Cantonese emotion word/ sound PART 2

Continuing on from last week, today we will talk about some emotion sounds that you can use at the end of the sentences, again only single character emotion sounds. This week, I want you to do me a favour and pay extra attention to how emotion sounds are stressed and toned to express different ranges of emotions. Again I will use very simple and similar examples to guide you to understanding how to use and understand these emotion sounds.

First let’s take a look at 呀 吖 啊 (Dummy PY: Ah). The 呀 吖 啊 (Dummy PY: Ah) sound is one of the most commonly heard emotion sound in Cantonese. There are 3 different emotion characters that are pronounced as Ah. Although in written Chinese, you write them in different characters, but in spoken Cantonese, there are no differences in terms of pronunciation. For easier understanding, I will just explain the Ah sound in one big category.

呀 吖 啊 (Dummy PY: Ah) can be put at the end of the sentence or at the beginning of the sentence. When you put it at the beginning of the sentence, it usually expresses shock, surprise or some sort of reckoning.

For example:

“啊! 我知!” (Dummy PY: Ah! Ngo Gee!) meaning “Ah! I know.”

But if you were to change the tone a little bit, it becomes a question, also expresses shock, surprise or some sort of reckoning.

For example:

“啊? 我知!” (Dummy PY: Ah? Ngo Gee!) meaning “Ah? I know.”

Now when you put the Ah sound at the end of the sentence, it also can be expressing some sort of a confirmation.

“我知呀!” (Dummy PY: Ngo Gee Ah!) meaning I know already. or in Hong Kong English “I know ah!”

But if you were to slight increase the tone to:

“我知呀!” (Dummy PY: Ngo Gee Ah!) meaning I know already. or in Hong Kong English “I know ah!” In this case the Ah sound expresses a stronger confirmation.

You can also use the Ah sound at the end of the sentence to ask a question, for example:

“你知唔知呀?” (Dummy PY: Neigh Gee Um Gee Ah?)meaning “Do you know?” or in Hong Kong English “Do you know ah?” and the Ah sounds sort of acts as the expression of the question or asking for confirmation. It can also be used as a rhetorical question, for example:

“係啊? 你知啊?” (Dummy PY: High Ah? Neigh Gee Ah?) meaning “Oh yes? You do know?” or in Hong Kong English “Yes ah You know ah?”

And then the person will likely to reply with confirmation with the 呀 吖 啊 (Dummy PY: Ah) sound:

“係啊! 我知啊!” (Dummy PY: High Ah! Ngo Gee Ah!) meaning “Yes. I do know” or in Hong Kong English “Yes ah! I know ah!”

or even with a stronger tone:

“係啊! 我知啊!” (Dummy PY: High Ah! Ngo Gee Ah!) meaning “Yes. I do know” or in Hong Kong English “Yes ah! I know ah!”

Now let’s move on to the LA sound 啦/喇/ 嘞 (Dummy PY: La) . The LA sound 啦/喇/ 嘞 (Dummy PY: La) is also one of the most commonly heard emotion sound in Cantonese. The LA sound 啦/喇/ 嘞 (Dummy PY: La) also can be written in 3 different Chinese characters, but for easy understanding, we will group them all together. The LA sound 啦/喇/ 嘞 (Dummy PY: La) when put only at the end of the sentence, and can indicate something is done or indicate regular emotions.

“我知啦!” (Dummy PY: Ngo Gee La)meaning I know, got it. Or in Hong Kong English “I know la!”

Sometimes when they double it up and say,

“我知喇! 我知喇!” (Dummy PY: Ngo Gee La! Ngo Gee La!)meaning, “I know, I know” or in Hong Kong English “I know la! I know la!”

or

“係喇! 係喇!” (Dummy PY: High La! High La!) meaning “Yes! Yes!” or in Hong Kong English “yes la! yes la!”

or

“得喇! 得喇!” (Dummy PY: Duck La! Duck La!)meaning “Ok.Ok.” or in Hong Kong English “Ok la. Ok la.”

When they double it up and repeat the la sentence, it means that they are slightly annoyed, that they got it.

Another way of using the la sound 啦/喇/ 嘞 (Dummy PY: La), is to grab people’s attention. For example:

食飯喇！ (Dummy PY: Sick Farn La) meaning “Time to eat!” or in Hong Kong English, “Eat la”

Or when you are expressing that you got a good handle of the situation but not necessarily annoyed like in the “我知喇! 我知喇!” (Dummy PY: Ngo Gee La! Ngo Gee La!) meaning, “I know, I know” case:

我會食飯嘞! (Dummy PY: Sick Wui Sick Farn La) Meaning “I will eat” or in Hong Kong English “I will eat la”.

Or you can use the la sound when you suddenly want to say something, like the lightbulb next to you head just lit up, you can say:

“係啦! 你知唔知呀?“ (Dummy PY: High La! Neigh Gee Um Gee Ah?) meaning “Oh yes! Did you know?” or in Hong Kong English, “yes la! Did you know ah?”

There is another emotion sound that can apply in this situation as well, when you suddenly want to say something, it is the Leh sound 哩 (Dummy PY: Le). Using the same example of “Oh yes! Did you know?” you can instead say:

“係哩! 你知唔知呀?“ (Dummy PY: High Le! Neigh Gee Um Gee Ah?) or in Hong Kong English, “yes leh! Did you know ah?”

On the other hand, if they were to say:

“係哩! 你知唔知哩?“ (Dummy PY: High Le! Neigh Gee Um Gee Le?) It would become a question for the person who was posing this question, like a rhetorical question for oneself, the meaning now would become, “Oh yes! Would you know?” but not directed at the other person. You can also use the leh sound to ask a question that begs confirmation,

“我好好哩?” meaning “I am good aren’t I?”

Or even use it to emphasize your statement:

“係哩! 你知哩!“ (Dummy PY: High Le! Neigh Gee Le!). meaning “Right! You knew right!” Or in Hong Kong English “Yes Leh! You know leh!” Basically to say, with a bit of subtle undertone, right, you knew it all along.

We can move onto talking about a very similar sounding emotion sound, “Ne” 呢(Dummy PY: Ne), even though in Hong Kong, people have lazy sounds so they don’t worry so much about if you pronounce it as “Ne” or “Leh”. 呢(Dummy PY: Ne) is used to express either regular emotions, or a question that begs confirmation.

For example:

你知㗎, 係咪呢? (Dummy PY: Neigh Gee Ga, High My Ne?) Meaning “you knew, right?”

or

我呢? (Dummy PY: Ngo Ne?) Meaning, “how about me?” or in Hong Kong English “Me Neh?” Perfect, are we all clear?

Let's talk about 1 more and that is all I will explain this week. Just now I talked about this example:

你知㗎, 係咪呢? (Dummy PY: Neigh Gee Ga, High My Ne?) Meaning “you knew, right?”

Now I want to talk about the sound 㗎 (Dummy PY: Ga) in 你知㗎(Dummy PY: Neigh Gee Ga), the 㗎 (Dummy PY: Ga) sound is used to add in extra emotions and tones, also to show you are half believing and half doubting something. In the half believing and half doubting something situation, then that’s when you can say:

你知㗎, 係咪呢? (Dummy PY: Neigh Gee Ga, High My Ne?) Meaning “you knew, right?” Or you can say:

你係咪真係知㗎? (Dummy PY: Neigh High My Jan High Gee Ga?) meaning in literal translation “You Yes or no really know ga?”, meaning “You really do know?”

Or when you are just realizing that someone knows something that you didn’t think they knew, you can say:

你知㗎?! (Dummy PY: Neigh Gee Ga?) meaning “you knew?!” But here it is more that you are surprised that the person knew.

When you want to use 㗎 (Dummy PY: Ga) to intensify your emotions and tones, you can also say for example:

佢好好㗎! (Dummy PY: Kui Ho Ho Ga!) meaning he/ she is great! Or in Hong Kong English “he/she is great ga!” Without the 㗎 (Dummy PY: Ga) sound, if you are to say 佢好好!(Dummy PY: Kui Ho Ho!) it still means he/ she is great, but the 㗎 (Dummy PY: Ga) intensifies the compliment.

or

你知㗎! (Dummy PY: Neigh Gee Ga!) meaning “you know” or in Hong Kong English “you know ga!” that is to say I know you know it. You see, the way you use these emotion sounds are very important, as well how you stress and tone these emotion sounds also changes the meaning, such as you see in,

你知㗎! (Dummy PY: Neigh Gee Ga!) meaning “you know”

or

But if you were to say 你知㗎?! (Dummy PY: Neigh Gee Ga?) meaning “you knew?!”

The meaning is now completely different, so pay attention to that when you listen to Cantonese people talk and also when you are using them. That’s it I got for you today. Let’s chat more about this next week!