baa3 ling4霸凌
Jyutpingbaa3 ling4
Yaleba lìhng
Definition
To bully; to exclude, boycott, harass, or hurt someone, sometimes involving violence.
colloquialpeopleother
How it's used
霸凌 is a direct loan translation from English, primarily used in formal or news contexts to describe systematic harassment. In everyday spoken Cantonese, people are much more likely to use 欺凌 or even descriptive phrases like 蝦人 to talk about bullying behavior. Using 霸凌 in casual conversation can sound slightly academic or like a translation from a written report.
Examples
He is always bullying classmates at school, it is really going too far.
Why do you have to bully the new colleague?
Related words
Common mistake
Learners often confuse this with 蝦人, which is the most natural, common way to say bully in daily life. While 霸凌 implies a serious, often institutional or group-based act of aggression, 蝦人 is used for any situation where someone is being picked on or treated unfairly, regardless of the scale.
Grammar color guide
Noun
Verb
Adjective
Adverb
Pronoun
Classifier
Particle
Connector
Grammar guides
- QuestionsFrom yes or no questions to asking who, what, where, and when. The patterns you need to ask questions naturally in Cantonese.
- ClassifiersCantonese puts a classifier between a number and a noun, and a bare classifier on its own can mean the. Learn the common ones and how to use them.
- ComparisonsHow to say bigger than, the most, the same as, and not as good as. Cantonese uses 過 where Mandarin uses 比, and that catches a lot of learners out.
