3 ms·

I just tried Bing Translate, and even though it nominally supports "Cantonese (Traditional)", their translations don't seem to be much better for the example se

I just tried Bing Translate, and even though it nominally supports "Cantonese (Traditional)", their translations don't seem to be much better for the example sentence I gave. "Please give me his book" is translated to: 請把他的書畀我。 While it does use the usual Cantonese word for "give" (畀), the rest of the sentence still mostly uses Mandarin vocabulary and grammar, notably the 把 construction, the third-person pronoun 他, and the use of the 的 genitive particle, which aren't typically used in spoken Cantonese. Conversely, 唔該你畀佢本書我 is translated to: "Please give him this book me." This seems to indicate that it doesn't understand Cantonese's ability to use measure words (such as 本) as genitive particles, nor does it understand that the word order of the direct and indirect objects in the sentence are switched compared to the usual order in Standard Written Chinese.

Umofomia 3y ago
ChatGPT seems to fare much better: > Translate "please give me his book" to Cantonese. > > "請俾我佢嘅書" is the Cantonese translation for "please give me his book". This appears generally fine though stylistically not as colloquial. Using 請 for "please" is considered more formal since it's usually more written than spoken. In addition, it uses the Cantonese genitive particle 嘅, though I think most speakers would prefer to use the measure word 本 in this context, but this is still perfectly grammatical. Lastly, it still retains the same word order for direct and indirect objects as Standard Written Chinese, which while not completely colloquial, is still considered acceptable when spoken. BTW, since written Cantonese isn't standardized, 畀 can often be seen written as 俾, but they refer to the same word. > Translate "唔該你畀佢本書我" to English. > > The Cantonese phrase "唔該你畀佢本書我" translates to "Please give me his book" in English. Exactly correct.

Umofomia 3y ago

ChatGPT seems to fare much better: > Translate "please give me his book" to Cantonese. > > "請俾我佢嘅書" is the Cantonese translation for "please give me his book". This appears generally fine though stylistically not as colloquial. Using 請 for "please" is considered more formal since it's usually more written than spoken. In addition, it uses the Cantonese genitive particle 嘅, though I think most speakers would prefer to use the measure word 本 in this context, but this is still perfectly grammatical. Lastly, it still retains the same word order for direct and indirect objects as Standard Written Chinese, which while not completely colloquial, is still considered acceptable when spoken. BTW, since written Cantonese isn't standardized, 畀 can often be seen written as 俾, but they refer to the same word. > Translate "唔該你畀佢本書我" to English. > > The Cantonese phrase "唔該你畀佢本書我" translates to "Please give me his book" in English. Exactly correct.