Asking prices

How do you ask the price of something?

The most common phrase I hear people use is Gei chin ah? The proper and more formal sentence (according to some people I asked) would be Gei do chin? The first is probably more appropriate informal situations, and certainly for street talk. The second method is probably bit more stuffy (one presumes, don't quote me on that). But both work.

Chin means money. Ah is an expression used at the end of a question, somewhat similar to the way the Japanese end their questions with ka. If someone talks to you in Cantonese and ends their sentence with ah, you are certainly being asked a question.

Gei do asks 'how many?' . Here do is a classifier. In English, we use classifiers to clarify our meaning. We say 'how many pieces?', or 'how many gallons?', or 'how much (money)?'. This is similar to Cantonese, where the format Gei x is used.

You can now strut around Hong Kong and ask the prices of everything.

Next: Don't ask how much something is if you aren't prepared for the answer.