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Lesson Transcript

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Hey guys! Welcome to Cantonese Top Words! Today we're going to talk about top 10 phrases to amaze native speakers. So now you can amaze some Cantonese speakers with your brilliant Cantonese skills, let's go!
1. 我學咗廣東話十年。 (ngo5 hok6 zo2 gwong2 dung1 waa2 sap6 nin4.) "I've been learning Cantonese for 10 years."
Wow! 10 years! That’s a lot! I mean 10 years ago not a lot of people knows about Cantonese, usually they just thought it was just Chinese. And how long have you been learning Cantonese? let us know in the comments.
2. 啲廣東話我全部自學㗎。 (di1 gwong2 dung1 waa2 ngo5 cyun4 bou6 zi6 hok6 gaa3.) "I'm learning Cantonese all by myself."
That's brilliant, I mean you need a lot of self-discipline to learn a language, I've been trying. I guess it’s more common nowadays with the internet, and the apps, and everything; by the way, download our apps!
3. 除咗廣東話,我仲識其他幾個語言。 (ceoi4 zo2 gwong2 dung1 waa2, ngo5 zung6 sik1 kei4 taa1 gei2 go3 jyu5 jin4.) "Apart from knowing Cantonese, I can speak a few other languages as well."
So that makes you, what, bilingual, trilingual, quadrilingual? I don't know, Yeah, that's really cool, I heard they said that the more languages you speak, the more open you are to new ideas. How many languages can you speak? So if you want to tell people which languages you know, you can say 除咗廣東話,我仲識日文同德文。 (ceoi4 zo2 gwong2 dung1 waa2, ngo5 zung6 sik1 jat6 man2 tung4 dak1 man2.) "Other than Cantonese, I can also speak Japanese and German."
4. 我睇港產片可以唔使字幕。 (ngo5 tai2 gong2 caan2 pin2 ho2 ji3 m4 sai2 zi6 mok6.) "I can watch Cantonese movies without subtitles."
That's great! That's one of my goals when I'm learning a language, to not have to read the subtitles when I watch a movie. Can you do that now?
5. 我一日可以記五十個廣東話生字。 (ngo5 jat1 jat6 ho2 ji3 gei3 ng5 sap6 go3 gwong2 dung1 waa2 saang1 zi6.) "I can memorize around 50 new Cantonese words a day."
Can you really remember that much in a day? Maybe it's just me, I think I can only remember 10 or 20 max. Tell us how many words you can remember every day.
6. 廣東話好得意,又易學! (gwong2 dung1 waa2 hou2 dak1 ji3, jau6 ji6 hok6!) "Cantonese is fun and easy to learn!"
Yes it is! It sounds like a song and it has a lot of tones. It's fun to learn and there are a lot of slang, once you know the language it’s very interesting to find out the background of the slangs or idioms. So work hard!
7. 我嘅廣東話三年之內會好似母語咁流利。 (ngo5 ge3 gwong2 dung1 waa2 saam1 nin4 zi1 noi6 wui5 hou2 ci3 mou5 jyu5 gam3 lau4 lei6.) "I’ll speak Cantonese like a native speaker in 3 years."
Three years seems a bit short to master a language and make it fluent like your mother tongue, but you can do it! It usually take a year and a half for someone to really capture the essence of the language, especially if you're living in the city that speaks that language, that really helps!
8. 你講嘅嘢我完全明白。 (nei5 gong2 ge3 je5 ngo5 jyun4 cyun4 ming4 baak6.) "I completely understood everything you said."
Depending on the person speaking, sometimes even when people are speaking in Cantonese or in English, I can still get confused because of the way they speak or the speed they speak. But yeah, I would aim to completely understand the other person when they're speaking in a language that I'm learning, so that is really good progress.
9. 多謝,但係呢個唔係我嘅母語。 (do1 ze6, daan6 hai6 ni1 go3 m4 hai6 ngo5 ge3 mou5 jyu5.) "Thank you, but I'm not a native speaker actually."
Wow! If people said that to you, that means your Cantonese is really good, and you have no accent at all. So that's like the ultimate goal for learning a language.
10. 我淨係學咗一年,已經好流利。 (ngo5 zing6 hai6 hok6 zo2 jat1 nin4, ji5 ging1 hou2 lau4 lei6.) "It took me only one year to become fluent."
I mean, one year, yes, you can do that if you study, like, everyday and practice every day. I know someone who get really fluent in spoken Cantonese. Just practice a lot, say it out loud, and don't be afraid.
Today we talked about the top 10 phrases to amaze native speakers, let us know if you have any extra tips, and check out the website for the word list. But maybe if you're already fluent in Cantonese then you don't need the word list, right? Alright, please subscribe so you can check out more Cantonese videos, and I'll see you next time! I'm Olivia! Bye!

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