ALESN Cantonese I Monday Class Summary and Notes 5/13/19

Hi Everyone,

This past Monday night, we covered:

·         a review of the concept of measure words on pages 133-136

·         the concept of boundwords like NI1 or GO2, which cannot stand on their own but must be followed by the appropriate measure word (page 136)

·         the difference in grammatical word order (syntax) between English and Mandarin's uses of the indirect object and Cantonese's use of the indirect object (p. 137)

·         GEI2 (DO1) as our question word for "How much?" or "How many?" (pages 137-138)

·         MH4 JI1 [blah blah blah] A3 or NE1 = "I wonder if..." (page 138)

·         Various drills on pages 139-143. We will pick up on page 144 next Monday, finishing the chapter and then beginning the next lesson.

Please review the concept and usage of measure words as explained in the book and try to remember the more detailed discussion that I gave in class this past Monday as well as during various previous lessons when the topic has come up.

Please remember that proper Cantonese can only use ONE of the two possible word orders (syntaxes) for an indirect object that English is able to use:

English:

"Give ME the book"

or

"Give the book TO ME."

Mandarin:

"Give ME the book."

BUT CANTONESE MUST ONLY BE:

"Give the book TO ME."

"Bei2 ni1 bun2 syu1 ngoh5."

Remember the use of measure words in Cantonese to stand in for nouns that have already been specified previously during the conversation. Please review the section on GEI2 DO1 questions if you are unsure about this concept.

Please review the drills that we covered this past Monday so that we can quickly finish the remaining chapter 6 drills and move on to lesson 7 halfway through next week's class.

Best wishes to all and see everyone on Monday,

Brendan