Listen to Podcast | Cantonese: How Do You Say “Nice to Meet You”

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Podcast Transcript | Cantonese: How Do You Say “Nice to Meet You”

Hi, nice to meet you! Stay in touch! Ever wondered what’s the equivalent in Cantonese? My name is Eugene and we will explore this phrase with today’s How Do You Say podcast on LearnDialect.sg.

Let’s start with the word, “Nice“. Even in English itself, “nice” is a very flexible word as it can be used to describe many things – beautiful, good, and the list goes on. As such, there are many ways to express it in Cantonese too. For example, how do you say that a watch is nice?

In Cantonese, the term “nice watch” can be translated into 手錶好靚. Literally, this means, “the watch is very beautiful”. Now, let’s break it down word by word.

手錶 refers to “watch”;

好 – as we have learnt the last episode – can mean “good” or “very”;

好靚 means “very beautiful”;

There you go, the watch is very nice. 手錶好靚.

You may ask, can I use 好靚 to describe a person and the answer is yes! However, by using 好靚, you are specifically referring to that person looking good. Different from Hokkien or Teochew, you can use 好靚 to compliment either a guy or a girl. For example, you can say 你個仔好靚 which means “Your son is very handsome”.

What if – beyond physical looks – you wish to compliment someone for having a nice character? Well, for example, if I want to say, “John is a nice person”, I’ll express in Cantonese as John個人好好. It roughly translates into “John’s personality is very good”.

Get it? Great! Now, let’s move on!

So now, how do we say “Nice to meet you”?

This is expressed in Cantonese as 好開心見到你. Let’s break it down again,

The first three words – 好開心 – means “really happy” while the last three words – 見到你 – means “to meet you”.

Let me repeat – 好開心見到你.

Are you still with me? Awesome! I’ve just got one more phrase to teach you today, which is commonly heard in Singapore. How do you say “Stay in touch”? We express this by saying 保持聯絡.

保持 means to “maintain” or “remain”;

While 聯絡 refers to “contact”.

As such, 保持聯絡 means “stay in touch”.

Let me repeat – 保持聯絡.

Now, let’s put everything together! How do you say, “Nice to meet you! Stay in touch!”

Go on, pause the audio and give it a try. Learning a language works best if you keep practising. Play the audio only when you are ready to listen to the answer.

Nice to meet you! Stay in touch!

好開心見到你, 保持聯絡!

Once again, thank you for listening to our Cantonese – How Do You Say Podcast on LearnDialect.sg. Stay tuned for more and let’s 保持聯絡!

Love what you are reading? We’ve got lots more to share during our Hokkien, Teochew and Cantonese express workshops. Join us to pick up words and phrases for everyday use in Singapore. More importantly, you can help to keep these languages alive!

Our Philosophy for Learning Cantonese in Singapore

At LearnDialect.sg, we want to make learning Cantonese fun, easy and practical for daily conversations in Singapore. As such, rather than figuring out which of the 10 or more Cantonese romanization system to use (e.g. Jyutping, Yale or Cantonese Pinyin etc.), we encourage you to form your own phonics, so that you make an association with these Cantonese words in the quickest way possible. To illustrate, the romanization of the English word, “eat”, is “Sik” using Jyutping and “Sihk” using Yale. However, in our “Have You Eaten?” podcast transcript, you’ll find that we use “sek”, which we think relates to us better. That said, you may use other romanization (e.g “sake”, “xig”, etc), as long as it helps you to make sense of what you hear.