CantonesePod

Although Cantonese use almost the same Chinese characters in their newspaper, most of Mandarin-speaking readers cannot really understand what they are talking about.

Why? Because they use Cantonese idioms, which have made the language so colorful.

Today, we’ll try to start to cover some of those interesting Cantonese idioms as some of our visitors have been requesting us to do so:

煲手機粥 bou1 sau2gei1 zuk1= making long calls with their celphone - the calls last so long just like cooking the porridge.
煲电话粥 bou1 din6waa2 zuk1 = make long phone call(s)
殺到埋身 killing comes to you — refers to danger is coming near.
有殺錯無放過 kill all (even the wrong ones ) so none is missed…
新鮮滾熱 brand new/fresh
死得人多 lots of people will be affected in a bad way / many people will be harmed.
失魂魚 a fish with a soul — like a chicken running with its head cut off… refers to something that can bumps into anyone in the way.

Want the Jyutping of the other words?
For now you can use Xuezhongwen.net

 

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Scripts:
我系河国荣. 我系一个澳洲鬼佬.
ngo5 hai6 ho4 gwok3 wing3. ngo5 hai6 jat1 go3 ou3 zau1 gwai2 lou2.
ngo5 = I/me; hai6 = am/is/are/to be; ho4 = river（surname here)
gwok3 = country; wing3 = glory; jat1 go3 = one (person);
ou3 zau1 = Australia;
gwai2 lou2 = a humorous way to call “foreigner(s)”, it does not really mean literately “ghost men”. Even those pretty Cantonese ladies who married “gwai2 lou2″, they say “ngo5 lou2 gung1 hai6 gwai2 lou2 我老公系鬼佬 (my husband is a (white)foreigner. ) And their husbands willingly call themselves “ngo5 hai6 gwai2 lou2 我系鬼佬”. That’s why Ho Kwo Wing called himself “gwai2 ou2″ here.

gwai2 can also be used as an adverb: e.g. gwai2 gam2 lek1(鬼咁叻) means very very smart.
So gwai2 also means genius/spirit (精灵), not “devil” or “ghost”
He said I’m a foreigner from Australia.

In our Cantonese dictionary, “gwai2 lou2″ is a good word while “Chinaman” is a bad word.

Yes, Kwo Wing, we all love you, (gwai2 lou2)!