to form longer words, sort of like in German. For example, the character for ice is 冰 (bing1) and the character for box is 箱 (soeng1). Together, 冰箱, it means a freezer, or ice box.
In mainland China, they use simplified characters. This was introduced to improve literacy a while back. However, some chinese speaking places in the world have retained their traditional characters or have simplified in a different way. These include Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan and I think Singapore.
For these lessons, I will be using mainly jyutping pinyin, but I think I will change it around a bit. This may sound ridiculous, as you won’t be able to type in a universally accepted pinyin system, but I’m aiming towards you being able to speak chinese more. Either way, there isn’t really a system to romanise Cantonese that’s really popular anyway. Pinyin is a term from mandarin which means “pronounce sound”. It’s basically the romanisation which tells you how to pronounce a chinese character.The number after it explains the tone.
All forms of chinese is tonal, which means that a word can have several meanings depending on the pitch at which you say it. There are six tones in Cantonese, though some people say there are more. More detail on this will come later.
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Posted: Mon Jul 09, 2007 11:52 am
Lesson 2:Sounds (Wikipedia’s page is a great resource here) Initials: With the exception of three, these sounds are also initials in English. They are: B (as in ban) P (as in pan) M (as in man) F (as in fan) D (as in the name dan) T (as in tan) N (as in nan, now often replaced with an l) L (as in land) G (as in gay) K (as in can) H (as in ham) GW (as in guacamole) KW (as in queen) W (as in woman) S (as in sand J (as in yam) NG (as in the ng in song, but without any stress on the g. Try say Singer, but take away the Si) Example: Ngo5Z (I’d say it’s like a cross between a J and a Z) Example: not the best one, but it’s the initial of the second last syllable here. C (like a cross between Ch and Ts, again, I’ll try find an example) Example: Cin4 and Ce1And for some reason, some sounds are not mentioned in jyutping. Maybe because they are similar to some other ones already, but there are also: Jh (as in jam, I put the h in there to distinguish from J) Ch (as in champion) I hear them distinguished in speech, but apparently, jyutping groups Z and J together, and C and CH together. I will continue to use Ch and Jh, just so you know how to say them, but when typing, you'll know to switch. Also, I think I've already mentioned that almost all 'n' sounds are 'l' sounds nowadays. If you can't find a word using the 'l' initial, just try typing it in with an 'n'.
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Posted: Mon Jul 09, 2007 11:53 am
Lesson 3:Vowels and FinalsThere are quite a lot of finals, and the resource I used for this section is here. Edit: I haven't looked through all of it, but Hermonie pointed out this site, which seems quite good. Click 'sounds' on the side. In cantonese, the only ending consonants that are really voiced are m, n and ng. The following are in Jyutping, and my personal guidance as to how to pronounce each. The a’s sound more like the ‘a’ in father’ than the ‘a’ in cat. aa – like in Ma - 他 aai – like in my, but more like ‘mai’ - 買 aam – like in palm - 三 aan – like in barn, but without the ‘r’ sound (more like the British way) - 漫 aang – the same as before, but with ng at the end (duh) - aau – a more rounded version of the ‘ow’ in ‘how’ - 包 In these, the consonants at the end are sort of swallowed rather than said, and are a cross between p/b, t/d and k/g, like in Korean. Think of Cockney English’s “wa’er” for water, but very slightly more pronounced. aap - sort of like 'harp' (without r) aat - sort of like 'heart' (without r) aak - sort of like 'park' (without r) ap – more like ‘up’. 凹 at – more like ‘ut’ in ‘hut’ - 骨 ak – more like ‘uk’ in ‘********’ - 得 a – a cross between the ‘uh’ in ‘mutt’ and the ‘a’ in ‘cat. - 一 ai - like the 'i' in b - 雞 au – sort of like a cross between the verb in ‘hull’ and the ‘ow’ in ‘how’ - 牛 am – sort of like a cross between ‘um’ and ‘arm’ without the ‘r’ sound. - 心 an - in my opinion, pronounced more like un as in ‘under’. - 新 ang – like the verb in ‘palm’, but with ng at the end. Sort of like an ‘uh’ sound - 朋 The ‘e’ sound is more like an ‘eh’ as in ‘tent’, but held longer. - 咩 The ‘i’ sound is like an “ee” sound as in the letter ‘E’, it is shorter before a consonant, and longer without- 是 The ‘iu’ sound is like in ‘ee + u’ - 叫 The ‘o’ sound is like an o in ‘october’ - 黃 The ‘oi’ sound is like in ‘boy’ - 開 The ‘ou’ like the letter ‘O’ - 蘇 The ‘u’ like the 'oo' in ‘look’. When it is followed by a consonant, it is shorter - 六 The ‘ui’ is like ‘u’ and ‘i’ said together really quickly - 妹 The ‘ei’ sound is like in the ‘ay’ sound in ‘day’ - 四 The ‘oe’ sound is like the ‘er’ sound in ‘pervert’ without the ‘r’ - 向 The ‘eoi’ sound is the vowel in here. - 佢 The ‘yu’ sound is like the letter ‘U’, but you don’t pronounce the ‘y’ sound. Differs from ‘u’ since it is less rounded. - 書 The eo is like the ‘eu’ sound with a ‘u’ sound from the word put on the end. The ‘m’ sound is on its own. Sort of like ‘mmmm’ when you think something’s delicious, but shorter. - 唔 Tones are next lesson. And I know you look forward to it.. wink _____________________________________________________________ Edit: GREAT news! I found a great resource site - I think it has every single Cantonese sound on! FinalsSyllablesIt is more comprehensive than my sound list, since it has an example for each vowel/diphthong with the final consonant. It also includes the final 'eu' which I didn't include because it is so rare. I can only think of two words which have it, and they are both very colloquial. As a note though, the woman saying the words stresses them a lot, but I guess that's how you learn at first eh? Also, some of the characters used to represent the sounds seem to use some rare variant readings. Just use the site to listen to the sounds, and not to learn characters from them is my suggestion. PS. If you didn't notice, the three drop down boxes to the left allow you to search for words by choosing the initial, final and tone.
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Posted: Mon Jul 09, 2007 11:54 am
Lesson 4:TonesTones are incredibly important in all chinese dialects, as they can affect the meaning of any word. ‘Si’ can mean poem, crap, try, time, exam and is, depending on the tone. Plus, most words have homophones too, which means that the ‘si’ which means poem can also mean teacher and ‘crap’ can mean ‘history’ etc. There are six tones in Cantonese. To rip them from cantonese.sheik.com, here they are : Tone 1: high level flat (or falling) - eg: faa1 - 花, do1 - 多, saan1 - 山, ce1 - 車 Tone 2: rising to high level - eg: hoi2 - 海, seoi2 - 水 Tone 3: mid level flat - eg: sai3 - 細, hei3 - 氣 Tone 4: low level falling - eg: laam4 - 南, cin4 - 前 Tone 5: rising to mid level - eg: jyu5 - 語, ngo5 - 我, keoi5 - 佢 Tone 6: low level flat - eg: hai6 - 係, din6 - 電, jau6 - 右, hau6 - 後 Listen out for the differences, and then use each tone to say ‘si’. If you can, record yourself, and then play them back to see if you can hear the difference! You basically pronounce a syllable, and add the correct tone to it. Isn’t that simple? The trouble is just remembering which tone goes with which word! Note though, that sometimes, a word’s tone changes depending on the sentence, or if it’s repeated.
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Posted: Mon Jul 09, 2007 11:55 am
Lesson 5:Numbers, Names and IntroductionsFirst of all, the numbers are as follows: One 一 yat1 Two 二 yi6 Three 三 saam1 Four 四 sei3 Five 五 m/ng5 Six 六 luk6 Seven 七 cat1 Eight 八 baat3 Nine 九 gau2 Ten 十 sap6 Zero is ling4, and is written as 零﹐ but often, it is just a O. To make 11, you put ten and one together and make 十一. To make twelve, it is 十二. To make twenty one, it is 二十一. See if you can work out the numbers to 99. Next, names. As you may know, in Chinese (and in other East-Asian countries), a person’s family name (姓 – sing3) comes before their given name. In China, people usually have given names with one character. In the rest of the chinese speaking world, their names have two characters. The first of their two characters is usually shared by all their same sex siblings, and the last is individual to them. So in my name, 黃 (wong4) 律 (leot6) 朗 (long5), 黃 is my surname, 律 is the character that’s also in my brother’s name, and 朗 is my individual name. Nicknames are very important to chinese communities, and in Hong Kong, it is now very common to use a nickname for someone almost all the time instead of their real name. Even if that’s not used, they’re usually referred to by their last name if they’re close, with 阿 (aa3) in front of it, as a sign of endearment. So my parents would call me 阿朗. Of course, there are other ways to call someone, even if you’re not using nicknames. It is quite common for people to take the last character of a male’s name, and put 仔 (zai2) after it. So again, I could be called 朗仔. It is usually used among males, or for parents to refer to their sons, as 仔 literally means son. An interesting thing to note is that people in families will not always use names for each other. If you are younger than the person you are talking to, you would refer to them as how you are related to them. This is like an extended version of the English tradition of calling your parents “Mom/mum” and ‘dad’ instead of using their fast names. So for example, I would call my eldest sister “大家姐 (daai6gaa1ze1)“, which is literally Big Family Older sister. However, 家姐 is used together to convey the idea of an older sister, so it would just be Big Older sister. I would just refer to her as 家姐 if I only had one sister, but since I have two, I can’t. Instead, I call my oldest sister 大家姐 and my second oldest sister 二家姐. Sometimes though, you may use the last character of their name together with their relation to you to refer to them, sort of like saying, Doctor Roberts, instead of just doctor. Here is a list of common words to refer to others: 先生(sin1 saang1) – quite a polite way of saying Mister 太太 (taai3 taai2) – a polite of saying Mrs, literally, wife 小姐 (siu2 ze2) - polite miss (note here, that the 姐 is pronounced differently to the one in 家姐) __醫生 (__ji1 sang1) – Doctor ___ More on Chinese titles here. Lastly, on to introducing yourself. Here is some vocabulary you’ll need first: 我 (ngo5) -- I, me 你 (lei5) -- you 佢 (keoi5) – him/her 哋 (dei6) -- plural marker (explained below) 好 (hou2) -- good 請 問 (cing2 man6) -- If I may ask... 姓 (sing3) -- surname 叫 (giu3) -- to call, to be called 名(meng2) -- name 咩 (me1) -- what 呢 (le1) -- particle (explained below) 貴 (gwai3) – honourable, expensive 呀 (aa3) – particle (explained below) A basic greeting is just to say 你好﹐to which the other person repeats the same thing. If you are speaking to more than one person, you would use a plural marker, and say 你哋好, which means that the 你 is plural. A polite way of asking someone what their name is for the first time is to ask, is to say, 請問﹐你貴姓呀? This literally means, ‘May I ask, what is your honourable name?” The particle at the end is usually to indicate a general question, or sometimes used to indicate emphasis. A less formal way to ask someone what their name is, is 你叫咩名呀? Which basically means you’re called what name? If, for some reason, you want to say, “What is my name?” or “What is his name?” or any pronoun, then you simply switch the 你 for the other pronoun, eg: 我叫咩名呀? 佢哋叫咩名呀? Etc. When you’re asked for your name, you answer 我叫 nameIn casual conversation, if you want to say something along the lines of “and you?” then you would say: “你呢?“ The word 呢 is to show the idea of “and you?” but you still need the pronoun. “and him?” would be “佢呢?“。 That’s all for this lesson. There’s a lot of vocabulary included in here, so you might want to look over them for a while. If anyone wants to ask for extra vocab, just ask.
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Posted: Mon Jul 09, 2007 11:56 am
Lesson 6:
More Numbers, Expressions, and Introducing Yourself
We touched on counting further than 10 last lesson, and I taught you how to say 11, 12 and 21. This is how you make the numbers from 11 to 19:
You simply take 10 (十) and add the numbers 1 to 9 on the end of it:
十一
十二
十三
十四
十五
十六
十七
十八
十九
You should be able to work out how to say them from the previous numbers.
To make twenty something, you just say 二十一, 二十二 etc. Then for the thirties, it becomes 三十一 etc. all the way up to 99.
Basic expressions
We've already learned one basic expression: 你好 (lei5 hou2), which means hello. It literally means “you are good”. Saying “how are you?” is very similar. In fact, you simply add one of the question markers, 嗎 (maa3), on the end to make, 你好嗎? Logically then, this literally means “you’re good?”
To say goodbye, it is 再見 (jhoi3 gin3), which literally means "again see". You can also put times or dates before 見 when saying "goodbye," indicating when you expect to see the person next. We haven't gone over dates or days of the week yet, but just for example using this pattern:
聽日見！ (ting1 jat6 gin3) -- See you tomorrow!
星期六見！ (sing1 kei4 luk6 gin3) -- See you on Saturday!
出年見！ (cheot1 lin2 gin3) -- See you next year! (Note: 年 is usually pronounced as lin4, but for some reason, it is pronounced as lin2 in this)
etc.
Here are some more common expressions:
多謝 (do1 ze6) -- thank you
This thank you is only used when you’ve been given something as a gift. For other thank yous (as in for a services, etc.) you say:
唔該 (m4goi1)
This can also be used as a way of saying “excuse me” or “please”. As in.. you’re asking for directions, and you want to say “excuse me”, or you want to ask someone to do something for you.
So what do you say when somebody thanks you for something?
If you want to say “you’re welcome”, it is:
唔洗客氣 (m4 sai2 haak3 hei3)
Literally, "no need to be polite". To be 客氣 is when you’re polite to the other person when you’re like… being generous to them. And it’s not necessarily materially. To say someone is polite as in well-mannered, you say: 佢有禮貌 (keoi5 yau5 lai5 mau6, which literally means he/she has manners.
One more:
對唔住 (deoi3 m4 jhyu6) - sorry
This is roughly equivalent with English "sorry". More like you’ve done something wrong, than if you want to say ‘Sorry, I didn’t quite hear you’.
The sorry in that context would be 唔好意思 (m4 hou2 yi3 si1).
Talking about yourself
Vocabulary:
係 (hai6) -- to be
喺 (hai2) -- at
講 (gong2) -- to speak
做 (jhou6) -- to do
唔 (m4) -- no, not
識 (sik1) – to know
都 (dou1) – also, too
同 (tung4) -- and
或者 (waak6 ze2) -- or (this or that)
定係 (ding6 hai6) -– or (or are you…)
但係 (daan6 hai6) -- but
咖 (gaa3) -- particle
國 (gwok3) -- country, nation
人 (jan4) -- person
語言 (jyu5 yin4) -- language
啲 (di1) -- some
邊 (bin1) -- which
今年 (gam1 lin2/4) -- this year
年 (lin 2/4) -- year
多 (do1) -- many, a lot
幾 (gei2) – how many?
大 (daai6) -- big
歲 (seoi3) -- year(s) of age
Professions:
先生 (sin1 saang1) -- teacher
學生 (hok6 saang1) -- student
醫生 (yi1 sang1) -- doctor (I’m not sure why, but the 生 is pronounced slightly hear IMO)
護士 (wu6 si6) -- nurse
律師 (leot6 si1) -- lawyer
廚師 (chyu4 si1) -- cook
科學家 (fo1 hok6 gaa1) -- scientist
警察 (ging2 cak3) -- police officer
消防員 (siu1 fong4 jyun4) -- firefighter
Countries:
中國 (Jhung1 gwok3) -- China
香港 (hoeng1 gong2) -- Hong Kong (not a country, but oh well)
美國 (mei5 gwok3) -- United States
英國 (jing1 gwok3) -- England
加拿大 (gaa1 laa4 daai6) -- Canada
澳洲 (ou3 zau1) -- Australia
蘇格蘭 (sou1 gaat3 laan4) -- Scotland
愛爾蘭 (ngoi3 ji5 laan4) -- Ireland
日本 (jat6 bun2) -- Japan
韓國 (Hon4 gwok4) -- Korea
越南 (jyut6 laam4) -- Vietnam
西班牙 (sai1 baan1 ngaa4) -- Spain
意大利 (ji5 daai6 lei6) -- Italy
法國 (faat3 gwok4) -- France
德國 (dak1 gwok4) -- Germany
俄羅斯 (ngo4 lo4 si1) -- Russia
瑞典 (seoi6 din2) -- Sweden
挪威 (Lo4 wai1) -- Norway
芬蘭 (Fan1 laan4) -- Finland
瑞士 (seoi6 si6) -- Switzerland
荷蘭 (ho4 laan1) -- Holland/the Netherlands (not sure why laan isn’t with tone 4)
(let me know if you want to know any others!)
Languages:
中文 (jhung1 man2) -- Chinese
普通話/國語 (pou2 tung1 waa2/gwok3 jyu5) -- Mandarin (literally, common language, or country's language)
廣東話 (gwong2 dung1 waa2) -- Cantonese
英文 (jing1 man2) -- English
日文 (jat6 man2) -- Japanese
西班牙文 (Sai1 baan1 ngaa4 man2) -- Spanish
意大利文 (ji5 daai6 lei6 man2) -- Italian
法文 (Faat3 man2) -- French
德文 (Dak1 man2) -- German
俄文 (ngo6 man2) -- Russian
拉丁文 (Laai1 ding1 man4) -- Latin (again, the 文’s tone changes, but I think tone 4 is actually the more common one)
世界文 (sai3 gaai3 man2) -- Esperanto
(again, let me know if you want to know others that I left out!)
This is a lot of vocabulary, but that's only because there are a lot of countries and possible professions that a person can have!
This lesson will teach you how to ask about and answer to questions about your 1) age, 2) nationality, 3) occupation, and 4) what languages you speak.
Age:
To ask someone how old he/she is:
你今年幾多歲呀 ？
Lei5 gam1 lin2/4 gei2 do1 seoi3 aa3?
Or even just 你幾多歲呀?
Literally, "You this-year how many years?" or in other words, "how old are you?"
The response is:
我 (今年) ____ 歲
ngo5 (gam1 lin2/4) ____ seoi3
Note that the usual word for "year" in Chinese, 年 is not used here (and if it was, it would be wrong!), but rather the word 歲, which refers specifically to years of age, or "years old".
Country of Origin:
你喺邊度嚟咖?
Lei5 hai2 bin1 dou6 lei4 gaa3?
"You from where come ?", or "Where are you from?" or “Where do you come from?” The ‘咖’ is another question particle.
Or
你係咩人嚟咖?
Lei4 hai6 me1 jan4 lei4 gaa3? Not extremely polite, but it means “You are what person? Or You are what sort of person?”
If you wanted to ask if someone was of a certain nationality (eg. Chinese), you would say:
你係唔係中國人嚟咖?
It is basically saying, “You are, aren’t a China Person?” or “Are you Chinese?”
國 means "country". When you add the word 人 ("person") to it, it means a person from that country. So, given that China is 中國, how would you say that you're Chinese?
我係中國人
In Chinese, there isn't a word that specifically means "yes" as there is in other languages. Generally the way to answer a yes/no question with "yes" is to repeat the verb. So, if asked “你係唔係中國人嚟咖?” you would answer “係”﹐or “唔係“. You usually just add 唔 in front of the verb to form the negative. There are some exceptions, but I will cover them later.
Profession:
This works just like nationality, using the verb 係, to be.
我係學生。
I am a student.
However, when asking what someone's profession is, you use the verb 做 (jhou6), "to do":
你做咩咖？ (I don’t think this is too formal)
What do you do?
Here's another kind of question that you can ask using the word 定係 , which means "or":
你係美國人定係英國人？
Are you American or English?
You can use the word (都), which means "also," or “too,” in situations such as this one:
1： 你係中國人定係日本人呀？ (Are you Chinese or Japanese?)
2： 我係日本人 ﹐ 你呢? (I'm Japanese. And you?)
1： 我都係日本人。 (I'm also Japanese.)
Keep in mind that 都 can only come before the verb! In other words, in Chinese you must say "I also am a student." You can't say "I am also a student" or "I am a student also".
Languages:
你識講啲咩語言咖？
lei5 sik1 gong2 di1 me1 jyu5 jin4 gaa3?
What languages do you know how to speak?
我識英文。
I know English.
Simple enough, unless you speak more than one language!
What's that, you say? You do speak more than one language!?
Well, then, here's what you can say if you speak two languages, let's say French and Japanese:
我識法文同日文。
I know French and Japanese.
The word 同 means "and," and is used to connect two nouns.
Add any more languages and you'll need to throw in some commas to separate them, just like in English and other languages. Chinese actually has its own special comma used for the purposes of listing things， and it looks like this: 、
我識拉丁文、俄文同德文。
I speak Latin, Russian and German.
Expect me to use the familiar "，" comma in its place from now on, because it’s much simpler, and I doubt anyone would make too much of a fuss if I did anyway razz
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Posted: Mon Jul 09, 2007 12:04 pm
Lesson 7﹕
Family, Measure Words and Possession
You may have already noticed it, but I will begin to use less and less of my romanisation, apart from when I give a vocab list. This is both due to my laziness, and because I think it would be better to learn if you challenged yourself to remember the pronunciation each time.
So anyway, on to the lesson:
Note to Mandarin students: In Dave’s lessons, he introduced the concept of 他﹐她 and 它. When you write Cantonese as it is spoken, you only have 佢 anyway, so this doesn’t really apply. Even so, these lessons are speech based, and there’s no differentiation between the way you say it anyway.
Vocabulary:
家 (gaa3) -- family
有 (jau5) -- to have
同埋 (tung4 maai4) – and also, in addition
兩 (loeng5) -- two, a couple
個 (go3) -- measure word (explained below)
幾 (gei2) -- inquisitive numerical placeholder (explained below)
冇 (mou5) -- negative marker (explained below)
屋企 (uk1 kei2) – house/home
錢 (cin2) -- money
Family Members:
阿媽 (aa3 maa1) -- mother
阿爸 (aa3 baa4) -- father
阿哥 (aa3 go1) -- older brother
大佬 (daai6 lou2) – older brother
細佬 (sai3 lou2) -- younger brother
家姐 (gaa3 ze1) -- older sister
細妹 (sai3 mui2) -- younger sister
兄弟 (hing1 dai6) – brothers (literally, older brother, younger brother)
姊妹 (zi2 mui6) – sisters (literally, older sister, younger sister)
Pets:
狗 (gau2) -- dog
貓 (maau1) -- cat
魚 (jyu2) -- fish
馬 (maa5) -- horse
Measure Words:
This is probably one of the most confusing parts about learning Chinese.
Unlike in English and many other languages, where there is a single word that means "a" when you're talking about one of something (i.e. "a dog"), Chinese has an entire grammatical class of words that describe the quantitative state of things. These are called measure words.
For a start, here's an easy one:
個
This is the simplest of measure words. It is used to count things in concrete units, and it's commonly used with people. For example,
一個人
means "a person".
Notice that the pattern is Number + Measure Word + Noun. This is a very important pattern, and having it firmly implanted in your head is quite helpful in understanding Chinese grammar.
Extending the pattern further, how would you say "eight people"?
Substitute eight for one, and you will of course get:
八個人
"eight people".
The important thing is that you do not leave out the measure word! 一人， 八人, etc., while making more intuitive sense to speakers of English, couldn't be more wrong in Chinese.
To further confuse you, the number 2 (二 ) follows a special rule when used to quantify something. When you want to say that there are two of something, you cannot say 二個 (noun). What you must say instead is 兩 個 (noun). 兩 is a "special form" of the number 2 that is always used in front of measure words instead of 二. You can think of it as meaning "a couple of (noun)". Remember that means you’d say 兩歲 when you want to say two years old, instead of 二歲。
I'll hold off on giving you more measure words for now, as they can easily get confusing, but for now, here are two more that you will need for this lesson:
條 (tiu4) -- used for long, strip-like objects
隻 (zek3) -- used for animals, when you want to say types of things, and lots of other things that don’t all fall into one category.
So, to review the three measure words we know so far:
一個人 = a person
一隻狗 = a dog
一隻猫 = a cat
一條鱼 = a fish
一隻馬 = a horse
You could also say 一匹馬 instead of 隻, but it sort of bears the meaning of a mount. Personally, it sounds a bit more formal.
Okay!
Now that you know the measure word for people (個), you can list and count your family members!
You'll need the verb "to have," which is 有 .
Here's an example:
我有一個阿哥﹐兩個家姐同三個細妹.。
I have an older brother, two older sisters and three younger sisters.
同埋一隻狗。
And also a dog.
Also, it may be worth noting that when you’re just saying you have one of something, you sometimes drop the 一, so if you wanted to say “I have a dog”, it’d be “我有隻狗“. I think this is only when expressing possession though, more on this later.
Usually, when someone asks how many people are in your family, they actually ask how many people are in your house.
你屋企有幾多個人呀?
Literally, your home has how many people?
There is no measure word between 你 and 屋企 because a lot of the time, you don’t need one when the noun you’re referring to has two or more characters. This isn’t a rule though, and you really just have to learn them.
The verb 有, to have, is special because it is a little different from other verbs in the negative. With most verbs, if you want to make them negative, you stick 唔 in front of them, like so:
係 --> 唔 係
做 --> 唔 做
識 --> 唔 識
etc.
有 is the only (I think) exception to this pattern. To make it negative, instead of putting 唔 in front of it, you replace it with 冇
有 --> 冇
For example,
我冇屋企 。 = I don’t have a home.
I think I went over it briefly before, but to form a yes/no question, you say, for example, “you are, aren’t, chinese?”
你係唔 係中 國人呀?
But if the verb in the question was 有 ﹐ then similarly, it would be (“do you have any money?”)
你有冇錢呀?
The answer to such a question is either 有 ("have") for "yes" or 冇 。 ("not have") for "no".
We can wrap up this lesson nicely with possession.
To show possession, you simply follow this pattern:
Pronoun, measure word, noun.
Try working out what these mean! If you like, you can post the translations in white (so other people can’t accidentally see), and I can tell you if they’re right or not.
我隻貓
你個細佬
佢條魚
我哋屋企
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Posted: Mon Jul 09, 2007 12:05 pm
Lesson 8
Numbers, Time, Dates, etc.
Vocabulary:
星期 (sing1 kei4) – week
禮拜 (lai5 baai3) -- week
日 (jat6) -- sun / day
今日 (gam1 jat6) -- today
琴 日 (kam4 jat6) -- yesterday
聽日 (ting1 jat6) -- tomorrow
月 (jyut6) -- moon / month
號 (hou6) -- number (i.e. date)
年 (lin4) -- year
生日 (saang1 jat6) -- birthday
而加 (ji4 gaa1) – now, at this moment
點 （鐘 ）(dim2) (jhung1) -- "o'clock" / hour
分（鐘 ） (fan1) (jhung1) -- minutes
半 (bun3) -- half
蹋 (daap6) – stepped on, tread on
時 (si4) – time
Times of day:
朝頭早 (ziu1 tau4 jhou2) -- morning
晏晝 (aan3 zau3) -- afternoon
夜晚 (ye6 maan5) – evening/night
半夜 (bun3 ye2)
今朝 (gam1 ziu1) – this morning
今晚 (gam1 maan5) -- tonight
Days of the week
The days of the week in Chinese from Monday to Saturday are called (basically*) "day 1" (Monday) through "day 6" (Saturday), and Sunday is "day-sun" .
(*星期 actually means "week," not "day," but nevermind that )
Monday = 星期一
Tuesday = 星期二
Wednesday = 星期三
Thursday = 星期四
Friday = 星期五
Saturday = 星期六
Sunday = 星期日
This is the way you ask someone what day it is (today):
今日星期幾呀？
Gam1 jat2 sing1 kei4 gei2 aa3?
"What day of the week is today?"
You'll recall that 幾 jǐ is a question word meaning "how many" -- so what this question is asking is essentially "Today is the how-many-eth day?"
You can answer the question by simply substituting:
今日(係)星期五。
"Today is Friday."
Dates
Months in Chinese are very easy compared to in other languages. All twelve months are just the number of the month and then the word 月, which means month (literally, it actually means "moon", since the Chinese traditionally use a lunar calendar).
January = １月
February = ２月
March = ３月
April = ４月
May = ５月
June = ６月
July = ７月
August = ８月
September = ９月
October = １０月
November = １１月
December = １２月
The date (number) can then be added after the month, with 日/ 號 after it.
ex. March 4th = 三月四日/號
Asking what day it is:
今日幾多號呀？ (rarely with 日 instead of 號)
gam1 jat6 gei2 do1 hou6 aa3?
Today is what month what day? (i.e. What is today's date?)
今日係13號。
Today is the 13th.
You can also use the same patterns to ask or say what days, for example, yesterday, tomorrow, and someone's birthday (birthday = 生日 shēngrì) are.
聽日幾多號呀？
What day is tomorrow?
琴日係３月２４號。
Yesterday was March 24th.
你機時生日呀？
When's your birthday?
One more thing: if you want to say what date and day (i.e. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday...) it is, you put the date first, unlike in English, where you could say the day first. For example, Sunday, March 25th would be ３月２５日，星期天.
Time
The hours 1:00 through 12:00 in Chinese are 一點鐘 through 十二點鐘 often abbreviated 一點, 兩點, 三點, etc.
Take notice of the fact that 2:00 is not "二點" but 兩點 . You may recall from a previous lesson that 兩 is a special number word that means "a couple" and stands in place of two when used in front of a measure word (for example, you can't say "two dogs" -- 二隻狗 -- you're supposed to say "a couple dogs" -- 兩隻狗. In this case, 隻 is the measure word). I can't properly explain why 兩 is used in this case instead of 二, but just remember this rule.
Asking what time it is:
而加幾多點呀?
Ji4 gaa1 gei5 do1 dim2 aa3?
Now is how many hours? (What time is it?)
三點。
Three o'clock.
Now to add minutes, you simply stick them on the end with 分鐘 (or just 分).
而加三點十九分。
At the moment it is three nineteen (3:19).
There are colloquial ways of expressing when the minute hand is on each number:
When it’s on the 1, it’s 蹋一﹐ 2 is 蹋二 etc. You don’t say 蹋十二 or 蹋六. They are 蹋正 (zing3) and 蹋半 respectively.
Also, if you want to tell someone a certain amount of minutes for some reason, for example telling them that something will last 40 minutes, you’d say 八個字 (baat3 go3 zi6), which literally means 8 letters/characters/words, referring to the numbers on the clock; it will go over 8 of the numbers.
Numbers 100 to 9999
This isn't really relevant to date and time, as you should already know the numbers up to 99 and you only need 1-59 for date/time, but it's still good to know how to count higher than that!
One hundred is 一百 (jat1 baak3).
And then from there you can just add on any of the numbers 1-99 that you've learned already for 101 (一百零一) through 199 (一百九十九). However, 101-109 will be 一百零一 - 一百零九﹐ and 110-119 are 一百一十 - 一百一十九. The rest are regular.
200 is 二百, but 兩百 is sometimes used too. 300 is 三百, etc., all the way up to 九百 (900). So 999 is 九百九十九 -- nine-hundreds-nine-tens-nine. Again, you will put in a 零, when the number added to the multiple of hundred is a single digit number, and you say 一十 when it’s something like 217, 315, 413 etc.
One thousand is 一千 (jat1 cin1). It works the same way as hundreds, except you stick it in front of the hundred number:
一千 = 1000
...
九千 = 9000
So using 十, 百, and 千, you can count all the way up to 9999!
This is useful because now you can say all the different years! In chinese, basically all the years are simply said by reading out the digits and then adding 年 on the end, so 1999 would be 一九九九年. This changes for 2000, where it is 二千年, but it returns to normal after that.
Speaking of years, here are the animals of the Chinese Zodiac:
龍 (lung4) -- dragon
蛇 (se4) -- snake
馬 (maa5) -- horse
羊 (yoeng4) -- sheep
猴 (hau4) – monkey (this is kinda formal, usually, you’d say 馬騮 (maa5 lau1)
雞 (gai1) -- chicken
狗 (gau2) -- dog
豬 (jhyu1) -- pig
鼠 (syu2) – rat (this is kinda formal on its own, usually, you’d say 老(lou5)鼠)
牛 (ngau4) – cow, bull
虎 (fu2) – tiger (this is kinda formal on its own, usually you’d say 老虎)
兔 (tou3) – rabbit (it’s common to say 白(baak6)兔, which means ‘white rabbit’, even if it’s not white)
If you wanted to tell someone you were born in 1991, you’d say:
我一九九一年出世咖
ngo5 jat1 gau2 gau2 jat1 lin4 cheot1 sai3 gaa3
If you wanted to tell someone you were born in the year of the sheep, you’d say:
我屬羊咖
ngo5 suk6 yoeng4 gaa3
This literally means ‘I belong to/am classed as sheep”
Alternatively, you can say:
我 羊年出世咖
ngo5 yoeng4 lin4 cheot1 sai3 gaa3
Additional Notes:
Using units of time as nouns:
Most units of time can be used as quantifiable nouns (ex. "a month," "several weeks," "five years," "three and a half minutes," etc.) by using the measure word 個.
Vocabulary:
分鐘 – minute
鐘 -- hour (can also mean a clock)
日 -- day
星期 -- week
月 -- month
年 -- year
The units in red are special words that function as measure words themselves, and so are used right after the number quantifying them -- they don't require a measure word.
ex.
十五分鐘 = 15 minutes
兩年 = two years
三十日 = 30 days
The rest use the measure word 個:
ex.
三個鐘 = three hours
一個星期/禮拜 = a week
兩個月 = a couple months
You can also use the following less specific expressions in the place of the number:
幾 -- several
好多 (hou2 do1) -- many
ex.
幾個月 = several months
好(hou2) 多日 = many days
幾年 = several years
Now also seems a good time to say that when you add 好 in front of an adjective, it means ‘very’. Eg. 好靚 ( hou2 leng3) means ‘very pretty’. In the above instance, it means ‘very many’.
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Posted: Mon Jul 09, 2007 12:06 pm
Lesson 9:
’This, That, Which’, Prepositions, Verb Reinforcement, and Adjectives
Without the guidance that Dave provided, I warn you that this lesson will be poorer, and substantially shorter.
This and That:
If you want to say this one or that one, it is important to know measure words. In fact, you can’t really say ‘this’ or ‘that’ without them. ‘which’ also fits to this pattern.
Eg.
呢隻狗 (li1 zek3 gau2) -- this dog
嗰隻狗 (go2 zek3 gau2) – that dog
邊隻狗 (bin1 zek3 gau2) – which dog
Notice that the measure word for the object you’re referring to is in both phrases. The basic formula for ‘this & that’ is 呢/嗰/邊 + measure word + noun.
More examples:
嗰個人
呢條魚
邊三隻貓?
In the last example, I introduced a number into the phrase, and took out the noun. If you want to say ‘which three?’ or ‘these three’ or ‘those three’, you simply add the number before the measure word.
Also, for example, if it’s already clear that we are talking about dogs, then you can miss out the noun.
Person 1: 嗰隻狗幾多歲呀? -- how old is that dog?
Person 2: 邊隻呀? – which one?
I guess it should have been obvious, but just in case.
Prepositions:
‘Here’, ‘there’ and ‘where’ are very similar. They literally mean ‘this place’, ‘that place’, and ‘which place’.
Vocab:
呢度 (li1 dou6) – here
嗰度 (go2 dou6) – there
邊度 (bin1 dou6) – where?
喺 (hai2) – at
上面 (soeng6 min6) – above
下面 (haa6 min6) – below
側邊 (zak1 bin1) – side
隔籬 (gaak3 lei4) – next to
The prepositions are pretty much nouns too.
隻狗喺呢度 – the dog is (at) here
嗰本書喺嗰度 – that book is (at) over there
隻貓喺隻狗隔籬 – the cat is at the dog’s side/ the cat is next to the dog
隻老鼠喺本書下面 – the rat is (at) the book’s underneath/ the rat is underneath the book
我喺隻馬側邊睇電視 – I (at) the horse’s side, watch tv/ I watch tv at the horse’s side
Verbs:
Verbs are generally very simple in Cantonese. They simply come after the pronoun, just like in English.
Here is a short list of verbs (since Chinese verbs don’t change with the pronoun, I will put the ‘I’ form and ‘he’ form in english):
係 (hai6) – am/is
有 (jau5)– have/has
講 (gong2)– say/says, speak/speaks
行 (haang4)– walk/walks
食 (sik6)– eat/eats
飲 (yam2)– drink/drinks
學 (hok6)– learn/learns
教 (gaau3)– teach/teaches
買 (maai2)– sell/sells
賣 (maai6)– buy/buys
寫 (se2)– write/writes
睇 (tai2)– see/sees, watch/watches
New Vocab:
豬肉 (jhu1 juk6) -- pork
本 (bun2) -- measure word for books, origin
書 (syu1) -- book
電視 (din6 si6) -- television
Cantonese is Subject +Verb + Object, so here are a few example sentences, work out what they mean!:
我有隻貓
佢講中文
你食豬肉
我學韓文
我買一本書
我睇電視
Adjectives:
Adjectives are also very simple to use. The most basic way to describe something is simply to put the adjective before the noun you’re describing, but after the measure word.
Eg.
我本紅色書 (ngo5 bun2 hung4 sik1 syu1) – my red book
邊個日本人? – which Japanese person?
You can also say ‘noun + is + adjective’. So the above sentences would read as:
我本書係紅色
My book is red
嗰個人 係 日本人
That person is (a) Japanese (person)
There are obviously some variations of ways you can use to describe something, but they involve particles and other things you haven’t done yet.
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Posted: Mon Jul 09, 2007 12:07 pm
Lesson 10:
Tenses, Conjunctions and ‘to want’ something
Vocabulary:
咗 (jho2) – particle used to form the past tense
包 (baau1) – bread/bun
過 (gwo3) – particle used to form past tense, to cross (ie rivers), to pass
蛋糕 (daan6 gou1) – Cake
緊 (gan4) – particle used to say [verb]-ing, tight
會 (wui5) – will (future, not as in willpower, or a will), society
未 (mei6) – particle used to express ‘yet’
完 (yun6) – particle used to form the past tense, finished
朋友 (pang4 jau5) -- friend
肚餓 (tou5 ngo6) – hungry
都 (dou1) – too, also, anyway (as in, ‘even though I don’t like her, I kissed her anyway’)
想 (soeng2) – want
要 (jiu3) – have/want/must/necessary (I find that this translates with difficulty)
Past Tense
Forming the past tense in Cantonese is very easy. There are no verb conjugations! You simply add a particle in to the sentence.
To form the past tense, you simply add 咗 (jho2) after the verb that you did in the past.
Eg.
我食個包 – I eat a bun
我食咗個包 – I ate a bun
你睇一本書 – you read a book
你睇咗一本書 – you read a book (bad example here, this is past tense read)
If you want to say ‘before’, as in ‘He’s been there before’, you use a different particle, 過 (gwo3).
Eg.
佢去嗰度 – He goes there / He’s going there
佢去過嗰度 – He’s been there before
我家姐學韓文 – my older sister learns Korean
我家姐學過韓文 – my older sister has learned Korean before
Asking questions using the past tense is harder, but not much. Unless you’re using a final particle to suggest that the sentence is a question, you have to use an auxiliary verb (I think that’s the right term), much like in English. Generally, you use 有, but like in normal questions in Cantonese, you also need 冇.
Did you read that book?:
你有冇睇嗰本書呀? Or
你有冇睇過嗰本書呀 -- have you read that book before?
There are other ways of making questions using the past tense, depending on the context, but we’ll stick with this for now.
If you want to say, ‘I didn’t eat cake’ you use 冇, and don’t use 咗﹕
Eg.
我食咗蛋糕 – past positive
我冇食蛋糕 – past negative
Present Tense
To put a normal present tense sentence into the negative, you add 唔 in front of the verb:
我食蛋糕 – present positive
我唔食蛋糕 – present negative
Like in English, there are different ways of saying things in the present. You simply add 緊 (gan4) after the verb to make it mean [verb]-ing
Eg.
我睇電視 – I watch TV
我睇緊電視 – I’m watching TV
你食蛋糕 -- you eat cake
你食緊蛋糕 – you are eating cake
To ask a question using this form, you use the auxiliary verb 係.
我睇緊電視 becomes
我係唔係睇緊電視呀?
你食緊蛋糕 becomes
你係唔係食緊蛋糕呀?
To put this form of the present tense into the negative, you put 唔係 in front of the verb:
你唔係食緊蛋糕 – you are not eating cake
Future Tense
The future tense can sometimes be implied through context, but it is usually more explicit. To put a sentence into the future tense, you add 會 (wui5) before the verb. It means either will, or would.
Eg.
我學中文 – I learn Chinese
我會學中文 – I will learn Chinese
To put this into the future negative, you add 唔 in front of the 會 .
Eg.
我唔會學中文 – I will not learn Chinese
To make a question using 會:
你會唔會學中文呀? – will you learn Chinese?
Yet
As an extra little sidenote, if you want to use ‘yet’, you use the particle, 未.(mei6)
You simply put it in front of the verb:
我未學中文 – I’m not learning Chinese yet
我未食蛋糕 – I haven’t eaten cake yet
完 (yun4) means finish. You use it if you want to say you’ve finished doing something. You simply place it after the verb. This is another way of forming the past tense.
我學完中文 – I’ve finished learning Chinese
我食完蛋糕 – I’ve finished eating cake
You can combine 未 and 完 together to say, you haven’t finished something yet.
Eg.
我未學完中文 – I haven’t finished learning Chinese yet
我未食完蛋糕 – I haven’t finished eating cake yet
Conjunctions:
Here are some conjunctions:
同 – and
跟住 (gan1 jhyu6) – then (literally, ‘following’)
因為 (yan1 wai6) – because
但係 (daan6 hai6) – but
或者 (waak6 ze2)– or, either
所以 (so2 ji5)– therefore, so, that’s why
如果 (jyu4 gwo2) – if
雖然 (seoi1 jin4) – even though, although
Below are some example sentences using these conjunctions, see if you can translate them!
我同我個朋友
我食咗個蛋糕。跟住我買咗隻老虎。
我未食嗰個蛋糕因為我未肚餓.
我冇食蛋糕但係我朋友有
我會睇書或者睇電視
我好肚餓﹐所以我食咗個包
如果我肚餓﹐我會食個包
雖然我唔肚餓﹐但係我都食咗個包
To want something
The word for ‘want’ is 想. You basically just put it in front of the verb you “want” to do.
It is very simple to say you want something. However, in Cantonese, we don’t use 想 without another verb even if we wanted to say something like, ‘I want that cat’. It would roughly translate as, ‘I want to have that cat’.
Also, this construction is generally tenseless, and should be obvious with context.
To demonstrate the simplicity, look at the following sentences:
I want to eat that cake
I want that cat
I don’t want the dragon
Do you want to read this book?
Predictably, they translate as:
我想食嗰個蛋糕
我想要嗰隻貓
我唔想要條龍
你想唔想睇呢本書呀?
Note: As noted in the vocabulary list, 要 is very hard to translate (for me anyway). It basically bears the expression that you want to possess something, or you have to possess something. Some practice with this will probably tell you when to use it. However, it also means ‘to have to’. So 我要食蛋糕 means ‘I have to eat cake’. Note though, a bratty young child will also say this instead of 我想食蛋糕, much like how they’d say ‘I need cake’, rather than ‘I want cake’, in English.
To put it in the negative, you simply put 唔 in front of 想.
Eg.
我唔想食蛋糕
And that ends this lesson, I hope you didn’t get sick of how many times 我食蛋糕 cropped up in there in some form of another, it’s just so easy to type!
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Posted: Mon Jul 09, 2007 12:08 pm
Lesson 11:Final Particles, Possessive revisited, and Plural (In)definite ArticlesThe majority of this lesson will be adapted from this page. First of all, a brief introduction. Final particles in Cantonese is, from what I know, quite unique. Basically, they are little words, which usually don’t mean anything on their own, which are used to convey expression or extra meaning into a sentence. They are almost always placed at the end of a sentence, hence the name ‘final’ particles. I think these particles have developed in Cantonese because, as it is a tonal language, it is almost impossible to add expression as we do in English; through the use of intonation. It is best to learn when to use these particles by listening to natural speech. It is also worth noting that almost all of these words are native to Cantonese, and are hardly ever written down, apart from in entertainment magazines, the internet, and some comics. My dad frowns on the usage of these words in written language, as it is informal. He apparently had to use these to note down exactly what people said, back when he was a policeman. I have no qualms with them though. My sister likens it to being the equivalent of txt spk. Lastly, a lot of these characters are used for more than one sound. To avoid creating too many new characters, different tones and endings have been attributed to most of them, but they all sound roughly the same, so if you know them, you’ll be able to tell out of context if you happen to be reading them. Anyway, on with the list: 呀 (aa3) – used to indicate a neutral question, also used to soften statements so they sound less abrupt 呀 (aa1) – used to emphasise the pronoun in a suggestion (‘ I’ll eat it’, where you’re suggesting you eat something) 呀 (aa4) – used when you’re questioning something in a sceptical, unimpressed way (‘ this is my present?’ in a situation where you have been given a disappointing gift) 呀 (aa4) – also used when you pose a question where you expect an agreeing reply to (as in, ‘hello, is that mum?’ on the phone) 咖 (gaa3) – used to indicate a question with added emphasis, or simply to add emphasis to the verb, as if to convince someone that you do indeed do it 啦 (laa1) – used in requests and imperatives (‘come back [please]’), or to show that you’ve reached a decision in saying the sentence (‘[I’ve decided] I will eat cake!’) 啦 (laa3) – used to talk about an event that has already happened 先 (sin1) – used to mean ‘first’ (as in, I’ll eat first, then go swimming) 添 (tim1) – used to mean ‘too’, ‘also’ or ‘as well’ etc. 咩 (me1) – used to question something that you didn’t already know (‘I’m a boy? [I didn’t know that!]’) 啫 (ze1) – only, where you try to downplay the significance of the subject (as in, ‘it’s only $4 [not that expensive]’) 咋 (zaa3) – only (as in, ‘we’re only eating cake! [it's true, just cake!]’) 咋 (zaa4) – same as 啫, but used in a question 喎 (wo3) – but, when you try to tell someone that something can’t happen because of something else (as in.. "wanna go out tonight?" "but we're eating cake!") 啩 (gwa3) – used to convey uncertainty in a sentence (‘he probably went home’) 呵 (ho2) – used to check something is right, similar to english ‘right’ (as in, ‘you bought the milk, right?’) That should be a fair amount for now. It should be enough to be functional. Obviously, there are more, but it would probably be excessive to list them all. Plus, I probably couldn’t think of/may not know all of them. They’re really hard to explain sometimes, because they usually come so naturally. Possessive RevisitedI can’t believe I didn’t mention this, but 嘅 (ge3) is a word that denotes possession. It is a measure word for a lot of abstract things, like love etc. It is also used to say things like, ‘mine’, ‘yours’, ‘his’, in isolation. It is the Cantonese equivalent of 的 from Mandarin. Plural (In)definite ArticlesAgain, I really should have mentioned this earlier when I taught you how to say ‘a dog’, ‘a cat’ etc. 啲 (di1) is the rough translation of ‘some’ in English. Where 我隻狗 means ‘my dog’, 我啲狗 means ‘my dogs’. 我想食啲蛋糕 means ‘I want to eat some cake’. You basically use it in place of the measure word that you would normally use. You can also use it to say –er in English. For example: 老啲 means older 快 (faai3) 啲 means faster 啲 on it’s own can mean a little, so the above two sentences sort of mean ‘a little older’ and ‘a little faster’ respectively. An Extra Note:This little note should have been bundled with the past tense section in the last lesson, but I’m too lazy to go edit it. There is another particle worth knowing that can be used to make the past tense. This is 哂 (saai3), which indicates that you have exhausted something, for wont of a better term. Examples: 我食哂啲蛋糕 – I ate all of the cakes 我買哂啲魚 – I bought all the fishes In these two cases, you have ‘exhausted’ the supplies of cake and fish.
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Posted: Mon Jul 09, 2007 12:09 pm
Lesson 12
Assorted Grammar Points
This lesson will teach several different things, and will be kind of disorganised, but bear with me, because I think these little things make your speech that much richer.
To be able to
Often, when you want to say that you are able to do something, in Cantonese, you’d say you know how to do something instead, using 識. The logic being, that you can do things that you know how to do, I assume. There are a few different ways to say ‘to be able to’, or ‘can’, below are a few:
可以 (ho2 ji5) – This is can mean, ‘may’, ‘allowed to’, or ‘can/could’. It is often used in suggestions.
能夠 (lang4 gau3) – This means ‘able to’, less casual
There are also some particles which can make a sentence convey the meaning of ‘can’.
倒 (dou2) – This brings the meaning of ‘able to’, and often the meaning of ‘able to do something, despite ____’ It places emphasis on the verb.
得 (dak1) – This brings the meaning of ‘allowed to’ more, but can also ‘able to’. Usually used when talking about something that hasn’t already happened
The first two examples are placed before the verb that you are able to do. They are tenseless without context (ie. Time words). They both negate with 唔. In questions, they’d be “你可唔可以” and “你能唔能夠” rather than “你可以唔可以” etc.
Eg.
我可以食一個蛋糕 – Kinda ambiguous, but generally means ‘I’m allowed to eat cake’
我一日可以食三十個蛋糕 – I can (am able to) eat thirty cakes in one day
You can use 能夠 in place of 可以, but I think it sounds more awkward, since it’s not a very casual phrase.
The two particles are placed after the verb in a sentence:
我睇倒電視 – I can watch tv (as in ‘I can watch Tv!’)
我一日食倒三十個蛋糕 – I am able to eat thirty cakes in one day
我唔食得蛋糕 – I can’t eat cake (As in ‘I can’t eat that, [I’m allergic to it!] or [I’m not allowed to]’)
我睇得電視未呀? – Can I (am I allowed to) watch TV yet?
Saying something is like something else
The phrase to say, is like, is 似 (ci5), or 好似. I think 似 is more of a adjective than a verb.
Strictly speaking, it’s just the former, and the latter means ‘much alike’, but it’s more common for people to add 好 on to adjectives when describing things.
So basically, if I wanted to say, ‘my mum is like that dog’ it would be 我阿媽好似嗰隻狗 。Like in english, you simply join the two nouns with the phrase.
Imperfect Tense
I’m not sure if this is what you call the imperfect tense, but I was taught that one of it’s meanings is when you describe something ongoing in the past. Like, ‘when I was [being] 3 years old’, or ‘when I was eating’,
Anyway, you use the words, 緊, and 嗰陣時 (go2 zan6 si4). The latter phrase literally means ‘at that time’. 嗰 means ‘that’, 陣 is a measure word that can be used for time, and 時 means ‘time’.
You place the 緊 where you would normally place it when you’re saying ‘-ing’, and then 嗰陣時 at the end of the clause.
So, ‘when I was eating cake’, or ‘at the time when I was eating cake’
我食緊蛋糕嗰陣時 – Literally: I eating cake, at that time
我三歲嗰陣時 – When I was [being] three years old
As an extra note, if you don’t use 緊 in the structure, it means ‘when I eat cake’, or ‘when I am three’.
Adverbs
When you want to describe the way something/one does something, you use the phrases, ‘得’ and the word which describes the way they’re doing it.
You simply place it after the thing they’re doing.
Eg.
我食得好慢 (maan6) – I’m eating slowly
However, when the verb is made up of more than one character, or you’re actually stating what it is you’re [verb]-ing (therefore making it more than one character), things are a bit different:
我食蛋糕食得好慢 – I eat cake very slowly
The rule is just to repeat the first character of the verb/the thing you’re [verb]-ing just before the 得.
There are other ways of describing how something is done, but I will hold that off for later.
Imperatives
Imperatives are very easy in Cantonese. You simply say a verb (plus objects if applicable), just like in English.
Eg.
食蛋糕﹗ -- Eat cake!
If you add the final particle, 呀, pronounced aa3 in this case, to the end of an imperative, it gives the meaning of, “I said eat cake!” as if having to repeat yourself.
Reflexive Pronouns
Just a very minor note, but the general reflexive pronoun is 自己 (zi6 gei2).
If you wanted to say, ‘I hit myself’, it would be 我打(daa2)自己
If you wanted to say, ‘He hits himself’, it would be 佢打自己
Sometimes, you put the relevant pronoun before 自己, but I guess that’s just for added emphasis. That means that 我打我自己 is perfectly ok.
Before and After
The phrases for before and after are 之前 (zi1 cin4) and 之後 (zi1 hau6).
The word 之 is sort of like the opposite of ‘of’. An apostrophe ‘s’ if you will. It is a way to denote possession, though you wouldn’t use it in casual speech.The words 前 and 後 mean front and behind respectively. You basically place them after an object in a sentence, or after the verb.
Eg.
我食蛋糕之前 – before I eat cake
我睇完電視之後 – after I finish watching TV
Literally, it means something along the lines of:
I eat cake’s beforehand
I finish watching TV’s afterwards
Passive
I think the passive is when you want to switch a sentence around, so that the object and subject are in different places right?
Instead of saying, ‘You ate the cake’, you say ‘The cake was eaten by you’. To say this, we need to introduce the new word, 俾 (bei2).
The first sentence would translate to be:
你食咗個蛋糕
Now, if you want to switch them around, to make the second sentence, it would be:
個蛋糕俾你食咗
The rule can be split into a few steps. First, take the object, and put it at the front of the sentence. Then, place 俾 after it. Then fill in the rest of the sentence with the rest of it.
Note that 俾 can also mean ‘give’. So the sentence almost means ‘the cake was given to you to eat’, in the sense that it presented itself to you. Maybe this wasn’t the best example to use…
Comparisons
There are some different ways to make comparisons in Cantonese, but I’ll teach you just one for now.
Comparisons use the word 過. You basically follow the structure of “noun + adjective + 過 + noun”, where the first noun is better than the second in that respect.
So, to say, ‘I’m prettier than your mum’ it would be:
我 + 靚 +過 + 你阿媽
As 過 also bears the meaning of passing, the sentence literally means that ‘I surpass your mother in beauty’.
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Posted: Mon Jul 09, 2007 12:10 pm
Summary Lesson:
This lesson will not teach anything new (except maybe some vocabulary, but we’ll see) but instead reinforce and test your knowledge of the stuff I’ve taught. It also marks the point where I will take a break from writing lessons for a while, since I’ve filled up one page. If anyone has already mastered everything I’ve taught, in less than a month, frankly, they are inhuman. So... here it is (we’ll start with Lesson 5, since it’s where the stuff begins to be taught):
I’ll expand on the lesson that I think need elaboration, but otherwise, I’ll have to rely on you to tell me where I need to add more.
Lesson 5 Exercises:
Write/type the numbers out, including romanisation, in this order:
10, 1, 9, 2, 6, 7, 8, 4, 3, 5, 0
Translate the following sentences into Cantonese, including romanisation:
Sir, may I ask, what is your name?
Miss, my name is _____, and you?
Hello! What’s your name?
Lesson 6 Exercises:
Translate the following sentences into Cantonese, including romansation:
Seventy Three, Sixty Nine, Forty Eight, Twenty One, Fifty
See you next year!
Thank You [for the present]!
You’re welcome
I am 15 years old
Where are you from?
Are you Korean?
I am a firefighter
I know Japanese and German
Lesson 7 Exercises:
Translate the following sentences into Cantonese, including romansation:
How many dogs are there in your house?
I have 3 cats and 2 fish
Do you have a horse?
Lesson 8 Exercises:
Translate the following sentences into Cantonese, including romansation:
What day was it yesterday?
5 O’clock
I was born in the year of the Sheep
40 hours
Several Minutes
Many weeks
Lesson 9 Exercises:
Translate the following sentences into Cantonese, including romansation:
Which four dogs are underneath the cat?
I watch TV
That person is a snake
Lesson 10 Exercises:
Translate the following sentences into Cantonese, including romansation:
I read a book
We didn’t watch TV
He has eaten cat before
I am eating a dog
You will not learn English
They haven’t finished eating 4 cakes yet
I don’t want to eat my little sister
Translate the following sentences into English, and into romanised Cantonese:
我同我個朋友
我食咗個蛋糕。跟住我買咗隻老虎。
我未食嗰個蛋糕因為我未肚餓.
我冇食蛋糕但係我朋友有
我會睇書或者睇電視
我好肚餓﹐所以我食咗個包
如果我肚餓﹐我會食個包
雖然我唔肚餓﹐但係我都食咗個包
Lesson 11 Exercises:
Below, I will list some example sentences using final particles:
呀 (aa3) – 你係唔係食緊蛋糕呀?
呀 (aa1) – 我買呢隻貓呀﹗
呀 (aa4) – 你係我阿媽呀?
呀 (aa4) – 家姐呀?
咖 (gaa3) – 我哋想睇電視咖﹗
啦 (laa1) – 你哋學西班牙文啦
啦 (laa3) – 佢死(sei2 – to die) 咗啦
先 (sin1) – 我食個包先
添 (tim1) – 我識日文﹐中文﹐ 同韓文添﹗
咩 (me1) – 我有兩個家姐咩?!
啫 (ze1) –食啦﹐蛋糕啫… 唔會死咖…
咋 (zaa3) – 買啦﹐隻貓$30
咋 (zaa4) – 隻貓$30咋?
喎 (wo3) – 但係我今日生日喎…
啩 (gwa3) – 佢哋食緊蛋糕啩
呵 (ho2) – 你個名係黃律朗呀呵?
Translate the following sentences into Cantonese, including romansation:
My cakes are very pretty!
I ate all the dogs!
Lesson 12 Exercises:
Translate the following sentences into Cantonese, including romansation:
Can I eat your dog?
Can he eat your cat yet?
My dog is like your momma!
When I was four, I ate 2 fishes
I learn very slowly
Before I eat cake, my dog hits himself
The cat was eaten by the dog, but my dog bigger than your cat (big is 大 – daai6)
I think that should do. In the mean time, how about you compose a short essay that comprises of everything that has been taught so far? I know I haven’t given you enough vocabulary, and I have not given enough details about some stuff, but I encourage you to ask me anything you don’t understand or know.
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