Cantonese Lesson #1 – Introduction & Greetings (Part 1)

So hello there, this is DJ Tofu aka Charan! Thank you all for showing interest in
learning Cantonese. So without further ado, let’s start the first lesson!
The difficult thing about Cantonese is that there are 6 different tones. If these
aren’t pronounced properly, then you might be saying a totally different word! So
pay attention to the tones of each word. In my opinion, this is the hardest part of
learning Cantonese, so good luck! 

Tone Pitch Contour Example

Chines
1 High Level dzUng
e
2 Low-Mid to High Rising gon speak
3 Mid Level ou bay
4 Low-Mid to Low Falling tsm sink
5 Low to Low-Mid Rising mai buy
6 Low-Mid Level mai sell Credits:
http://cantonese.ca
(You can always go back and listen to the tones on the website. This website is
actually pretty good and I totally recommend it, but anyways, back to my lesson
haha)
I won’t be teaching you guys how to write. The other difficult thing about
Cantonese (and actually Chinese in general) is that there isn’t an alphabet. In
English, Korean, Japanese, etc there are alphabets that you use to construct
words. In Chinese however, we don’t have that. Each word is unique and
different. There are similarities but it’s really hard to explain for me. Sorry!
*NOTE: The following “romanizations” are probably incorrect…I have never done
romanizations for Cantonese ^^ sorry! ALSO, this is spoken Cantonese ^^ if you
want to write formally…don’t write like this, haha. And if you want to learn how to
write, I suggest you go to an actual Chinese school to learn because it’s really
hard for me to teach how to write Chinese characters over the radio…
1) Scenario #1:
Person A: 你好嗎？ (lei ho ma?) [How are you?]
Person B: 我好好呀、你呢？(ngo ho ho ah, lei le?) [I’m very good, you?]

Person A: 我都幾好呀。你今日去邊呀？(ngo doe gei ho ah) [I’m pretty

good/okay too. Where are you going today?]

Person B: 我去食飯、我要走啦、再見啦！(ngo hui sik fan, ngo yiu jow

la, joi geen la) [I’m going to eat (dinner), I need to go now, bye] (char: LOL I
FEEL SO SORRY FOR PERSON A…)
 Person A: 拜拜 ! (bai bai) [bye-bye]

(LOL I know this is the lamest conversation ever, but yeah…)

So in scenario 1, this is usually how people would greet each other. The
Cantonese way of saying “hello” is basically, “hello” haha. To be very honest, we
don’t use 你好嗎？ (lei ho ma?) often because it sounds way too formal. So
instead, we like to use slangs like 點呀 (dim ah?) which means “what’s up”.

If you want to introduce yourself, you’ll have to learn a few things like numbers
first, which I will probably teach later.
2) Introductions

a. Name: 我叫… (ngo giu…) [I’m called…]

我個名係…(ngo gor mang hai…) [my name is…]

b. Likes: 我鍾意…(ngo dzung yi…) [I like…]

Some examples include:

i. 聽音樂 (teng yum ok) [listen to music]

ii. 睇戲 (tai hey) [watch movies]

iii. 食嘢 (sik yeh) [eat]

iv. 學中文 (hok dzung mun) [learn Chinese] (char: LOL :D)

v. 睇韓國名星 (tai hon kwok ming sing) [watch Korean idols]

c. Dislikes: 我唔鍾意…(ngo mm dzung yi…) [I don’t like…]

Music break 
Feel free to request anything you want to learn on my DJ thread!