Even thought there’s no chance we can live in Hong Kong in the nearest future, I’m still excited for our annual trip back home at the end of September.Not to mention it’s a chance for me to practice my 
(broken) Cantonese.
I love to share anything cool I find about Cantonese, hoping that maybe it will make at least one of my Readers want to learn it. When I came across this picture, there was no way I wouldn’t make a post about it.
One of the amazing things about Cantonese is how lively and changing it is. By the time I learn how to use some slang, there’s 58224853897 new terms, mostly made as a tone-game and using similar sounds (but not necessarily). Locals can even change swearing into a poetry. Don’t believe me?
Let’s go through some of the Cantonese profanities, puns and slang so you will know how to offend someone in the best possible way. Or just to laugh more while watching Hong Kong movies and dramas! 😉
PS Please check the artist’s Facebook page (click here), I just noticed it’s the same person who made the picture of Hong Kong old proverbs (click here to see the picture) (I knew the style seemed familiar!). Big thanks to amazing Frankie P. for pointing the author and make sure you check Frankie’s YouTube channel if you want to see a foreigner SINGING Cantonese or hear some Cantonese book reviews!
Literal meaning: 荷蘭月亮 – Holland Moon
Real meaning: 好撚悶 – very f**king boring
Literal meaning: 眺那星 – stare at the star
Real meaning: 屌那星 – f**k it (this, that)
Literal meaning: 大檸樂 – big lemon coke
Real meaning: 大撚鑊 – oh, sh*t (like problem)
Literal meaning: 核能人僧 – nuclear monk
Real meaning: 乞撚人憎 – hateful, annoying
Literal meaning: 童軍跳彈床 – scout on trampoline
Real meaning: Scout彈 – 是𨳊但 – whatever, screw that etc.
Literal meaning: 法國皇帝 – France King
Real meaning: 廢撚事傾 – don’t bother to talk about it
Literal meaning: 鳩鴿 – talking dove
Real meaning: 𨳊噏/鳩嗚 – talking bullsh*t, BS, rubbish,
Literal meaning: 荷蘭銀行支票 – Holland Bank cheque
Real meaning: 好撚笨𨳍 – what a dumb f**k, very stupid
Literal meaning: 燒你數簿 – burn your accounting book
Real meaning: 屌你老母 – f**k your mother
Literal meaning: 調理農務系 – department of agriculture management
Real meaning: 屌你老母閪 – f**k your mother’s private parts (the whole term is too dirty for me so just think I made this underage friendly)
Literal meaning: 呃蝦條 – lying for shrimp chips
Real meaning: 呃閪屌 – lying to pick up girls
Literal meaning: 小喇叭- small trumpet/speaker
Real meaning: 屌阿媽 fuck your ma (mom)
Literal meaning: 亞婆跑步 – grandmother is running
Real meaning: 老閪都走 (要即刻走佬、幾大都閃咁解), hurry up and run (‘even old pu**y will hurry up and run’ – blabbing by Sing, but later on I found much better translation as ‘run no matter what’)
Literal meaning: 炒蟹 – fry crab
Real meaning: 臭閪 – stinky pu**y
Literal meaning: 風吹皇帝褲囊 – wind blows emperor’s pants
Real meaning: 孤𨳊寒 – cheap a*s
Literal meaning: 頂你個肺 – hit your lungs
Real meaning: 屌你個閪 – f**k your c**t
Literal meaning: 澳門朋友 – Macau Friend
Real meaning: 麻𨳊煩 – annoying, causing problems
Sing and I tried to make the post as ‘clean’ as possible, but swearing is a part of daily life and part of every single language. You don’t need to use them, but it’s always good to know something.
And don’t try to find logic there, when I asked Sing how the emperor blowing is same as stingy, he left me with (that’s his quote) ‘Don’t ask, you won’t get it in few sentences‘. So be happy, you’re not the only confused person here.
Which one sounds the funniest to you? Maybe you know some other Cantonese profanities or have a better translation than ours? Do you have any similar, funny swearing in your language? Let us know! 🙂
Why is Holland used so much in these terms? I barely learned how to swear in Mandarin and know even less in Cantonese. Heck, I probably am out of it in English, too! Where did you find this picture? And did you right away what it signified?
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honestly I didn’t know most of them, even Sing had tough time to get it all, I came across on some FB page but I can’t recall it 😦 it was a random share.
about Holland it’s a sound pun – 荷蘭 – ho laan – 好撚 – ho nan – something that Sing translates as ‘very d*ck’ but to me, someone who doesn’t hear well and bases on signs it makes no sense haha 🙂
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Simply put, Holland sounds like 好撚(hou lan) which means “very f***ing” in Cantonese. This photo was created by the Hong Kong artist Ar To. The Facebook page of the original post can be found at : https://www.facebook.com/Artohk
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thank you so much for letting me know the artist, I tried to do a revers google image search to find it but somehow I couldn’t – I’m very happy to edit the post and let others know the artist himself 🙂
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They surely are creative!! Mandarin and appearently Cantonese are pretty good in using similar sounding words into cursing and other weird stuff such as the stupid numbers (518 => I am rich and so forth)
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for Mandarin I only know those ‘love numbers’ like 520 = I love you etc. 😀
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There’s a shop I came across on my visit to Hong Kong last year that had a lot of merchandise with Delay No More on, which amused me. (I only bought a postcard, which is still here in my house in England a year later, addressed to my brother, with a HK stamp on it!)
I also remember ‘small door’. The character for small inside the character for door, I think.
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You know about small door? Impressive 🙂
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Yes. It’s surprisingly stuck in my head after all these years!
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The whole concept of that sign makes sense when you think about it haha 🙂
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That’s probably why I remembered it 🙂
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ok now you must explain ‘small door’ for the rest of us… My in-laws are from HK and my husband grew up speaking Cantonese with his parents but of course they didn’t swear in front of him so he is really lacking in terms of Cantonese slang and curse words! 😦
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𨳒 – small door is made of small 小 that looks like penis and door 門 that look like legs and making it that way, between the strokes of door looks like intercourse so it’s like f…. You 😀
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“Delay No More” that’s a good one.
“打飛機” ＝ w*nking
Now, HongKongers love this one: “貌似北京狗，柒到無人有！”
😉
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delay is classic, it’s like a baby’s first word for new Cantonese speakers 😀
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I was the person who posted all of these terms in Cantonese on Ah To’s Facebook page. Thanks for helping to translate them into English! You really should post a link to the original Facebook photo and give credit to the author though.
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Editing my post right now, if I knew the artist earlier I would do that.
I virtually clap for you if you did all of that! Even my native speaking husband had problems and you did it all by yourself? My biggest respect!
But then I went to your blog and I KNOW WHO YOU ARE! Yay! 😀 just got little bit excited haha 🙂 sorry!
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Haha, no problem dear. A lot of the expressions in the comic are very common, while a few of them are a bit obscure. If you ever get stuck, you can visit the following website which explains lots of different Hong Kong internet slang terms:
http://evchk.wikia.com/
It’s all in Cantonese though, so you would need to have a native speaker help you look things up there.
Thanks for the shoutout and for posting a link to my Youtube channel! I’m excited too! 😀
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That is funny, although I am sure I missed most of the nuances.
I have a picture in my office called “Proverbidioms” that illustrates old proverbs and idioms like “arms of Morpheus,” “slow boat to China,” “it’s the wine talking,” but your picture and explanations are much funnier.
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I think you should like those then https://writecantonese8.wordpress.com/2014/02/25/cantonese-proverbs-in-one-picture/ 😀
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I gotta practice some of these before I go back to visit Hong Kong in a few weeks! Hilarious!:)~
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I practice my slang, I like to impress my hairdresser in Tuen Mun haha 🙂
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Congratulations, you just introduced to the world how vulgar (and how creative in being vulgar) us Cantonese speaking people can be! 😀 😀 😀
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I would actually say how poetic Cantonese speakers are 😀 I mean who would though about something like that? 😀
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OMG I know all of these, and the graphic is genius! So funny. Someone had a lot of time on their hands. Cantonese is one of the most colourful languages in the world – hope it gets preserved despite the Mandarin onslaught.
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‘Mandarin onslaught’ will end soon.
because….
whether you like it or not,
Fascism will gradually be very prominent…
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just to be fair not every Mandarin speaker needs to be associated with CP (i.e. our Taiwanese or Singaporean friends), but I myself make sure our child will speak Cantonese and I hope a lot of parents do the same. Our last landlord speaks Cantonese, his wife speaks Mandarin but they chose to teach the child just Mandarin – that’s sad. If it can speak both – great, but giving up on your own language is sad. I still don’t know how to teach a little human Polish, Cantonese and English, but I will do everything to be sure mother- and father-tongue will be learnt by next generation.
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i wouldn’t surprised if any oversea-Cantonese choose to give up their own language.
they dont actually like their motherland/language, well , most of them….
especially older-generations…
and long story short…Nationalism is actually doesn’t exist in China-Region
(so called nationalism is actually, racism)
as a result, many languages such as cantonese, shanghainese are considered as dialect
and dialect gets much lesser respect
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This is both hilarious and terrifying. Terrifying because I have no idea how any that could make sense. Foreign languages are scary…!
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for some things like ‘tasty’ I can get it but most of them make sense only to my husband and he will argue with you that IT TOTALLY DOES MAKE SENSE 😀
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I thought I’d heard my fair share, but not all, of course, in the absence of living and staying in Hong Kong. I’m sure my sister and her family there could say more to that. However, there’s a lot in your list here I don’t think I’ve ever heard. Then again, because my reading comprehension is shite, I might need to hear the phrases instead. Still, I love the idea of swearing, because it says a lot about the people, their humour, and frankly, what pisses them right off. 😉
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LMFAO, it is super hilarious
however, some of them wouldn’t make sense if u dont know cantonese.
eg: France King, it sounds similar to 廢撚事傾…so…
anyway, these are not made for foreigners, i suppose….
btw, i think u should create a youtube channel and start posting videos…like a vblog..(sort of..)
your blog is kind of popular, an active youtube channel is probably going to double the number of view.
and that’s is a way to get some extra money from AdSense ..
AT
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sadly my husband had no clue how to explain some of them, I still try to figure out the emperor fan thing 😀
I’m slowly preparing to make a YouTube channel, but first I need to get a decent camera. And some ideas, our life here is pretty boring haha 🙂
I wish to earn on my blog so our moving back to HK was closer in time, so anything would help, but I’m not that popular haha. Who knows, maybe one day? Haha, please keep your fingers crossed for us 🙂
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haha, Sing is probably right, that is kind of hard to get it in few sentences.
孤寒 = stingy, and i just assume u know everything about 撚 :p
and then….um…in the past, 孤=朕= i/me/my/myslef , mainly used by emperors.
so….孤撚寒 can mean: my dick feels cold.
um..lack of ideas!?
i can come up with : How u guys met, culture shock, tricks for dealing with in-laws, funny things in poland/hong kong, make-up, foods & drinks …etc
these topics are always applicable for any life-style 🙂
AT
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I think Toishanese probably has its own earthy profanities..since it is after all, a peasant dialect. My dialect.
Let’s put it this way: my immigrant mother certainly unleashed her angry profanities often enough. Yet if you met her, she looks like one of those elderly woman, kinda harmless, etc.
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could you add in the pinyin/pronunciation for these? my friend speaks cantonese with her parents but is illiterate because she remembers nothing from chinese school, ahah! so without the pronunciation she can’t learn these!
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I’m so sorry, but I’m terrible with jyutping system, since my husband is a native he doesn’t need a romanization either so I’m like Jon Snow – I know nothing 😀 but try asking Frankie (I linked to his YouTube) – he studies Cantonese much much longer than I do so he might be able to help 🙂
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I can romanize these for you if you really want me to, LOL.
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As a true HK-er, I am impressed by what you are putting together! You got the essence of our culture applause
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thank you! trying my best to adapt and promote wonderful HK culture 🙂 not to mention Cantonese is probably the only language in the world that can turn swearing into poetry haha 🙂
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Ah i absolutely loved reading this ! :’D Made me miss Hong Kong x
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Hongkongers can be really creative haha 🙂
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Haha, this blog just makes me smile. Monday at the office “Holland Moon a…” 🙂 And thanks for visiting my blog.
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I’m glad you like it! Thank you!
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Hilarious! 😀
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they surely are 😀
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Love it, so creative! I feel I need to get a bit more creative with my cursing to try to keep up now 😉
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wow. for a poster that looks so innocent and chid-like… who knew the meanings behind it could be so… adult. my first time learning about HK puns/slangs.
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poor non-Cantonese speakers 😀
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