Finding a comfortable environment to practice your spoken Cantonese is essential in gaining fluency. Practice makes perfect.

Hi Jeroen,

You are very welcome. 😇

Feel free to contact us if you have any questions.

Good luck with your language studies.

Sincerely,

Sybil

Team CantoneseClass101.com

Thanks Sybil!

Hi Jeroen,

"I practice gung fu/kung fu" could be expressed with the sentence "我練習功夫" (ngo5 lin6 zaap6 gung1 fu1) in Cantonese.

Sincerely,

Sybil

Team CantoneseClass101.com

I would love to learn, thanks so much (see question below).

Hope this is okay to ask here, it is really closely related. If I want to say "I practice gung fu", what do I use?

Is it: Ngo5 lin6 zaap6 gung1 fu1

Thanks so much!

Hi Mihai,

Here's an article that might help: https://www.cantoneseclass101.com/blog/2019/05/24/best-cantonese-movies/.

Sincerely,

Sybil

Team CantoneseClass101.com

Hi,

Just following up on Arnold's suggestion below. Could you please recommend a few cantonese movies to watch? Ideally on netflix or other streaming services but if not anywhere else is fine.

Thank you,

Mihai

Hi D.,

You're welcome. Following my suggestion, I have a handful of Hong Kong movies to recommend if you want to enhance your listening skills. 😄

Arnold

Team CantoneseClass101.com

thank you!

Hi D.,

That's hard, I know. But in practice, it's not too different from Mandarin. You're right about pitches on top of tones. But If you come to think of it, the pitches are all relative, just like tones. It can sound hard to distinguish when you listen someone speaks for the first time. But few sentences in, you will get familiarised with her/his pitch. So, the trick is to listen more, watch more movies so that you get a taste of how people with different voices speak. Hope it helps. 😉

Arnold

Team CantoneseClass101.com

nei5 hou2!

in cantonese, unlike in mandarin where you only need to recognise the tone movement, in cantonese you also need to recognise and differentiate pitches from other pitches, is there a trick? different people have different voices, so if for example they are trying to say the 1st tone then if their voice is low could they pronounce it as it looks like a lower pitch tone maybe like 6th tone or it's not the case?

thank you.

Hi Grace,

That's a good question! It all boils down to the minute differences in meaning.

傾 [king1] - to talk (with/to/about), to discuss

講 [gong2] - to say, to speak, to speak about

You can tell that king1 has a more obvious intention and often involves more than one person, whereas gong2 generally refers to the action of saying itself.

Arnold

Team CantoneseClass101.com

Hi there

Could you please explain the difference between king1 - to talk - and gong2 - to speak?

In what situations would you be more likely to use each?

thanks

Hi Grace,

Both terms you asked about mean teacher and nothing more. In fact, there is one more term you haven't mentioned that is more popularly used than these two - 老師 [lou5 si1].

老師 lou5 si1 - used 90% of the time in speaking.

教師 gaau3 si1 - mostly used in writing, and naming organisation such as teachers' union.

先生 sin1 saang1 - often by old people; archaic way of calling teacher. It nowadays means "Mister" as in "Mr. _____".

Arnold

Team CantoneseClass101.com

Hi there

What's the difference between these two different terms for 'teacher'?

sin1 saang1

gau3 si1

thanks

Hello Chris Liao,

Thank you so much for your encouragement!! 😄

Feel free to send us any other questions and comments.

Siuling

Team CantoneseClass101.com

👍

A very good beginner lesson! Thank you.

Hello Shreyan,

Thank you for your question.

你識唔識英文？(nei5 sik1 m4 sik1 jing1 man2?) or 你識唔識講英文？(nei5 sik1 m4 sik1 gong2 jing1 man2?)

Both of them are correct. The first sentence is like "Do you know English?" and the second sentence can be translated literally as "Do you speak English?"

Siuling

Team CantoneseClass101.com

In the example given for English in the vocabulary section there is a sentence :

nei5 sik1 m4 sik1 jing1 man2?

Shouldn't it be : nei5 sik1 m4 sik1 gong2 jing1 man2?

Hello Vincent,

說(syut3) is close to the word "say" in English. It is a formal expression and usually find it in the written form.

傾 (king1) is more like the word "talk, chat or discuss". For example 傾偈(king1 gai2)~ chatting

人們在說你好。

jan4 mun4 zoi6 syut3 nei5 hou2。

The people are saying, "Hello."

們(mun4)~indicate plurality, imply more than one person.

Siuling

Team CantoneseClass101.com