The Art of Denial

Beginner: The Art of Denial

Learning Cantonese? This lesson is about the art of the denial. Which is highly-critical language you may just find yourself using the next time you sweep through Hong Kong on business, or just want to disavow any knowledge once again of that little incident it would be best if everyone just forgot. Because it was years ago. And who is really keeping track, anyway?

Also... do you remember that earlier lesson in which we learned that Cantonese speakers are particularly fond of turning odd emotional exclamations into high frequency words? Well heavens if there isn't another example lurking in this lesson, along with a dramatic Cantonese dialogue that is several degrees towards strange. But we think you'll enjoy it. So listen in, and good luck!

ch0ula09

said on

April 7, 2011

Love how you've taken off with the episodes and are stamping them with your Popup Chinese characteristics. I probably couldn't get away with using many of the terms in this lesson, but since Cantonese speakers are notoriously honest, I'll at least know when someone is talking about me.

nicole

said on

April 7, 2011

@ch0ula09

Glad you liked it. We're trying to produce lessons that're interesting and fun to learn.

Yes. 啃得落 is totally rude. Perhaps you could swap in 帶得出街(daai3 dak1 ceot1 gaai1), 'to be able to take out', which is (slightly)less rude.

woaibento

said on

April 14, 2011

Funny lesson!

Are there any Cantonese celebrity gossip websites out there for free? I have tried looking but don't know where to look. Only found English translated ones.

The magazines are expensive over here, like 4 or 5 times the original price!

nicole

said on

April 14, 2011

@woaibento

香港壹周刊/蘋果日報：http://hk.nextmedia.com/

台湾壹周刊/蘋果日報：http://tw.nextmedia.com/

They're sued all the time by celebrities.

明报娱乐版：http://www.mingpaoweekly.com/news/news.php

chiuyan

said on

April 14, 2011

@waoibento

新Monday (http://www.newmonday.com.hk/) has some stuff up on their website for free, and if you click on the webzine link, they put up full versions of their 夏の潮食 magazine which is a great magazine about food). The main magazine and the food magazine are entirely in colloquial cantonese (they also put out a fasion mag, which is in more standard written chinese). The print magazine is probably my main source for written cantonese materials to practice/learn with, so unfortunately I know way more than I like to admit about the lives and troubles of HK celebrities :-/

I don't know how often they are sued by celebrities though :-)

woaibento

said on

April 15, 2011

@ Nicole and Chiuyan,

Hahahah, 多謝晒！ Need to do more Cantonese reading. :)

I read the English versions. The latest celebrity gossip is about Raymond Lam 林峰 and his ex. I've not seen anyone suing yet!

nicole

said on

April 15, 2011

@Chiuyan @woaibento

Hahah, 蘋果壹週刊‘朵’好臭:) 劉嘉玲、李嘉欣、蔡依林都告過。

我都睇咗林峰嘅八卦新聞，我覺得佢同佢嘅公關經理人都處理得幾好，塑造咗一個癡情男同無辜男嘅形象。相反，得咗艾滋病嘅Y男星就完全係另一回事喇...

woaibento

said on

April 16, 2011

@Nicole,

Hahahah,蘋果壹週刊 is not free to read, but I agree. They are bad.

My image of 林峰 has changed so much with the recent gossip of him having multiple relationships. And yes, 林峰 and 經理 have managed it well...

chiuyan

said on

May 19, 2011

Speaking of mean press, I read the following last night and thought it a pretty good example of the style of writing in HK gossip magazines.

The is a caption underneath a photo of a smiling Christine Kuo in a recent edition of 新Monday. To me it sounds very mean, in fact I was unable to make the English translation sound as mean :-O

牙黃妹

嘩! 平時晒開胸嘅苟芸慧唔係瞓醒冇刷牙吖嘛？明知開工就執下個儀表先啦！啲牙黃到咁，鬼咁肉酸，而家煙仔貴，食少包啦！

Translation:

Yellow Teeth Lady

Wow! Christine Kuo is usually more famous for showing her boobies, but did she just wake up and forget to brush her teeth? Everyone knows before you go to work you need to at least make yourself presentable first, right?! Her teeth are so yellow, it's really disgusting. I think she needs to smoke fewer cigarettes!

Some Vocab:

苟芸慧 (gau2 wan4 wai6) = Christine Kuo, a Miss Chinese Tornto winner and new TVB actress

平時 (ping4 si4) = normally

瞓醒 (fan3 sing2) = wake up

刷牙 (chat3 nga4) = brush your teeth

執 (jap1) = arrange, put in order

儀表 (yi4 biu2) = appearance

肉酸 (yuk6 syun1) = disgusting (literaly sour meat)

nicole

said on

May 20, 2011

@chiuyan

Lol. That is so typical. Poor Christine Kuo.

Thank you for the translation and vocab! Well done.

mike.m.lin

said on

January 19, 2012

I didn't realize that some sound reductions are OK in Chinese. The last sentence took me a while to hear clearly because the speaker pronounced 真係 as a single syllable. The sound "zan hai" was reduced simply to "zai". Did I hear that right?

melodyloi28

said on

January 20, 2012

@mike.m.lin,

Yes, you can say "zai" in spoken speech. It means the same thing. It's a fast/short way to say "zan hai".

edjaymovie

said on

November 1, 2021

I'm trying to figure out how to write these

鯁得落 = kang2dak1lok6 = hard to swallow

Is that correct?

fgfgdfgfgfd

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