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Lesson Transcript

nei5 ho2, ngo5 hai6 Olivia. Hi everybody! I’m Olivia.
Welcome to CantoneseClass101.com’s “saam1 fan1 zung1 gwong2 dung1 waa2”. The fastest, easiest, and most fun way to learn Cantonese.
In the last lesson, we learned how to use the verb lei4.
In this lesson, we will jump into our lessons dedicated to interrogative words in Cantonese. Our first one will be the one that is most commonly used to ask a question, dim2, which means "How."
So imagine you are trying to buy a ticket at the subway station, you can ask people dim2 maai5 fei1?
That means "How to buy tickets?"
So let’s break down this question:
First we had:
dim2 which is "How"
then, maai5 is the verb “to buy”
Finally we had fei1 which is a noun and means "ticket."
[slowly] dim2 maai5 fei1?
Very easy, right?
Just put the verb after “How”. Here are some more examples:
dim2 heoi3 ? → “How to go?” or “How to get there?”
dim2 bou6 meng2 ? → “How to register?”
ji1 go3 dim2 sik6 ? → literally, “this how to eat?” which means “how to eat this?”
You know what? With this word, you can also learn more Cantonese vocabulary.That’s because you can use it to ask people “How do you say …(something)... in Cantonese?”
“to speak” is gong2 in Cantonese, and “Cantonese language” is gwong2 dung1 waa2.
Now, do you know how to form the question?
It’s (something) gwong2 dung1 waa2 dim2 gong2?
Literally “(something) in Cantonese how to speak?”
[slowly] gwong2 dung1 waa2 dim2 gong2?
Let’s have a look at some examples:
“Airport” gwong2 dung1 waa2 dim2 gong2?→ “How do you say ‘airport’ in Cantonese?”
“How are you” gwong2 dung1 waa2 dim2 gong2? → “How do you say ‘How are you’ in Cantonese?”
Now it’s time for Olivia’s Insights
Other than dim2, you might also hear dim2 joeng2 - these two are interchangeable.
For example, if you are are trying to get to the airport, but have no idea how to get there, you can ask dim2 heoi3 gei1 coeng4? or dim2 joeng2 heoi3 gei1 coeng4?
In this lesson, we learned how to use the interrogative word “How”, dim2. Next time we’ll learn another very useful and interrogative word, mat1.
Do you know what this Cantonese word means?
I’ll be waiting for you with the answer in the next saam1 fan1 zung1 gwong2 dung1 waa2 lesson.
haa6 ci3 gin3.

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