A2
因為…所以… and 雖然…但係…
The Cantonese connector pairs for cause and contrast, why both halves are kept where English keeps one, and the everyday alternatives 不過 and 咪.
English allows because it rained, I didn’t go but never because it rained, so I didn’t go. Cantonese, like Mandarin, keeps both halves.
因為落雨，所以我冇去。
Jan1wai6 lok6jyu5, so2ji5 ngo5 mou5 heoi3.
I didn’t go because it was raining.
雖然好貴，但係好好食。
Seoi1jin4 hou2 gwai3, daan6hai6 hou2 hou2sik6.
It’s expensive, but it’s delicious.
但係 is the Cantonese shape of 但是 — 係 rather than 是, as everywhere else.
雖然好貴，好好食。
雖然好貴，但係好好食。
雖然 sets up an expectation that something is about to cut against it, and the listener waits for the word that does.
Either half can go, but not both
In speech one of each pair usually carries the whole job, and dropping the first is what people do — the second still tells you the relation.
落雨呀，所以我冇去。
Lok6jyu5 aa3, so2ji5 ngo5 mou5 heoi3.
It was raining, so I didn’t go.
不過 in conversation
不過 is the everyday but, lighter than 但係 and extremely common.
好好食，不過好貴。
Hou2 hou2sik6, bat1gwo3 hou2 gwai3.
Really good, but expensive.
咪 — so, obviously
咪 with 囉 at the end is a very Cantonese way of drawing an obvious conclusion, and it has no clean Mandarin counterpart.
唔鍾意咪唔好食囉。
M4 zung1ji3 mai6 m4 hou2 sik6 lo1.
If you don’t like it, don’t eat it then.
That 咪 is a different word from the 咪 that means don’t — see negative instructions — and they are told apart by position and tone.