Dollars and Cents

We have covered how to say the numbers ranging from 0 to the thousands. To indicate that you are talking dollars (Hong Kong dollars), add man at the end. If you ask the price of something that costs $30, you'll get the response sam sap man, which means 30 dollars.

If you have memorised the numbers, then it's easy to say them in dollars. One dollar? Yat man. Two dollars? Leung man (remember our rule for the number two). A hundred dollars? Yat baak man.

Now comes a little difficulty.

In many countries, many items for sale show their prices in dollars and cents. Suprisingly, in Hong Kong, it seems that the prices are expressed in dollars and tens of cents, and this fact requires a little bit of getting used to. Something that costs $1.20 is no longer a dollar and 20 cents, it is now a dollar and two (tens).

I was intrigued when I first noticed this way of indicating price. I began to realise that we don't have coins with a value less than 10 cents. We don't have the equivalent of pennies ($0.01) or nickels ($0.05). We also don't have any coins that aren't in exact tens of cents -- we don't have quarters, for example, which is $0.25. What we have is $0.20.

Perhaps there were coins like those in earlier years, but I am not aware of any in current circulation. And since we're unlikely to encounter prices in fractions other than tens of cents, we'll just focus on what we'll encounter.

To say '10 cents', just say the number (remember, in tens of cents) and add houh at the end. 10 cents is yat houh (1 ten-cent). 30 cents is sam houh (3 ten-cent). 90 cents is gau houh. And 100 cents is of course yat man (one dollar). The houh rhymes with the English hoe, which is a gardening tool.

Memorise that usage of houh, and then quickly forget it. It's unlikely you'll find anything that costs less than a dollar and when the value involves both dollars and cents, you don't say houh anymore.

When the value involves both dollars and fractions of dollars (i.e., cents), you don't say houh anymore. Instead you say go. $1.1 is yat go yat. $1.2 is yat go yih. (For now, note that go does not refer to the decimal point. It also doesn't mean dollar. We'll get to that in some other post).

Here is the full range of fractional values for 4 dollars:

$4.00 - say man (4 dollars)
$4.10 - say go yat
$4.20 - say go yih
$4.30 - say go sam
$4.40 - say go say
$4.50 - say go bun (not say go m)
$4.60 - say go lok
$4.70 - say go chat
$4.80 - say go baht
$4.90 - say go gau
$5.00 - m man

Notice the quirk in $4.50. Contrary to the logic used with the other values, Cantonese speakers don't say say go m (4 dollars and 5). Instead, they say say go bun, which means 4 and a half. That rule goes for any amount, not just for 4 dollars. $9.50 is gau go bun.

You pronounce bun as poon ('Bun' seems to be the standard spelling, but bread-eating English speakers tend to read it as if it was bread) . And you must say poon without any air coming out of your pouted lips. It's not p-hoon, it's poon.

As I type this, I'm trying to say it myself without producing any air from my lips. It's difficult, perhaps impossible at first, for non-Cantonese speakers, but try to minimise the air anyway. You can also try saying boon instead of poon, if that's easier. But again, no air should come out. To a Cantonese, poon and boon are the same sound, as long as no air comes out.

The technical term linguists use to refer to the letting out of air when you pronounce a word is aspiration. Don't aspirate when you say bun.

Next: $1.1 is yat go yat, $2.1 leung go yat, $9.1 is gau go yat, but $10.1 is neither sap go yat nor yat sap go yat.