There are quite a few resources available for learning spoken Cantonese but i’ve found it difficult to find resources to learn Cantonese grammar.
For example, the sentence “he asked me to send you some photos” is, in my opinion, not a difficult sentence to translate in many languages but it seems particularly difficult in cantonese:
佢叫我 send的畫比你 keui yiu ngoh send dik waak bei nei he + ask + I + send + of + photo + ? + you
I have found this is called the “passive voice” but i don’t understand the sentence order or why/where this “bei” is used.
Does anyone have any good resources for learning cantonese grammar, especially making sentences?
I’m not a linguist so I can’t really answer your question, but IMO the “的” should be “啲”, which means “some”. A direct translation could be "He asks me (to) send some drawings/paintings to you. "
ah thank you! that would make more sense
do you know why “bei” is used here? I read that this character is used for comparison, i’ve read nowhere that it means “to”
" he + ask + i + send + some + photo + ? + you" no longer sounds like a passive sentence either
I found on wikipedia that 比 is a character variation of 畀 in colloquial cantonese and it means to/for (see here: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/畀#Chinese ) however i can’t find this topic mentioned anywhere in any lesson book
Colloquial Cantonese writing tends to keep the pronunciation correct while the characters used vary. From your link about “畀” I can’t find any references to “比”.
I’m pretty sure I can figure out what the writer wants to express no matter which one is used, but it’s hardly correct if “比” is used in my personal opinion.
Another thing to be aware of, it’s rare (if not never) to replace “比” by “畀/俾”.
In this article (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/比) there is a box saying "For pronunciation and definitions of 比 – see 畀 (“(Cantonese) to give; for; to; by; etc.”). (This character, 比, is a variant form of 畀.) "
Thanks for your info, but given this is near the end of the explanation of “比”, this is probably rarely used. In fact, this usage gives me a feeling of being overly lazy or illiterate. My recommendation is to forget about this and use the other two when they’re more appropriate.
I can use the original one but I don’t think this variation is rarely used, it was used by a native speaker to translate the sentence
https://cantonesemuseum.blogspot.com/2018/02/blog-post_13.html?m=1
https://articles.omghomework.com/畀俾比/
Here’s a more advanced but subjective one.
https://notesbooks.wordpress.com/2016/11/13/畀俾比.使駛洗/
You can see that they all mention the mix of “畀/俾” but not “比”.
bei (比) has multiple meanings.
In this context it is “to” or “give to”. It is a very common use of this character.
I don’t think it is a passive sentence.