Mandarin Learner's Question About Cantonese

[Wang Yao]

Hey there guys,

Just a quick question from a Mandarin Learner. I keep noticing that a friend of mine (she's from HK) keeps using the phrase 唔係呀 as a negative response to questions. I looked up these characters individually on MDBG and learned that 唔 is the Cantonese equivalent to 不, and that 係 and 呀 carry their Mandarin meanings.

So, I'm wondering: what does this statement mean, exactly? As far as I can deduce it's something like "won't be able to see you" or "cannot go/connect (with you / sth)" with a "ya" at the end for emphasis.

Just hoping somebody can clarify this a bit for me. I also notice a lot of my Cantonese speaking friends use 係 a lot in their day-to-day dialogues... is this a cultural thing for Hong Kong/Guangdong speakers?

Thanks, and sorry for so many questions!

-Yao.

Edit: I looked at this line again, and I think I may have figured it out - could you interpret 唔係呀 as a Cantonese version of 不是吧? Or does it have some other meaning?

Edited May 19, 2010 at 04:07 PM by Wang Yao

[Hofmann]

係 is a copula.

[renzhe]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copula_(linguistics)

[skylee]

It means 不是啊 (no, to express disagreement) or 不是吧 (no, to express surprise / astonishment).

Cantonese 係 in most cases is equivalent to 是 in Mandarin.

[gato]

Copulae have multiple uses. One example would be former United States President Bill Clinton's statement "it depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is."[3]

That's pretty fitting.

[Altair]

Can't 係 also mean "to be" in Mandarin, e.g., 纯系捏造 (be pure fabrication), or is this usage very restricted?

[oishii!!]

Can't 係 also mean "to be" in Mandarin, e.g., 纯系捏造 (be pure fabrication), or is this usage very restricted?

系 here means 属于 in chinese. of course you can consider 系 "to be" here.

係 and 系 are actually different in cantonese FYI.

[yellowpower]

Hi

think Cantonese in many instances uses wirtten classical chinese words for sound and meaning, many of the use classical words are no longer used in modern Mandarin.

THe phrase translated into English "is it not so?" or "isn't it suppose to be like this?"

Cantonese primarily is a spoken and not written language. Both Cantonese and Mandarin share many words written the same way but pronounced differently.