Phrases|Getting Around HK (廣東話/English)

Transcript

🎙️ "Learn Cantonese: Getting Around Hong Kong"

Welcome to Canto Be Like, where we make learning Cantonese fun and practical! In this episode, we’ll guide you through Hong Kong’s transportation system—from the MTR and buses to Octopus cards—so you can navigate the city like a local.

🔹 What You’ll Learn:
✔️ Twelve Essential Cantonese phrases and 30 vocabs (plus some bonus ones threw in) for taking the MTR, buses and more

✔️ How to use an Octopus card (and where to top it up!)
✔️ Helpful questions like "How do I get to Central?" or "Does this bus go to Tsim Sha Tsui?"
✔️ Bonus cultural tips (e.g., why you shouldn’t eat on the MTR!)

Whether you’re a traveller, expat, or just love Cantonese, this episode will give you the confidence to explore Hong Kong with ease. Tune in, practice along, and soon you’ll get around 冇問題 (no problem)!

🚇 Hop on board—let’s learn Cantonese while discovering HK!

Transcript

Venus: 0:04

Hello. Welcome back to a new episode of Canto Be Like, a Cantonese and English bilingual podcast, aiming to teach you Cantonese and Hong Kong culture. I'm your host Venus, a native Cantonese speaker from Hong Kong, but grew up in the UK. Today is our seventh episode of the podcast. And we are going to talk about a very important topic, which is getting around Hong Kong. For those of you who are new to our podcast we usually do a three episode series on a topic including one in English, one entirely in Cantonese, and one in a mix of English in Cantonese, which is this one. So the english one will be a chitchat session, just me talking about the topic and the culture, and the listening is completely in Cantonese trying to get you up to speed with the vocabulary and the way native Cantonese speakers speak. And you will already have a foundation from the first chitchat session to understand the listening. And the final episode is me teaching you Cantonese vocabulary and phrases with explanation in English. And in today's episode of Prepare 12 phrases and around 30 new words related to getting around. In Hong Kong, which I hope will be helpful for you. And I know some of you would like to have some learning materials, so I've also prepared a transcript for you, which you can find in the link in the description down below. Without further ado, let's dive in. So first and foremost, I think it is important for us to know what the public transports are called in Cantonese and. On the top of my list, I have MTR, which is our metro or subway, and we call it 地鐵, I repeat 地鐵. So 地鐵 means the first character means ground, and 鐵 is iron, or like steel. So you can think of it like a steel or like a metal thing that goes underground. So 地鐵. Next up I have also a very popular mode of transportation, which is bus, and I will teach it along with mini bus because they share a same character, which is 巴 So bus is 巴士 I repeat 巴士 and minibus is 小巴 I repeat 小巴. So 巴士, which is bus, is actually, phonetic translation of bus. So yeah. 'cause back in the days we were a colony of Hong Kong. The UK Hong Kong was the colony of the uk. So we do have a lot of loan words from English. And minibus is 小巴 and the first character 小 means mini. So minibus is 小巴. And next off I'm going to teach you how to say taxi, which is 的士. 的士 Again, this is a loan word from English because taxi and 的 士 sounds very familiar, right? And then I'm going to teach you how to say tram, which is only available on Hong Kong Island. Tram is 電車、 電車 However, local usually call it 叮 叮 because of the sound it makes. So tram is also 叮叮 . And along with 叮叮 ferry is also. tourist's favorite the Star Ferry So Ferry is 渡輪 and Star Ferry. We call it 天星小輪 天星小輪 All right guys. You're doing amazing. Let's have a little summary of what we've learned. So one MTR is 地鐵. Two Bus is 巴士 巴士. Three mini bus, 小巴,  小巴, four Taxi. 的士, and five 電車 and alternatively you can say, 叮叮. So just 叮叮 and six. ferry 渡輪 渡輪 the Bonus Star Ferry is. 天星 小輪 So now we've learned to say different transports in Cantonese. I would like to teach you three phrases that will use these vocabularies. The first phrase means I want to go to a certain place. What transport should I take? And the sentence goes like this. 我想去 the place 應該搭咩車. So the phrase actually comes in two parts. Part one is I want to go. 我想去 我先去 And the second part is what transport should I take? 應該搭咩車 應該搭咩車 But in the first part, you actually need to say, I want to go to a place. So 我想去一個地方 and now I will use Central 中環. As an example, 我想去中環應該搭咩車 and I would say it as how a local would say at normal speed. 我想去中環應該搭咩車 So the next sentence is to ask if a bus would go to a certain place. So it goes like this 呢架巴士去唔去 name of the place, I repeat 呢架巴士去唔去 呢架巴士去唔去. Let's continue using Central 中 環 as an example and if, and if you want, if we want to ask, if this bus goes to Central, we can say 呢架巴士去唔去中環 and at normal speed. 呢架巴士去唔去中環 And the final phrase is to do with 地鐵. Remember what that is? 地鐵. So MTR so is to ask how to go to a certain station on the MTR. Let's use Central 中環 as an example. Again, 地鐵中環站點去？ I repeat, 地鐵中環站點去？. So it's just asking how to get to Central Station . 地鐵中環站點去？ since so much getting around Hong Kong involves 地鐵. MTR I'm going to teach you a couple of new words regarding to 地鐵. So the first one is platform 月台, and the second is train compartment or carriage. We call it 車廂. 車廂. And the frequency of the train is 班次. 班次 and to transfer from to a different line is 轉車. 轉車, or you can say 轉綫. 轉綫. So 轉 is actually the verb of to change. It's actually to change a car or to change a line. Then I'm gonna teach you what turnstile or gate is called in Cantonese is 閘. 閘. So you can think of it as like a a very unique sound to Cantonese. It's like a, we call it 入音, which is like going inward, oop yeah. It's a bit like hiccups, but it's a very unique sound to Cantonese that a lot of people find hard to master. So 閘. Okay. Practice that. And then I'm going to teach you how to say, enter the gate, which is 入閘 入閘 and exit. The gate is 出閘 出閘. Alright, let's do a little summary of the words before we move on to the phrases. Platform is 月台 train compartment. 車廂 車廂 frequency of the train 班 次 班次 to transfer from a line to a different line. 轉車. 轉車. Or you can say, 轉綫. 轉綫 and enter the gate. 入閘. 入閘. exit the gate. 出閘, 出閘. So the first phrase we are going to learn is when is the next train going to arrive? And it's a little bit specific. It's actually asking in how many minutes because 地鐵 is just so efficient in Hong Kong. So it goes like this. 下一班車幾分鐘后到？ And at normal speed. 下一班車幾分鐘后到？ The second phrase is actually asking people if the station allows you to change to a different line, because as metro 地鐵 has a lot of lines so you can say. 呢個站可唔可以轉綫架？ That was a very slow version. Nobody speaks like that. So after you have mastered the pronunciation of the characters it sounds more like this 呢個站可唔可以轉綫架. The next phrase is actually something you will hear in the MTR announcement, which is you cannot eat or drink inside the station or the train. It goes like this. 地鐵站内請勿飲食 And I am going not gonna repeat the slow version again because you are not likely to be saying this phrase. You are just going to hear it at normal speed in the announcement, so 地鐵站内請勿飲食 and to throw in an extra MTR usually ask you to stand behind a yellow line when you are waiting for the train to arrive. So it just goes please stand behind the yellow line when the train is approaching. Something like that. And in Cantonese is 請勿在黃綫内候車 so moving on to our third session which is vocabulary and phrases related to bus. The first is getting on the bus. 上車. 上車. And getting off the bus is 落車. 落車. And bus driver is 車長. 車長. So I actually want to explain a little bit about this because it's a common pattern in Cantonese. Cantonese vocabulary. So 車 is car and 長 is the person in charge. So a class monitor would be 班 長 using the same second character, 長, meaning the person in charge. And moving on to sectional fare, which is. 分段收費. 分段收費. And the last bus of the day is 尾班車. 尾班車. In Hong Kong, the buses are usually double deckers, just like London, and it's called 雙層巴士 . And the last one is estimated time of arrival, ETA. A quick summary as before, so get on the bus is 上車. Get off the bus. 落車. 落車. Bus driver. 車長. 車長 Sectional fare. 分段收費. 分段收費. The Last Bus 尾班車, double Decker Bus  雙層巴士, ETA 預計到站時間 And the first phrase is. Asking if the bus is going to a certain place. So the structure is like this, 請問呢架車去唔去 and then the name of the place, 請問呢架車去唔去 the name of the place, and let's use Central as an example. 請問呢架車去唔去中環 The second phrase is, I want to go to a certain place. Which stop should I get off? The structure is. 我想去 [name of the place] 要係邊個站落車？ 我想去 Place. So let's use Central as an example again, 我想去中環要係邊個站落車？ and the final phrase is very commonly used on the bus, which is asking for the driver if there are still seats. So it goes like this 車長，仲有無位呀？ and I want to throw in an extra announcement phrase using the vocab we've learned, which is 分 段收費 Remember what that is? 分段收費 sectional fare. So the announcements goes like this, 本班車設有分段收費, so it's literally. Saying this bus has sectional fare, so it will the, as it approaches the destination, the fare is gonna go down, arriving at our final section, which is about paying for your transportation. So in Hong Kong, we usually use the octopus card and it's like a metro card, but you can also use it to buy things from convenience store and supermarket, or sometimes you can even use it at restaurants. So it is very versatile, very useful, and a must have if you are living in Hong Kong. But yeah, let's start on the vocabulary. So octopus card is called 八達通 八達通. And we need to top up and add value from time to time to 八達通. So to top up is 增值, and I want to explain a little bit. So 增 is to add and 值 is the value. So it literally means add value and you need to tap the by the 八 達通 When you 入閘 enter the gate. So tap the card is 拍卡, and to tie all three vocabs we have learned we can say. 入閘要拍卡, 入閘要拍八達通卡 alright. And then the next one is balance 餘額. U app. The character 餘 means remaining and 額 is amount, so literally is remaining amount. Balance 餘額. And the final vocab is deposit because you need to pay a deposit to get your 八達通, so deposit is 按金. 按金. So a little summary of the words before we move on to the phrases. Octopus card, but 八達通 top up. 增值 tap the card. 拍卡 balance. 餘額 deposit 按金. So when you when your 八達通 runs out of value, you need to 增值, right? If your octopus card runs out value and you need to top up how would you say that? The amount of money, 我想增值[ x]蚊 so let's say you want to top of $200, it would be 我想增值 200蚊 And the reason why you need to 增 值 top up is because you don't have any money in your card 無錢. So you would say meaning my octopus card doesn't have money, so I need to top up. So you would say. 我張八達通無錢要增值 And the third phrase is actually quite advanced. Because it uses quite like a compound sentence structure. But I think we are a very smart bunch of Cantonese learners. I want to throw this in so it means that I want to return my Octopus card to get my deposit back. Quite complicate. Complicated, right? But I think it's quite useful to learn, especially if you want your money back, right? So it goes like this 我想退還八達通攞翻啲 按金 sounds like a tongue twister. I know. So I would say slowly 我想退還 八達通攞翻啲按金 Alright guys, this is this is it. This is all we need to learn today. Thanks for sticking with me till the end and hanging out with me learning some Cantonese and Hong Kong culture. As promised, I will try to make a transcript for this episode so that you can have some learning material to go with the audio. So thanks for listening and see you next time. Take care. Bye.