Help! How Do You Count Money in Cantonese!

Discussions on the Cantonese language.
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matt

Help! How Do You Count Money in Cantonese!

Post by matt »

I wanted to ask for in Cantonese how do you count money? For example, how would you say:

1) 2 dollars and 50 cents?
2) 15 dollars and 75 cents?
3) 30 dollars and 98 cents?
4) 1 dollar and 10 cents?
5) 3 dollars and 25 cents?
6) 6 dollars and 49 cents?

Just wondering because I'm not sure how to count money in Cantonese. Is there any way to say the number of cents in a short way so that you don't have to say the whole number (like have to say out the entire number for the number, fifty - mmh sup)?

Thanks. Reply w/ answers to email if possible. That'd be great! :-)

-Matt
Andrew

Re: Help! How Do You Count Money in Cantonese!

Post by Andrew »

Dollars are /man/ (sounds like "mon" in money, character is mosquito) or /go/ (like "o" in for, character is unit), 10-cents are "hou" (like "o" in hotel) and the penny is /sin/; .5 is /bun/ (u like oo in noon, character is half). Drop off the last monetary unit.

2.50 = leung go bun (2 unit .5)
15.75 = sap ng go tsat hou bun (17 unit 7 10c .5)
30.98 = saam sap go gau hou baat (30 unit 9 10c 8)
1.10 = go yat (unit 1 10c)
3.25 = saam go yi hou bun (3 unit 2 10c 5)
6.49 = luk go sei hou gao (6 unit 4 10c 9)

If the amount is in whole dollars, you use man instead.
3.00 = saam man (beware of the aa verus a: saam maan is 30k!)

You can also use the more colloquial terms "man gai" (mosquito chicken), "beng" (biscuit), "pei" (skin) or the formal term "jyn" (dollar).
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