this post was submitted on 11 Jul 2023
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Cantonese

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There are quite a few resources available for learning spoken Cantonese but i've found it difficult to find resources to learn Cantonese grammar.

For example, the sentence "he asked me to send you some photos" is, in my opinion, not a difficult sentence to translate in many languages but it seems particularly difficult in cantonese:

佢叫我 send的畫比你 keui yiu ngoh send dik waak bei nei he + ask + I + send + of + photo + ? + you

I have found this is called the "passive voice" but i don't understand the sentence order or why/where this "bei" is used.

Does anyone have any good resources for learning cantonese grammar, especially making sentences?

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[–] Pat12 1 points 1 year ago

In Cantonese especially written Cantonese there are quite a number of ambiguities. I can readily think of one other example just like this - "黐"線 and "痴"線. Native speakers would see either of these terms and know the meaning right away (crazy), but it should be written as 黐線 not 痴線.

this is another helpful example lol