Learn how to describe failure to do something
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| INTRODUCTION |
| David: Welcome to CantoneseClass101.com. I’m David. |
| Nicole: 大家好, 我係 (daai6 gaa1 hou2 , ngo5 hai6) Nicole. |
| David: And welcome to Absolute Beginner, Season 2, Lesson 16. |
| Nicole: “Paying Phone Bills in Hong Kong.” |
| David: Right. You still have to pay them in Hong Kong. |
| Nicole: Too bad. |
| David: Yeah. So, we’ve got a dialogue here that’s between two friends. So, they’re not actually paying a phone bill but they’re going to talk about it. |
| Nicole: That’s right. |
| David: And because they’re friends, they’ll be speaking casual Cantonese as always, right? Now, we’re going to take you to the dialogue in a sec, before we do we want to remind you we have these great dialogue only recordings on CantoneseClass101.com. |
| Nicole: Yeah. |
| David: Download these through IPod, it’s a really quick way to review. |
| Nicole: It really helps. |
| David: Yeah, with that, let’s go to the dialogue. |
| DIALOGUE |
| A: 你電話打唔通。(nei5 din6 waa2 daa2 m4 tung1.) |
| B: 係咩？ (hai6 me1?) |
| A: 要交電話費喇！(jiu3 gaau1 din6 waa2 fai3 laa3!) |
| B: 咩係電話費呀？(me1 hai6 din6 waa2 fai3 aa3?) |
| A: I couldn't reach you by phone. |
| B: Really? |
| A: You should pay your phone bill. |
| B: What's a phone bill? |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| David: I’ve been guilty of this. |
| Nicole: Why? |
| David: Not not knowing what a phone bill is, but just you know, letting it go for a while. |
| Nicole: Really? |
| David: Yeah. |
| Nicole: Yeah, I think this person in this dialogue just does the same thing. |
| David: Yeah. Okay. Well, we’ve got a vocab section here, which is all about phones and recharging them and phone bills. So, you’re going to need to use this stuff , let’s get right to the vocab section. |
| Nicole: Alright. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Nicole: 打。(daa2) |
| David: “To dial”. |
| Nicole: 打, 打, 電話。(daa2, daa2, din6 waa2.) |
| David: “Telephone”. |
| Nicole: 電話, 電話, 通。(din6 waa2, din6 waa2, tung1.) |
| David: “To get through”. |
| Nicole: 通, 通, 短信。(tung1, tung1, dyun2 seon3) |
| David: “Text message”. |
| Nicole: 短信, 短信, 留言。(dyun2 seon3, dyun2 seon3, lau4 jin4.) |
| David: “To leave a message”. |
| Nicole: 留言, 留言, 電話費。(lau4 jin4, lau4 jin4, din6 waa2 fai3.) |
| David: “Phone bill”. |
| Nicole: 電話費, 電話費, 交。(din6 waa2 fai3, din6 waa2 fai3, gaau1.) |
| David: “To pay”. |
| Nicole: 交, 交。(gaau1, gaau1.) |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| David: Let’s take a closer look at some of these words and phrases. |
| Nicole: Alright. The first word we want to look at is 打. (daa2.) |
| David: “To dial”. |
| Nicole: 打。(daa2.) |
| David: And of course, what you’re dialing is a telephone. |
| Nicole: 電話。(din6 waa2.) |
| David: telephone. |
| Nicole: 電話。(din6 waa2.) |
| David: So literally actually is to “hit the telephone”. |
| Nicole: Exactly. |
| David: Right. |
| Nicole: Because that what you do. |
| David: Yeah. |
| Nicole: Hit the numbers. |
| David: Yeah, so “to hit the telephone”. |
| Nicole: 打電話。(daa2 din6 waa2.) |
| David: “To dial the telephone”. |
| Nicole: 打電話。(daa2 din6 waa2.) |
| David: “I need to dial the telephone”. |
| Nicole: 我要打電話。(ngo5 jiu3 daa2 din6 waa2.) |
| David: “Give me a telephone call.” |
| Nicole: 打電話比我。(daa2 din6 waa2 bei2 ngo5.) |
| David: That’s a really useful one. |
| Nicole: Let’s hear it one more time. 打電話比我。(daa2 din6 waa2 bei2 ngo5.) |
| David: “Give me a telephone call.” So you can give someone your number and you can say this. |
| Nicole: 打電話比我。(daa2 din6 waa2 bei2 ngo5.) |
| David: And hopefully they’ll call you. |
| Nicole: Yeah. |
| David: Yeah. Assuming that you’ve paid your telephone bill. |
| Nicole: 電話費。(din6 waa2 fai3.) |
| David: “Telephone bill”. |
| Nicole: 電話費。(din6 waa2 fai3.) |
| David: Just like in English, we have the word for “telephone”. |
| Nicole: 電話。(din6 waa2.) |
| David: And then the word for “expense” or “fee”. |
| Nicole: 費。(fai3.) |
| David: And that’s an English language loanword, right? |
| Nicole: Yeah. |
| David: It comes from English, so easy to remember. |
| Nicole: I’m not sure about that, but yeah. |
| David: Yeah. I think it does. So that’s “telephone bill”. |
| Nicole: 電話費。(din6 waa2 fai3.) |
| David: And Nicole, there’s a point you want to make about the word “telephone”. |
| Nicole: Yeah. In oral Cantonese, 電話 (din6 waa2) can mean both “telephone” and “cellphone”. |
| David: Yeah. Is there a special word for cellphone? |
| Nicole: Yes, there is. 手提電話 (sau2 tai4 din6 waa2), “hand carried telephone”. |
| David: Right. So, that’s a “hand styled phone”. |
| Nicole: Yeah. 手提電話 (sau2 tai4 din6 waa2) or you can say 手機. (sau2 gei1.) |
| David: “Cellphone”. |
| Nicole: 手提電話。(sau2 tai4 din6 waa2.) |
| David: Or? |
| Nicole: 手機。(sau2 gei1.) |
| David: Right. Now, you dial someone’s number and you don’t get through, you might be asked to “leave a message”. |
| Nicole: 留言。(lau4 jin4.) |
| David: “Leave a message”. |
| Nicole: 留言。(lau4 jin4.) |
| David: “Leave a message after the beep.” |
| Nicole: 嗶一聲之後留言。(bit1 jat1 seng1 zi1 hau6 lau4 jin4.) |
| David: “Leave a message after the beep.” |
| Nicole: 嗶一聲之後留言。 (bit1 jat1 seng1 zi1 hau6 lau4 jin4.) |
| David: And anyone who asks you to do that in Hong Kong is toying with you because they’re always carrying their cell phones. |
| Nicole: That’s right. |
| David: Right? So, if someone does that, you know they’re playing with you. If you do need to get in touch though, you can also send them a “text message”. |
| Nicole: 短信。(dyun2 seon3.) |
| David: “Text message”. |
| Nicole: 短信。(dyun2 seon3.) |
| David: Nicole is always text messaging. |
| Nicole: Yeah, it’s fun. |
| David: So, if you meet someone you can say “Hey, text me”. |
| Nicole: 發短信比我。 (faat3 dyun2 seon3 bei2 ngo5.) |
| David: And that’s literally “Issue a text message to give to me”. |
| Nicole: Yeah. Or “send text message to me”. 發短信比我。(faat3 dyun2 seon3 bei2 ngo5.) |
| David: That sentence is really close to something we already learned. Let’s hear that again with “give me a telephone call”. |
| Nicole: 打電話比我。 (daa2 din6 waa2 bei2 ngo5.) |
| David: “Send me a text message”. |
| Nicole: 發短信比我。 (faat3 dyun2 seon3 bei2 ngo5.) |
| David: So the last two sounds, “for me”, don’t change. |
| Nicole: 比我。(bei2 ngo5.) |
| David: We’re just changing the verb object. |
| Nicole: It’s either 打電話 (daa2 din6 waa2) or 發短信 (faat3 dyun2 seon3). |
| David: Right. “Give me a call.” |
| Nicole: 打電話比我。(daa2 din6 waa2 bei2 ngo5.) |
| David: “Send me a text message”. |
| Nicole: 發短信比我。 (faat3 dyun2 seon3 bei2 ngo5.) |
| David: And that brings us to the end of the vocab section. In the grammar section, we’re going to take a closer look at one of trickier verbs in this dialogue. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| David: It’s grammar time! Our grammar focus today is a fairly tricky verb construction. |
| Nicole: Yeah, it’s a bit difficult. |
| David: Right. And it comes from this line in the dialogue. |
| Nicole: 你電話打唔通。 (nei5 din6 waa2 daa2 m4 tung1.) |
| David: “I couldn’t reach you by phone.” |
| Nicole: 你電話打唔通。 (nei5 din6 waa2 daa2 m4 tung1.) |
| David: Or literally it’s “your telephone”. |
| Nicole: 你電話。(nei5 din6 waa2.) |
| David: “Would not connect through”. |
| Nicole: 打唔通。 (daa2 m4 tung1.) |
| David: Let’s hear that verb again, “would not connect”. |
| Nicole: 打唔通。 (daa2 m4 tung1.) |
| David: Right. Nicole, what’s going on? |
| Nicole: Well, this is a very useful structure, we have the verb 打 (daa2) and then the negation 唔 (m4) and then the adjective 通. (tung1.) |
| David: Right. Sometime it’s an adjective, sometimes it will be a verb at the end. |
| Nicole: Yeah. |
| David: But when you see this, it’s actually one verb unit. |
| Nicole: That’s right. |
| David: It’s saying to dial, but the result of this is that it does not go through in this case. |
| Nicole: Exactly. So, it says something about the action and then mentions the result of it. |
| David: Yes, so it’s technically known as a resultative verb complement. |
| Nicole: Exactly. |
| David: And here we’re seeing in the negative, in the case of “to dial but not to get through”. |
| Nicole: 打唔通。(daa2 m4 tung1.) |
| David: This is a really common verb structure in Cantonese. |
| Nicole: That’s right. |
| David: We’re going to give you a couple of more example, although as always we encourage you to check out the details in the premium PDF. More examples though, you can say “Can’t get done”. |
| Nicole: 做唔晒。(zou6 m4 saai3.) |
| David: “Not to be able to finish”. |
| Nicole: That’s right. 做唔晒。(zou6 m4 saai3.) |
| David: Or what if you go to a fancy restaurant and they serve you these really small dishes? |
| Nicole: That’s right. |
| David: And you order ten of them and you still can’t get full. |
| Nicole: Oh, I hate it! |
| David: You might complain. |
| Nicole: 食唔飽。 (sik6 m4 baau2.) |
| David: “I can’t eat full.” |
| Nicole: 食唔飽 (sik6 m4 baau2), so we have the word “eat”, 食 (sik6) and the negation 唔 (m4) and then “full”, 飽 (baau2). Together we have 食唔飽. (sik6 m4 baau2.) |
| David: Right. If you like going to bars instead, you might find some places in Hong Kong that water down the drinks. In which case - |
| Nicole: Yeah, it might happen. |
| David: - you might be saying something else. |
| Nicole: 飲唔醉。 (jam2 m4 zeoi3.) |
| David: “Can’t get drunk”. |
| Nicole: 飲唔醉。 (jam2 m4 zeoi3.) |
| David: “Can’t get drunk”. And again, it’s the same pattern. We have the verb….. |
| Nicole: 飲。 (jam2.) |
| David: Which means “to drink”, and then the negation. |
| Nicole: 唔。(m4.) |
| David: And the verb or adjective that tells us the result. |
| Nicole: 醉。(zeoi3.) |
| David: “Can’t get drunk”. |
| Nicole: 飲唔醉。 (jam2 m4 zeoi3.) |
| David: So all of these verbs are simple variations on the pattern we see in our dialogue. |
| Nicole: 你電話打唔通。 (nei5 din6 waa2 daa2 m4 tung1.) |
| David: Now, in the later lesson we’re going to cover how to do the same thing in a positive sense. |
| Nicole: That’s right. |
| David: For now though, just pay attention to how this works in a negative. “We’ll not go through.” |
| Nicole: 打唔通。(daa2 m4 tung1.) |
| David: “Can’t get done”. |
| Nicole: 做唔晒。 (zou6 m4 saai3.) |
| David: “Can’t eat full”. |
| Nicole: 食唔飽。(sik6 m4 baau2.) |
| David: “Can’t get drunk”. |
| Nicole: 飲唔醉。 (jam2 m4 zeoi3.) |
| David: And that’s our grammar point this lesson. |
Outro |
| David: Before we go, I want to remind all of our iPhone, iPod and iPad users. |
| Nicole: Listen, tap and swipe your way to fluency with our Cantonese language apps. |
| David: Right. We’ve got a bunch of Cantonese apps on the iTunes store that you can use to study on the go. |
| Nicole: They’re fun and easy to use. Just visit our iPhone page on CantoneseClass101.com to learn more about it. |
| David: And that’s it for today. I’m David. |
| Nicole: 我係 (ngo5 hai6) Nicole. |
| David: Thanks a lot for listening and we hope to see you on the site. |
| Nicole: See you! |
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