I’d love some help understanding how to create a sentence in Cantonese.

What is the structure of a sentence? Is it “Subject (Time) (Place) Verb Object”?

For example, nei bin jat saang jat gaa (Which day of the month is your birthday?).

Conversely, 今日氣溫幾多度呀? (gam yat hei wan gei dor do a), if the topic is “temperature” shouldn’t that come first in the sentence, rather than gam yat?

If i change the sentence, is it grammatically incorrect? for example, when speaking, i will translate from english to cantonese and think of each word as it comes along in the sentence.

Also, does anyone have a good dictionary recommendation? I have come across a few online but they seem to either be written cantonese or there seem to be multiple cantonese characters for what i’m looking for (and i can’t tell which is correct). I have seen witionary has cantonese-specific phrases (for example, le fe: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/咧啡) but I can’t sort specifically for cantonese phrases (i am especially looking for spoken cantonese words).

Thank you!

  • @[email protected]
    2•1 year ago

    Honestly there is no set rules for a lot of stuff in Cantonese, just convention. If you are really yearning for fluent Cantonese, just find someone to learn from. Someone who is patient enough to correct you whenever you say something that sounds awkward.

    I am sure a lot of people will be willing to be your Cantonese partner if you are willing to teach them native spoken English in return !