Basic Course: Lesson 5 Vocabulary (Kaiping)

Here is the lesson five vocabulary list, transcribed according to the Kaiping dictionary.

1. 好 · hō · good, fine, allright, OK, right, very
2. 喇嗎 · lā-ma · (final particle for yes/no questions)
3. 呢 · nē · (final particle for “how about” questions)
4. 唔 · m̈ · not, cannot, (negative prefix)
5. 你 · nei · you
6. 粉筆 · fūn-vēt · chalk
7. 鉛筆 · yön-vēt · pencil
8. 草槁陪 · tō-gō vù* · writing tablet
9. 報紙 · vo-jī · newspaper
10. 字典 · dù-īn · (character) dictionary
11. 本 · vōn · volume, copy, (measure word for books)
12. 部 · vù · department, volume, copy, (measure word for works of literature, films, machines, etc.)
13. 張 · jiang · (measure word for flat objects, chairs, etc.)
14. 枝 · ji · (measure word for stick-like things)
15. 聽早* · hen-dō (?), hiang-dō (?) · tomorrow
16. 見 · gin · to see
17. 再 · doi · again, once more

My remarks from lesson four discuss some of the regular differences between the pronunciation in the Basic Course and the pronunciation in the Kaiping dictionary. Some words, like lā and nē, are transcribed with different characters. Deng Jun uses 啦 and 呐, respectively, but since these particles are more often spoken than written, I don’t consider this to be a major difference.

As I mentioned previously, I’m not familiar with the falling tone for 聽 hiàng, as in 聽早 “tomorrow.” The character 聽 is pronounced with a mid tone as either hen or hiang depending on the context, according to the Kaiping dictionary. If you’re more familiar with how to pronounce this word (at least with regard to tone), please drop me a comment and educate me!