A1
Adjectives take 好, and 好 is not “very”
Why Cantonese adjectives need no verb, what 好 is really doing in front of one, and why 好好食 is two different 好s.
A Cantonese adjective is a verb. 攰 does not mean tired, it means to be tired, and the sentence needs nothing between the subject and the adjective — except 好.
我好攰。
Ngo5 hou2 gui6.
I’m tired.
今日好凍。
Gam1jat6 hou2 dung3.
It’s cold today.
好 is doing what 很 does in Mandarin
Which is to say: almost nothing. It is a syllable that lets the adjective stand as a complete statement, and 我好攰 is I’m tired rather than I’m very tired.
For an unmistakable very, use a word that means it:
今日非常凍。
Gam1jat6 fei1soeng4 dung3.
It’s extremely cold today.
呢個好好食！
Ni1 go3 hou2 hou2sik6!
This is really good!
That second one has 好 twice and both are doing different jobs: 好食 is the adjective tasty, and the 好 in front of it is the filler. It looks like a typo and is completely ordinary.
我係攰。
我好攰。
係 links two nouns. 攰 is not a noun — it is already the verb of the sentence. This is the single most common beginner mistake, and it comes straight from English putting am in both I am a student and I am tired.
Leaving 好 out
A bare adjective reads as a comparison with something unsaid, exactly as it does in Mandarin.
佢高，我唔高。
Keoi5 gou1, ngo5 m4 gou1.
He’s tall; I’m not.
On its own, 我攰 sounds like the first half of a contrast. Include 好 by default and treat it as part of the pattern rather than as a word with a meaning.
Negating
唔 replaces 好 rather than joining it.
今日唔凍。
Gam1jat6 m4 dung3.
It isn’t cold today.
For not very, Cantonese uses 唔係好 — 今日唔係好凍 — which is literally it is not very cold and is gentler than a flat 唔凍.