how to say "when" and "where"

[matt]

I wanted to ask the forum about what the non-interrogative (non-question) words "when" and "where" are in Cantonese. I know that "when" in a question is gei si/gei dim and where is bin do. But I wanted to ask what is "when" and "where" in their normal adverb form in a non-question sentence...such as "I go to sleep when it rains" or "they play the song when there is nothing else to play." or ... "I live where the road splits into three."

Thanks!

[Maya]

I go to sleep when it rains:
don lok yu gei si hau, ngo wu hui sui 覺.(當 don)當落雨既時候, 我會去睡覺
don lok yu goh chun si, ngo wu hui sui 覺.(當 don)當落雨個陣時, 我會去睡覺

i live where the road splits into three:
ngo chu goh do 係 .......(個到goh do) 我住個度係......

[Dylan Sung]

I wonder why you say don instead of dong (當), and wu instead of wui (會)?

Dyl

[Maya]

you may be right, because i translate by my own words.

[:-)]

matt wrote:

> "I go to sleep when it rains"

Sometimes my brian will kick into Chinglish or go dialectal on me when I speak Cantonese so I would instead substitute "when" with "at the time".

I'm not sure how unnatural this translation would sound to a native HK Cantonese speaker but I could locally get away with saying:

Ngoh fun-gau do-si (tin-hei) lok-yu.

or

Dang lok-yu dik si-hau, Ngoh fun-gau.

[Maya]

Oh! I am speaking Cantonese all a day, because I was a Hong Kong people. But ....my English was worse, so I afraid that you will not understand what I mean.
Sorry!!

[:-)]

matt wrote:

> "I live where the road splits into three."

I can't verify if this translation would be acceptable in HongKong but here is how I would say it by substituting "split" with "joined intersect":

Ngoh jyu hai yat-tiu gai ((ng)aam-(ng)aam) gap saam-tiu gaai guo-bihn/guo-do.

That is assuming that Road A splits into Roads B,C, & D. But if Road A is continuous and at a juction splits off at a given point with Roads B & C, then I would change "gap saam-tiu gaai" to "gap leurng-tiu gaai".