A1
喺 — where something is
How 喺 marks location in Cantonese as both a verb and a preposition, and how to keep it apart from the 係 that means “to be”.
喺 is hai2, and on its own it is a verb meaning to be somewhere.
我喺屋企。
Ngo5 hai2 uk1kei2.
I’m at home.
佢喺香港。
Keoi5 hai2 Hoeng1gong2.
He’s in Hong Kong.
屋企 is home — nothing like Mandarin 家, and one of the words you will need on day one.
喺 is not 係
This is the pair to get straight before anything else. They differ by one component in writing and by tone in speech, and they mean entirely different things.
- 係 hai6 — to be, between two nouns
- 喺 hai2 — to be at, before a place
我係學生。
Ngo5 hai6 hok6saang1.
I’m a student.
我喺學校。
Ngo5 hai2 hok6haau6.
I’m at school.
Even fluent writers mix the two up in casual typing, so you will meet both used for each other in the wild.
With a verb after it, it says where the action happens
The place goes before the verb, as in Mandarin.
我喺屋企食飯。
Ngo5 hai2 uk1kei2 sik6faan6.
I eat at home.
佢喺學校做嘢。
Keoi5 hai2 hok6haau6 zou6je6.
He works at a school.
做嘢 is to work — literally do things — and 嘢 (je5, thing) is another character with no Mandarin equivalent worth knowing early.
Asking where
邊度 goes where the answer would.
你喺邊度呀？
Nei5 hai2 bin1dou6 aa3?
Where are you?
Negating
唔 in front, and 唔喺 is not at — which is a different sentence from 唔係, is not. The two mistakes compound, which is the whole reason this page exists.
佢今日唔喺公司。
Keoi5 gam1jat6 m4 hai2 gung1si1.
He isn’t at the office today.