There are formal and informal Cantonese. Usually we have to use formal Cantonese in reading and writing, we use informal Cantonese only in dialogue, e.g., the formal Cantonese for “he” is “taa1” and “keoi5” in informal. Look at the table of pronoun below:
Formal Cantonese | Informal Cantonese | English |
---|---|---|
taa1 | keoi5 |
He, she , it |
taa1 mun4 | keoi5 dei6 |
They |
ngo5 | ngo5 |
I |
ngo5 mun4 | ngo5 dei6 |
We |
nei5 | nei5 |
you |
nei5 mun4 | nei5 dei6 |
you |
We can see that not all the Cantonese words have informal form (bold italics), sometimes, we use formal Cantonese in both speaking and writing.