Beware of the
Context: Taishanese, like Cantonese and
Mandarin, does not inflect verbs to indicate Tense
or Person. Thus a simple sentence like '我买鸡'
can be translated to 'I bought chicken', 'I buy chicken',
or ''I will buy chicken' depend on the context.
Time
adverbial clause could be added for clarity, for example,
我天早买鸡 (I
will buy chicken tomorrow). Similarly, nouns
do not carry plurality information:
| 我 有 铅笔. | I have pencils (the number is not important. The emphasis is on have). |
| 我 有 一支 铅笔 | I have one pencil. I have a pencil. |
| 我 有 支 铅笔 | I have a pencil. |
The word to indicate Possession is
有. It's negation is
冇.
The word 有 is also used to indicate
at or in that place: the equivalent of 'there is' or 'there
are.'
| 我 有 铅笔. | I have pencils. |
| 我 冇 铅笔. | I do not have any pencils. |
| 学校 有 班房 | There are classrooms in school. |
| 学校 冇 班房 | There's no classroom in school. |
Unit Words.
Chinese nouns typically require classifiers, or unit words to define quantity.
You've learned quite a few of them, i.e. the
支 in 我有一支铅笔(I have a pencil).
Here is a summary:
Examples from the
Lessons
More
Examples
部
书(book),
字典(dictionary)
car, printer, computer
本
书(book),
草稿簿(scratch pack),
字典(dictionary)
支
笔(pen),
铅笔(pencil),
粉笔(chalk)
arrow, gun, pole, flash light
间
学校(school), 班房(classroom), 屋(house,home)
factory, hospital, room
个
学生(student)
people, hamberger, hour, ball, apple
张
报纸(newspaper), 枱(desk, table), 櫈(chair)
bedspread, paper, bed