Cantonese phrasebook Travel Guide
From Wikitravel
Cantonese (Gwong dung wa) is a widely spoken Chinese dialect. It is the local dialect in current use within the province of Guangdong, China, in the former British colony of Hong Kong, the former Portuguese colony of Macau, and in many overseas Chinese communities in South-East Asia and elsewhere, with Kuala Lumpur and Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) being two places where Cantonese is the dominant language in a Chinese community that is in turn huge and influential.
The word "dialect" means something different when applied to Chinese than it does for most other languages. Chinese "dialects" have not only widely diverging pronunciations of the same words, but also use different words for expressing the same thing, and different grammar such as different word order. As a result, different Chinese dialects can be mutually unintelligible. The difference between one dialect and another can be as small as that between, say, Spanish and Portuguese, or as large as that between German and English. Meanwhile, there are different variations of the Cantonese dialect that differ greatly from one another. For example, the Cantonese spoken in the far west of Guangdong province is hardly or not at all intelligible to a native of Guangzhou city.
Speakers of all Chinese dialects do, in general, use the same characters in reading and writing. Written language is more formal and closer to standard Chinese Putonghua (Mandarin), even when used by Cantonese speakers. Oral Cantonese contains many words for which there has traditionally not existed a written form. In recent decades, however, characters for many of these words have been created, chiefly by the Hong Kong popular printed media such as newspapers and magazines. It should be noted that the different Cantonese-speaking communities use one of two different forms of writing: in Hong Kong and Macau, traditional Chinese characters are in use, whereas the Cantonese-speaking communities in mainland China's Guangdong province as well as Malaysia, Singapore and most other overseas Chinese communities use simplified Chinese characters.
In many cases the regional dialects are not clearly regionalised but vary gradually across a region. Thus linguists can identify anywhere between seven and seventeen separate Chinese languages where the speakers of different dialects are mutually unintelligible.
Some of the phrases in the list cannot be translated from English to Cantonese.
Contents |
Pronunciation guide
Tones
Cantonese is a tonal language. This means that the same syllable, pronounced in a different tone, has a different meaning. To complicate this, there may be more than one character pronounced as the same syllable with the same tone (though this is uncommon). In this case, context usually helps resolve the ambiguity. This may sound daunting, but is in fact is better than say, english, where there are a great deal of words that are spoken identically (eg. their, there, they're) and have nothing but context to help determine which one it is. Cantonese has context and tone to help distinguish words.
Different variations of the Cantonese dialect have a different number of tones, from as few as six to as many as ten or more. Most speakers, however, and all modern linguistic interpretations get by with being able to distinguish (both in spoken and heard Cantonese) between the following six tones:
1 - high, 2 - high rising, 3 - mid level, 4 - low falling, 5 - low rising, 6 - low.
It should be noted that a native Cantonese speaker will have great difficulty understanding a non-native speaker unless syllable and tone are properly pronounced. It has been stated that Cantonese is one of the most difficult languages in the world (i.e. if considered as a separate language apart from standard Chinese), but this is just plain silly. The very minor initial difficulty in learning the tones is more than made up for by the childishly simple grammar, and absence of almost all plurals, genders, tenses and forms that plague the english language.
Vowels
Romanised cantonese pronunciation guide.
Sounds can only be approximated at best using romanisation. This guide gives a general indication of the correct sound to make, but the best way to be completely accurate is to listen closely to native speakers and mimic the sounds they make.
"a" (in middle of word) --> "uh" sound as in "gun" or "sun".
"a" (at end of word) --> "ah" sound as in "aah".
"aa" (in middle of word) --> "ah" sound as in "ahh".
"au" --> "ow" sound as in "loud" or "mouth".
"i" (in middle of word) --> "i" sound as in "limb" or "swim".
"i" (at end of word) --> "ee" sound as in "mean" or "preen".
"u" --> "oo" sound as in "look" or "took" (but not "spoon" or "soon").
"oo" --> also "oo" sound as in "look" or "took" but longer (still not like "spoon" or "soon").
"uu" --> "oo" sound, this time as in "spoon" or "soon".
"iu" --> "ew" sound as in "few" or "pew".
"oi" --> "oy" sound as in "joy" or "ploy".
"oh" --> "aw" sound as in "awe" or "saw".
"o" --> "oh" sound as in "own" or "loan".
Consonants
"Ng" --> pronounced exactly the same as english "ng" at the end of such words as "song", "bring", lung".
"J" --> Can be spoken like english "j" sound as in "joke", but is closer to a "dz" sound.
"Ch" --> Can be spoken like english "ch" sound as in "cheese", but is closer to a "ts" sound.
"L" and "N" are often interchangable in cantonese, i.e. "Lei" and "Nei" are the same word (meaning "you"). Most commonly spoken is "l" sound.
Hard consonants at the ends of words like "k" and "t" are clipped, meaning that you don't enunciate them as overtly as you might if you were saying a word like "sick" or "mutt".
Common diphthongs
Phrase list
An "M" sound can be used as a prefix on many words to imply the "not" or opposite form. For example "Ho" means good, "M Ho" means not good, i.e. bad. It is pronounced exactly the same as an english "M" sound, as if you were going "Mmmmmm" but shorter.
Basics
- Hello
- Lei ho. (informal See note above).
- How are you?
- Lei ho ma?
- Fine, thank you.
- M choh. [No need to say "thank you" in Cantonese]
- What is your name?
- Lei giu mat ye?
- My name is ______ .
- Ngoh hai ______ .
- Nice to meet you.
- Ngoh ho hoi sum gin lei.
- Please.
- Cheng.
- Thank you. ("after someone does something for you")
- M goi.
- Thank you. ("when someone gives you a gift")
- Doh je.
- You're welcome.
- M sai.
- Yes.
- Hai.
- No.
- M hai.
- Excuse me/pardon me/sorry.
- Doi m juu.
- Goodbye
- Joi gin.
- I can't speak name of language.
- Ngoh m sik gong "name of language"
- Do you speak English?
- Cheng man lei sik m sik gong ying man?
- Is there someone here who speaks English?
- Cheng man yau mo yan gong ying man?
- Help!
- Kao man ah!
- Look out!
- Siu sam!
- Good morning.
- Jo san.
- I don't understand.
- Ngoh m ming baak.
- Where is the toilet?
- Si soh hai bin do?
Problems
- Leave me alone.
- M ho gau ngoh
- Don't touch me!
- M ho dim ngoh!
- I'll call the police.
- Ngoh wui giu ging chat.
- Police!
- Ging chat!
- Stop! Thief!
- M ho yuk! Chaat jai!
- I need your help.
- M goi bong ha ngoh.
- It's an emergency.
- Ho gun gap.
- I'm lost.
- Ngoh dong sat lo.
- I lost my bag.
- Ngoh m gin joh ngoh doi.
- I dropped my wallet.
- Ngoh m gin joh aan bau.
- I'm sick.
- Ngoh m shu fook.
- I've been injured.
- Ngoh sau joh seung.
- Please call a doctor.
- M goi bong ngoh giu yi sang.
- Can I use your phone?
- Ngoh seung da din wa.
Numbers
- 0
- ling 4
- 1
- yat 1
- 2
- yi 6
- 3
- saam 1
- 4
- sei 3
- 5
- ng 5
- 6
- lok 6
- 7
- chat 1
- 8
- baat 3
- 9
- gau 2
- 10
- sap 6
After learn the following it becomes much easier to work out from up to 100. cantonese make numbers much easier, by writing down simple calculations which represents another number, for example:
11 = sap yat (10+1)
12 = sap yi (10+2)
13 = sap saam (10+3)
20 = yi sap (2 lots of 10)
39 = saam sap gau (3 lots of 10+9)
Then it comes to the larger numbers:
100 = yat baak
1000 = yat chin
10,000 = yat maan
100,000 = sap maan
1000,000 = yat yik
Time
Today = gam yat
Tomorrow = ting yat
The next day = dei yi yat
The day after tomorrow = hau yat
yesterday = kam yat
Clock time
Hour = dim / dim jung (optional)
Minute = fan
Second = miu
One o'clock = yat dim
two o'clock = leung dim
Three o'clock = saam dim jung
Twelve o'clock = sap yi dim jung
Noon = aan jau
Midnight = boon ye
one thirty/half one = yat dim boon
quarter past one = yat dim saam
quarter to one = sap yi dim gau
one sixteen and fifty six seconds = yat dim sap lok fan jung ling ng sap miu
Duration
Days
Day = yat
Week = Sing kei / laai bai
Monday = sing kei yut
Tuesday = sing kei yii
Wednesday = sing kei saam
Thursday = sing kei sei
Friday = sing kei ng
Saturday = sing kei lok
Sunday = sing kei yat/ laai bai
Everyday = tin tin/yat yat/mui tin/mui yat
Months
A year = yat nin
A month = yat goh yuut
January = yat yuut
February = yi yuut
March = saam yuut
April = sei yuut
May = ng yuut
June = lok yuut
July = chat yuut
August = baat yuut
September = gau yuut
October = sap yuut
November = sap yat yuut
December = sap yi yuut
Writing time and date
Colors
- red
- hung sik
- orange
- chaang sik
- yellow
- wong sik
- green
- look sik
- blue
- laam sik
- purple
- gi sik
- grey
- fui sik
- brown
- gah feh sik
- black
- huk sik
- white
- baak sik
Transportation
Bus and train
Directions
Taxi
Lodging
Money
Eating
Bars
Shopping
Driving
Authority
Learning more
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