Learn engaging someone in Cantonese by asking them how they are
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Intro |
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| Nicole: 大家好 (daai6 gaa3 hou2), I'm Nicole. Welcome to CantoneseClass101. |
| Matt: Matt here! Absolute Beginner Season 1, Lesson 2. In this lesson you will learn how to chat with someone. |
| Nicole: And this conversation takes place in Hong Kong. |
| Matt: And it's between two friends who meet each other outside. |
| Nicole: That's right. And because they're friends, they are talking informally. |
| Matt: So let's take a listen to the conversation. |
Lesson conversation |
| 你最近點呀？(nei5 zeoi3 gan6 dim2 aa3?) |
| 幾好，你呢？(gei2 hou2, nei5 ne1?) |
| 幾好。(gei2 hou2). |
| English Host: One more time, a bit slower. |
| 你最近點呀？(nei5 zeoi3 gan6 dim2 aa3?) |
| 幾好，你呢？(gei2 hou2, nei5 ne1?) |
| 幾好。(gei2 hou2). |
| English Host: And now with the English translation. |
| 你最近點呀？(nei5 zeoi3 gan6 dim2 aa3?) |
| Matt: How have you been lately? |
| 幾好，你呢？(gei2 hou2, nei5 ne1?) |
| Matt: Pretty good. And you? |
| 幾好。(gei2 hou2). |
| Matt: Pretty good. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Matt: I love the way Cantonese sounds. It sounds almost like you're singing. |
| Nicole: Yeah. You mean... 你最近點呀 (nei5 zeoi3 gan6 dim2 aa3?) |
| Matt: 呀..(aa3)...Yeah, like that. |
| Nicole: 你最近點呀 (nei5 zeoi3 gan6 dim2 aa3?).. yeah. Drag it out and you'll sound really Cantonese. |
| Matt: Now, this is a really common phrase. |
| Nicole: Everything we teach is really common! |
| Matt: That's right, especially in the beginner series. So let's get to the vocabulary section. |
| Nicole: Okay. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Matt: The first word for this vocabulary session is: |
| Nicole: 你 (nei5) [natural native speed] |
| Matt: You (singular). |
| Nicole: 你 (nei5) [slowly - broken down by syllable]. 你 (nei5) [natural native speed]. |
| 最近 (zeoi3 gan6) [natural native speed] |
| Matt: Lately. |
| Nicole: 最近 (zeoi3 gan6) [slowly - broken down by syllable]. 最近 (zeoi3 gan6) [natural native speed]. |
| 點呀 (dim2 aa3?) [natural native speed] |
| Matt: What's up, or how are things? |
| Nicole: 點呀 (dim2 aa3?) [slowly - broken down by syllable]. 點呀 (dim2 aa3?) [natural native speed] |
| Matt: Next, we have. |
| Nicole: 幾好 (gei2 hou2) [natural native speed] |
| Matt: Pretty good. |
| Nicole: 幾好 (gei2 hou2) [slowly - broken down by syllable]. 幾好 (gei2 hou2) [natural native speed] |
| Matt: Next, we have. |
| Nicole: 好好 (hou2 hou2) [natural native speed] |
| Matt: Very good. |
| Nicole: 好好 (hou2 hou2) [slowly - broken down by syllable]. 好好 (hou2 hou2) [natural native speed] |
| Matt: After that we have. |
| Nicole: 呀 (aa3) |
| Matt: Ahhh. |
| Nicole: 呀 (aa3) [slowly - broken down by syllable]. 呀 (aa3) [natural native speed] |
| Matt: And finally, we have. |
| Nicole: 燒賣 (siu1 maai2) |
| Matt: Pork and mushroom dumplings. |
| Nicole: 燒賣 (siu1 maai2) [slowly - broken down by syllable]. 燒賣 (siu1 maai2) [natural native speed] |
| KEY VOCABULARY AND PHRASES |
| Matt: Now this is our second lesson. |
| Nicole: Right. |
| Matt: So before we teach you any new words. |
| Nicole: We want to have a quick review. |
| Matt: And make sure you haven't forgotten what we've already taught you. So here's what we're going to do. Nicole is going to say one of the words that we've learned previously and I want you to repeat it, and try to remember what it means in English before I give you the English translation. Okay, got it? |
| Nicole: Got it. |
| Matt: All right, let's start. |
| Nicole: Our first word is 你 (nei5). |
| Matt: Remember, try and think about what this word means. You. |
| Nicole: And then 好 (hou2) |
| Matt: Good. |
| Nicole: Okay 你好 (nei5 hou2) |
| Matt: Hello, or "you good". |
| Nicole: 我好好 (ngo5 hou2 hou2). |
| Matt: I'm very good. |
| Nicole: 我叫 (ngo5 giu3) Nicole. |
| Matt: I'm called Nicole. |
| Nicole: 我叫 (ngo5 giu3) Matt, 你呢？(nei5 ne1?) |
| Matt: I'm called Matt, and you? |
| Nicole: Hey, good job. |
| Matt: Are you talking to me or are you talking to our listeners? |
| Nicole: No, I was talking to the listeners. |
| Matt: Okay, that's what I thought. All right, right. So now we're ready to move onto our new vocabulary for this lesson. And the first word is |
| Nicole: 最近 (zeoi3 gan6) |
| Matt: This means recently. |
| Nicole: 最近 (zeoi3 gan6) |
| Matt: But we want you to remember it in this phrase. |
| Nicole: 你最近點呀? (nei5 zeoi3 gan6 dim2 aa3?) |
| Matt: Which put together means, how are you lately? |
| Nicole: 你最近點呀? (nei5 zeoi3 gan6 dim2 aa3?) |
| Matt: We know this is "you". |
| Nicole: 你 (nei5) |
| Matt: We know the first word here is you. |
| Nicole: 你 (nei5) |
| Matt: And we also know "lately". |
| Nicole: 最近 (zeoi3 gan6). |
| Matt: Then we have a word that means "how". |
| Nicole: 點 (dim2). |
| Matt: And this is a really common word. |
| Nicole: Yeah. It's the same 點 (dim2) we hear in the word Dim-Sum. |
| Matt: And now that's a Cantonese tradition! |
| Nicole: Right Dim-Sum. |
| Matt: Go to a restaurant and you can order lots of small dishes in baskets, dumplings, and sticky rice, even chicken feet. |
| Nicole: Chicken feet, but Dim-Sum is the best. Dim-Sum 好好 (hou2 hou2). |
| Matt: And that means Dim-Sum very good. |
| Nicole: Yup, I like it. |
| Matt: Nicole, what's your favorite Dim-Sum dish? |
| Nicole: Chicken feet and 燒賣 (siu1 maai2). |
| Matt: And the last one you said there, that's a type of dumpling with meat inside. |
| Nicole: Well sometimes shrimp and pork and mushroom and everything you like. And it's 好好。(hou2 hou2) |
| Matt: So again, what kind of Dim-Sum is very good? |
| Nicole: 燒賣好好 (siu1 maai2 hou2 hou2). |
| Matt: All right, Nicole, we got to stop talking about food, because I haven't had lunch yet and I'm getting hungry. So let's move on to our grammar section. |
Lesson focus |
| Nicole: Okay, let's get to that. |
| Matt: In the dialogue we heard. |
| Nicole: 你最近點呀? (nei5 zeoi3 gan6 dim2 aa3?) |
| Matt: How have you been? |
| Nicole: 你最近點呀? (nei5 zeoi3 gan6 dim2 aa3?) |
| Matt: We can make that even shorter. |
| Nicole: Right. You can always leave out 最近, (zeoi3 gan6) and just say 你點呀.(nei5 dim2 aa3?). |
| Matt: How are you? |
| Nicole: 你點呀? (nei5 dim2 aa3?) |
| Matt: Or even shorter we can say? |
| Nicole: 點呀? (dim2 aa3?) |
| Matt: What's up? |
| Nicole: 點呀? (dim2 aa3?) |
| Matt: See, Cantonese gets easier the more that we teach you. |
| Nicole: True. |
| Matt: That was only two sounds!!! |
| Nicole: Yeah. We usually say 你點呀 (nei5 dim2 aa3?) without the 你 (nei5). So it's 點呀?(dim2 aa3?) |
| Matt: Which means, what's up? |
| Nicole: You can also say it with attitude. 點呀? (dim2 aa3?) |
| Matt: Wow. You sound a little bit angry there, Nicole. |
| Nicole: That's how I usually do it. 點呀? (dim2 aa3?) If you say it like that, it's kind of like "what's your problem here", or "do you have a problem". |
| Matt: So these are really two different sentences. |
| Nicole: Right. |
| Matt: Same words but two different sentences. |
| Nicole: Um-hum. |
| Matt: We have "how are you doing?" |
| Nicole: 點呀? (dim2 aa3?) |
| Matt: And "what's your problem?" |
| Nicole: 點呀? (dim2 aa3?) |
| Matt: But if we use the long version. |
| Nicole: 你最近點呀? (nei5 zeoi3 gan6 dim2 aa3?) |
| Matt: The only meaning that long version can have is "how are you doing?" |
| Nicole: Right. 你最近點呀? (nei5 zeoi3 gan6 dim2 aa3?) |
| Matt: So be careful listeners. Make sure to watch your tones and remember what the meaning could be. |
| Nicole: Right. Make sure to add the 呀 (aa3) to the end. |
| Matt: Exactly. That's basically a sign that you're a Cantonese person. |
| Nicole: 你最近點呀? (nei5 zeoi3 gan6 dim2 aa3?) |
| Matt: Sing it out. |
| Nicole: 你最近點呀? (nei5 zeoi3 gan6 dim2 aa3?) |
| Matt: I'm from Hong Kong, and how are you? |
| Nicole: 你最近點呀? (nei5 zeoi3 gan6 dim2 aa3?) My pitch gets higher every time I say this sentence. |
| Matt: Okay. There's one more thing in the dialogue that we want to talk to you about. |
| Nicole: Right, the response. 幾好，你呢? (gei2 hou2, nei5 ne1?) |
| Matt: In our last lesson we learned how to say "very good". |
| Nicole: 好好 (hou2 hou2). |
| Matt: But here, we have the word for "pretty good". |
| Nicole: 幾好 (gei2 hou2). |
| Matt: So which one of this means that you're doing better? |
| Nicole: 好好 (hou2 hou2) is really good, very good, really, really good. And 幾好 (gei2 hou2) is just "pretty good", it's okay, not bad. |
| Matt: So most of the time what you'll hear when you're talking among friends is? |
| Nicole: 幾好 (gei2 hou2). |
| Matt: And can we add the 呀 (aa3) at the end? |
| Nicole: Of course, 幾好呀... 好好呀 (gei2 hou2 aa3... hou2 hou2 aa3). Sing it out. |
| Matt: And we can also add a subject at the beginning. Remember, we've got the subject, verb, then the rest of the sentence. |
| Nicole: 我幾好... 我好好 (ngo5 gei2 hou2... ngo5 hou2 hou2). |
| Matt: "I'm pretty good, I'm really good." |
| Nicole: And if you want to sound really Cantonese, remember to add the 呀 (aa3) to the end 我幾好呀... 我好好呀。(ngo5 gei2 hou2 aa3... ngo5 hou2 hou2 aa3.) |
| Matt: And after saying how you have been, you can ask the other person... |
| Nicole: 你呢? (nei5 ne1?) |
| Matt: How about you? |
| Nicole: 你呢? (nei5 ne1?) |
| Matt: And the response can be... |
| Nicole: 我最近幾好 (ngo5 zeoi3 gan6 gei2 hou2). |
| Matt: I'm feeling pretty good lately. See how we simply add the word 'recently' to the sentence? |
| Nicole: 最近 (zeoi3 gan6). |
| Matt: I'm feeling pretty good lately. |
| Nicole: 我最近幾好 (ngo5 zeoi3 gan6 gei2 hou2) or 我最近幾好呀 (ngo5 zeoi3 gan6 gei2 hou2 aa3). |
| Matt: Right, throwing the Cantonese tone in there. |
| Nicole: Um-hum. |
Outro |
| Matt: All right. So that's our lesson for today. |
| Nicole: But before we go… |
| Matt: …some of our listeners already know about the most powerful tools on CantoneseClass101.com, but we want to make sure that everybody out there knows about them. It is the… |
| Nicole: Line-by-line audio tool. |
| Matt: The perfect tool for rapidly improving listening comprehension. |
| Nicole: By listening to the lines of the conversation again and again. |
| Matt: Listen until every word and syllable become clear to you. Basically, we break down the dialogue into comprehensible bitesize sentences. |
| Nicole: And you can try the line-by-line audio at the premium learning center at our website which is CantoneseClass101.com. |
| Matt: Thanks everybody for tuning in. |
| Nicole: And see you next time, bye. |
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