Instant! Cantonese. Nick Ph.D. Theobald

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      Instant! Cantonese

      Speak Cantonese in seconds!

      by

      Nick Theobald and Bill Loh

      Copyright 2011 Bill Loh and Nick Theobald,

      All rights reserved.

      Instant! Cantonese - your trusted traveling companion for Hong Kong, Southern China, Macau, and Chinatowns everywhere.

      Published in eBook format by eBookIt.com

       http://www.eBookIt.com

      ISBN-13: 978-1-4566-0231-4

      All rights reserved.

      No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher. So watch it, we’ll be on to you in an Instant!

       [email protected]

       [email protected]

      Another Writer & Writer book

      Speak Cantonese in seconds

      This little book is your passport to speaking Cantonese.

      You’ll discover that our phrase eBook occasionally goes where others fear to tread. Instant! Cantonese contains hundreds of practical, street-wise and down to earth phrases and words.

      Everything from “No msg with my meal please” to “Hi honey, I’m home.” And “Follow that cab!” to “What a bunch of wankers.”

      Unlike some other phrase books, Instant! Cantonese uses phonetics. We keep it simple.

      Cantonese is a tonal language and tones are virtually impossible to explain in print. However, most Chinese people understand that foreigners are tone deaf. In our experience, if you seem to be at least making an effort to speak Cantonese, you gain Instant! respect.

      Thanks for buying our book: we need to put conflict-free diamonds on our imaginary girlfriends’ fingers.

      “For my sisters Helen and Myra, and my brother Paul” - Nick Theobald

      Also dedicated to Mr and Mrs T. S. Loh.

      May their perpetual light shine.

      How our Instant! phonetics work.

      With Instant! Cantonese, what you see is what you say.

      Read the following care-full-lee

      English: How are you?

      Cantonese: Nay ho ma?

      Nay - same sound as hay

      ho - what Santa says

      ma - mother

      English: How much?

      Cantonese: Gay door cheen?

      Gay - the opposite of straight

      door - that’s right, door

      cheen - same sound as keen

      English: Tuesday

      Cantonese: Sing-kay yee

      Sing - as in Sing Sing prison

      kay - same sound as nay

      yee - sounds like three

      English: Follow that cab.

      Cantonese: Gun gore gar dixie.

      Gun - as in Colt .45

      gore - what bulls do

      gar - same sound as far

      dixie - as in the Dixie Chicks

      English: I have a headache.

      Cantonese: Or tow tung.

      Or - as you’d expect “or”

      tow - as in towel

      tung - sounds like toong

      English: I have no electricity.

      Cantonese: Or ook kay mo deen.

      Or - or again

      ook - same sound as look

      kay - as in OK

      mo - like no

      deen - like keen

      English: My name is Bill.

      Cantonese: Or gore mang high-ee Bill.

      Or - or again

      gore - what bulls do

      mang - like hang

      high-ee - high + ee run together

      Bill - er, Bill

      * Or and Ngor. 1^st person singular.

      Or is fine, but if you listen carefully to Cantonese speakers, you’ll hear them correctly say or as ngor. It’s really hard to describe. You’ll get by with or. Then you can master ngor.

      Hyphenated words

      When you see hyphenated words, don’t pan-ick. Words like mm-goy and high-ee are two sounds: mm and goy and high and ee, but are run together.

      Bracketed characters

      Yar(t) - The t is silent. It’s there, but you don’t make a big deal of it.

      The First Phrase to Learn

      I don’t speak Cantonese.

      Or mm-sick gong gwong doong-wah.

      Shopping

      How much please?

      Gay door cheen mm-goy?

      Sounds a little expensive.

      Waaaah! (Waaaah! is the great Cantonese exclamation. A loose English equivalent is Wow, or Holy shit!)

      Can you make it cheaper?

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