Читать книгу Instant! Cantonese - Nick Ph.D Theobald - Страница 3

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.