The Wonderful World of the Cantonese Dialect

A comment on the last post:

Benevolent seems to be setting standards on what can be posted in this blog. Let’s see if this post raises the bar.

Cantonese, although said to be similar to Mandarin, can, in fact be very different (esp. Hong Kong Cantonese). It is a dialect, with lots of colloquialism, and is spoken in a very different way from Mandarin. Cantonese actually has 9 different tones, compared to 4 for Mandarin (which makes Cantonese very difficult to learn! )

(Note: Hong Kong Cantonese have quite a number of words that do not exist in Mandarin, some are made from combining two words and are purely created for Cantonese to be put in writing. )

I’ve used square brackets to denote [Cantonese pronunciation] and curly brackets to denote {Mandarin pronunciation}.

For example, a simple sentence like “have you eaten?”, translated to Mandarin, is

你 吃 了 饭 吗 ？ (pronounced [ni chi le fan ma?] )

In Cantonese, we say:

你 食 咗 饭 未 呀? {lei sek zho fan meh a? }

As we can see, only two words are the same.

Another example

“What?” translated:

Mandarin - 什么? {shĕn me}

Cantonese - 乜 嘢 ? [mat ye]

Totally different.

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We all know how funny can Cantonese be. We know how crude a language it can be too. Sometimes, Cantonese can also be hilariously vulgar.

Warning!!: The following subsection contains vulgarity and sexual references which may be excessive and unsuitable for some. If you are likely to feel offended, please do not continue reading.

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Last semester, I came across an interesting book about the Cantonese used in the streets of Hong Kong. Since the move to the new campus, I did not stumble upon the book. However, recently, using my advanced GPS technology, I’ve managed to locate that legendary Cantonese book again to assist in writing this post. Cantonese words mentioned below are words I first saw from that particular book.

Now, the most popular word in Cantonese is probably this:

Not many know how to write the word (including myself, until now), but they probably say it frequently.

The word is pronounced [diu], and we all know what it means.

In comparison, in Mandarin the proper term (in the biological sense) is 性交 {xìng jiāo}.

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At first, I was quite surprised by the writing, breaking the word into 2 parts,

門 [mun]/{men} is the word (in Traditional Chinese) for door, and 小 [xiu]/{xiăo} means small.

So, combined, small door means f*** .

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Curious, I looked up the entry for 小 (small), and learned something new.

小 [xiu] can also mean the same thing as [diu]. I’ve included a slightly less vulgar example:

Instead of saying:

你 屎 忽 [diu lei si fatt]

we say:

小 你 屎 忽 [xiu lei si fatt]

(the last two words mean ass)

This is a variation of the popular way to scold others in Cantonese.

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Next up are two words that are related:

Firstly:

In Cantonese, the (colloquial) word for "the thing" is

[lan].

The word consists of 門 [mun] (which means door) and 能 [nung] (which means can)

Combining the two words, the result is “can door”.

The proper term in Mandarin is 阴 茎 {yīn jìn} / pronounced [yum hang] in Cantonese. I dunno why is it called so. 阴 is “yin” as in “yin and yang”, and 茎 means stem. Probably the only people who use that term are those in the medical or science field.

(additional info: another popular phrase - 性无能 [seng mo nung] )

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For the female counterpart, the (colloquial) Cantonese word is:

[hai]

The word consists of 門 [mun] (which means door) and 西 [sai] (which means west)

So, what does “west door” means?

Btw, the proper term in Mandarin is 阴道 {yīn jìn} / pronounced [yum dou] in Cantonese. 道 means path, or passageway.

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Conclusion:

Do not simply combine words.

Seemingly innocent words like 能 小 西 (literally: can small west), can be transformed into something totally different if you add a door (門 ) to it. Of course, it only applies to Cantonese, as the words do not exist in Mandarin.

To illustrate:

能 小 西 becomes

(I'm sure you can figure out what that means..)

Therefore, care must be taken when writing in Cantonese. I wonder if those words are type-able in SMS-es. Should be fun if it is possible.

Lastly…

Hope you have enjoyed the Cantonese lesson, and, as always, use it constructively!