Life and Learning from Hong Kong

Sihou

2009-01-22T09:50:00.002+08:00

Talking about interests is a great way to make friends and expand your vocabulary. Some vocab:

tai2 dinying2 (or tai2 hei) - watch a movie
tai2 dinsee - watch television
ying2s'heung2 - take photos
da2 mon2kau4 - play tennis
da2 lam4kau4 - play basketball

Ngoh jung1yi da mon3kau4 (I like to play tennis) is a useful phrase.

Saubiu

2009-01-05T11:38:00.002+08:00

Cantonese like all Chinese dialects is monosyllabic; almost every syllable carries meaning. Not every word though, is made up of one syllable, for example:

sau2biu1 - wristwatch (lit: hand watch)
syutgwai - refrigerator (lit: snow cupboard)

Cantonese also has borrowed a lot of words from English, for example:

chu1gu1lik1 - chocolate
nei4lung4 - nylon
wai4ta1ming - vitamin
wai1sigei2 - whisky

Kaiping

2008-12-12T10:53:00.002+08:00

About 150 km from Guangzhou, Kaiping is a place full of fortified towers called Dialou. These towers were built by rich merchants as housing and protection from bandits. They started building them from the Qing Dynasty (1644-1912) and kept building them till about the 1930s. There are about 1800 of these 'castles' left and they are protected as a UNESCO World Heritage site.

The locals have started to commercialize them and villages have an entrance fee to see up close.

We visited them recently on a trip to Guangzhou, taking a dick si to Kaiping for the day. Well worth the trek if you're in or around Guangzhou.

Ding2 ding2

2008-12-01T10:41:00.004+08:00

Hong Kong seems to have it's own take on Cantonese. I just got back from Guangzhou, where the folks speak a slightly different version of Cantonese that is easier to understand and relate to Mandarin than the Cantonese spoken in Hong Kong.

Ding2 ding2 is the Cantonese word for tram and it comes from the noise that trams make as they hurtle around the streets at snails pace.

Haak2 yan jung tong

2008-11-05T16:33:00.007+08:00

The Cantonese word for President is Jung Tong. The phrase above means Black President.

People talk about life changing events, such as the moon landing, the first man in space and the shooting of JFK as events where people knew exactly where they were when they occurred. As an American resident and married to an American citizen, I can only say what has happened in the United States is life altering. I was in Hong Kong to witness it.

It's easy to lose hope in a democracy like Americas', which, has often been criticized for its hypocrisy and apathy of voters, but today marks a change that is so profound, words cannot describe it.

It is a day where America, truly, is a land of opportunity and where you can indeed be whatever you want to be regardless of where you are from.

I am proud to be a citizen of Earth today.

Dim Sum

2008-10-31T09:35:00.004+08:00

Dim sum (lit: touch heart) is a thriving activity in H'eung Gong. It's usually a morning or mid afternoon event. Yum cha (lit: drink tea) accompanies the eating of little dishes. Cha aids digestion and is consumed in large quantities. Food items include sweet and savoury and can get very exotic. One of the best places to enjoy dim sum is at City Hall Maxims near Admiralty (Gum Jung). Get there early and enjoy these things.

Teas:

Po ('bo') nei - Pu'er tea (a strong fermented cha)
Guk2 fa2 - Chrysanthemum flower cha
H'eung pin - Jasmine cha

Food:

Ha2 gaau - lit: shrimp dumpling
Chun gyun ('goon') - Spring roll
Chaa2 siu2 baau2 - BBQ pork bun (baau2 = bun;bread)
Law baat go - Turnip / radish cake (go = cake)
Law hon chai2 - Mixed vegetables
Yin y'eung fan - Tomato and white sauce fried rice
Cheung fun4 - White noodle paper
Jue cheung fun4 - White noodel paper with sesame
Jar2 leung - deep fried dough wrapped in rice paper
Yau jar2 gwai4 - lit: oil deep fried ghost - Shanghai fried dough (like a baguette)

Be careful with dim sum, it can easily be mistaken as healthy. There is very high salt content and saturated fats. Hong Kong food tends to be drowned in MSG, which in part, might explain the bad breath that's prevalent here (excessive salt consumption causes dry mouth which causes bad breath).

[Ga] fe sik2

2008-10-28T08:59:00.008+08:00

The word for colour (color for the Americans) is sik2. Again the hard 'k' isn't fully aspirated. [Ga] fe is the Cantonese word for coffee, it's also colloquially the word for brown. Folks in Hong Kong seem to have forgotten what the word for brown was before coffee was introduced here.

There are other words for brown:

jung2 sik2 - lit: palm colour
hot sik2 - lit: dark colour

Other colours to be aware of:

hung sik2 - red
wong sik2 - yellow
laam sik2 - blue
ji4 sik2 - purple (also means paper)
haak2 sik2 - black
baat1 sik2 - white
chang sik2 - orange
gum sik2 - gold
un4 sik2 - silver
luk sik2 - green
yuk sik2 - colour of flesh / meat
fooi sik2 - grey (or gray)

In Chinese culture colours play an important role. The Chinese believe that colours represent the five elements (which make everything in nature according to Chinese physics):

water - haak2 sik2
fire - hung sik2
wood - laam / luk sik2
metal - baat1 sik2
earth - wong sik2

5000 years ago (during the Huang Di - yellow emperor era) they worshipped wong sik2, over time this lead to a deep understanding of colours and elements impacting everyday decisions. People chose colours for clothing, food etc according to the time of the year.

Haak2 sik2 was regarded as the colour of heaven, baat1 sik2 represented gold, purity and fulfilment. Baat1 sik2 is also used for mourning.

Hung sik2 has been in high regard in Chinese culture, it's used everywhere during Chinese New Year (Lung Lic Sun Lin), it symbolises wealth and joy.

Laam / luk sik2 is indicative of spring when everything is abundant. Wong sik2 is earth and is said to generate yin and yang, it's the center of everything. Wong sik2 is the colour of emperors and is used to decorate royal palaces and temples. It's also the colour of Budhism and represents freedom.

Phang yau lai lai lai

2008-10-27T17:58:00.002+08:00

In Hong Kong, you'll commonly hear the phrase Phang 'pang' yau lai lai lai. Phang yau is friend in Cantonese and lai is come. They are simply trying to entice you into the store to buy something. Here are some shopping vocab:

chin2 - money
my2 - buy
my4 - sell
gwai3 - expensive
peng - cheap
my2 yeah - shopping (lit: buy things)

Hong Kong used to be a shoppers paradise, but the big designer brands and the ultra modern new malls have really dampened the bargains a lot. There are however bargains to be had in Hong Kong for the discerning shopper. One place is Tung Chung where there is an outlet mall. It's located in Tai2 yue san, also known as Lantau Island. I'll cover shopping in more detail in future posts.

Fay2 lut bun

2008-10-17T11:26:00.004+08:00

I'm off to the Philippines this weekend. A friend (phang ('pang') yau) is there on business. To say you're from a place in Cantonese, use the phrase Ngoh hai {place} yan. Yan means person.

Here is a short list of places:

H'eung Gong - Hong Kong
Jung kwok ('gwo') - China (lit: middle country)
Yan4 do - India
Ma loy sai2 ah - Malaysia
Bar gay C tan4 - Pakistan
Yin2 kwok - United Kingdom
May kwok - United States
Ga2 la tai2 - Canada
Sai2 bun ane - Spain
Yan4 nei - Indonesia

Ngho hai Yin2 kwok yan.

The Cantonese for England is Yin2 kwok, literally this means hero country. Interestingly, the Chinese borrow words in one of three ways, translation, transliteration or a mixture. We'll see examples as we progress in these lessons. In the case of England, they chose to use a commendatory term (hero).

Ah Sir

2008-10-15T10:04:00.005+08:00

Here I cover two bits of vocabulary.

There are at least two ways to address a male teacher in Cantonese:

Ah sir - this is from the English Sir.
[sin] saang - this can be used for teacher (male or female), Mr. or husband

A female teacher can also be Me si. Thai thai (or just thai) is Cantonese for Mrs. or wife. Lo pau is another word for wife (lo means old). Lo kung is another word for husband.

The word Hai has 6 meanings, they are is; am; are; in; at; yes. Nghoh hai Shan means I am Shan and it is how you would introduce yourself.

M goi

2008-10-14T10:14:00.003+08:00

Cantonese has two phrases for thank you:

M ('mm') goi (lit: no need) - commonly used for services. You would say this to wait staff or when you go to a store to buy things.
Dor tse - used when you receive physical things. A storeclerk would say Dor tse to you when you hand over money.

There are many gray areas with having two words for thank you. With practice you'll be able to figure out when to use either word. However, if you find yourself tongue tied, just use M goi.

Other polite vocabulary:

Ng sai [haak hay] - Don't mention it
Ng ho yi C / M goi - Excuse me
Dui ('doy') ng jui ('jew') - Sorry

To pronounce the single capital letters in my transliteration treat them just like English letters:

C - say 'sea'
K - say 'kay'
E - say 'ee'

and so on. The exception is M which is pronounced Mm.

Jo son2

2008-10-13T09:29:00.004+08:00

Jo in Cantonese means early. Son2 is morning. So good morning! More vocabulary for introductions and greetings:

Good morning - Jo son2
Good afternoon - Ng on (ng = afternoon, on = safe)
Good night - Maan on (maan = night)

It's easy to say dinner by using jo / ng / maan followed by tssan ('chaan'). Therefore, breakfast is jo tssan. Tssan means meal.

Ng is a nasal sound, produced somewhat like the ng in long. I say it like a short Mmm sound.

Pronouns in Cantonese follow a regular pattern. Here is a list:

I - Ngoh ('gor')
We - Ngoh they ('dthay')
You (singular) - Nei
You (plural) - Nei they
He / She / It - Kui ('koi')
They - Kui they
My - Ngoh [gei4] ('gay')
Your - Nei [gei4]
His / Her - Kui [gei4]
Their - Kui they [gei4]

[] above indicate optional parts. So Cantonese for My can be either Ngoh or Ngoh gei4.

Tai2 jaap hai

2008-10-11T10:12:00.004+08:00

Hairy crabs (Chinese mitten crabs) are in season and although the best place to eat them is near Shanghai (where they come from), Hong Kong is not a bad place to try them. A lot of restaurants will sell them in various styles. I've tried two places in the last 24 hour period. The first place was Fu Sing at 353 Lockhart Road. At HKD280 each they're not cheap, but delicious (ho sik4). We enjoyed them steamed. The second place was a Shanghaiese restaurant in Kowloon at the Olympic City 2 mall. The price there was HKD80 for a crab, but these were much smaller and less tasty.

Be careful with crab, they are considered 'cold' in Chinese culture so eating too much can be bad, don't eat crab with other cold dishes like melon. Also they are very high in cholesterol. Hairy crabs are adaptable and can thrive in polluted waters. They absorb substantial amounts of heavy metals like mercury and cadmium.To make things worse, they are also regularly pumped full of growth hormones and antibiotics and are fed a lot of waste food.

In Cantonese the crabs are called 大閘蟹 or Tai2 jaap hai (lit: big binding crab). Note the use of the second tone in Tai. So say it with doubt.

The word for delicious, introduced above, is ho sik4. Ho means good and sik4 means eat. The transliteration for eat has the 'k' final. This final in Cantonese is a hard 'k' sound. It's not actually pronounced like a 'k' but implies a stop. So say it like the English word sick but stop short of aspirating the 'k'.

Nei ho ma?

2008-10-09T16:56:00.000+08:00

Cantonese (粵語), is a language spoken by over 95 million people. It's the language of the people of Guangdong, Hong Kong and Guanxi in southern China. It's also widely spoken outside these places and worldwide.

Cantonese is not officially regulated like Mandarin. This means that there is no standard phonology like Mandarin (which uses pinyin). I will use my teachers phonology and describe it as I go along in my classes.

Cantonese is tonal, there are 9 tones in 6 contours, this makes the language particularly difficult to learn for people from an English background (like me). However, here, I strip things down to just 5 tones and use numbers to describe them. The tones are:

A high tone, sing this out
A rising tone, think doubt.
Starts at the mid range, goes down and then rises.
A falling tone, thing certainty.
Untoned, normal voice

I do not use the 5th tone when I transliterate Cantonese in these lessons. But you should be aware of it.

Obviously it's tough learning a language without audio support, I recommend you go out and find a Cantonese friend to practice with! If you can't find one of those, go to your local China town and hang out there.

Cantonese is written in Chinese characters, I may introduce some characters, but only as an illustration for everyday living. This course will only use colloquial language, any formal grammar and language will be highlighted and explained.

The title of this blog entry 'Nei 'nay or lay' ho ma?', literally means, 'You (singular) good (ma)?'. The word Nei can be pronounced as Nay or Lay (in lazy accent). It's one of the most common phrases amongst Cantonese speakers.

Formatting will be explained as it it introduced, however from the paragraph above, I highlight the formatting:

particles will be bold and red, e.g. ma above is the question particle
Cantonese words are in bold
Pronunciation is in italics and quoted e.g. 'lay' from above

Enjoy learning Cantonese with me!