kam1 gai3禁計禁计
Jyutpingkam1 gai3
Yalekām gai
Definition
Difficult to estimate or calculate; hard to predict.
colloquialdaily actionsnumbers
How it's used
Primarily used to express frustration or helplessness when facing complex, messy, or impossible calculations. It carries a sense of being overwhelmed by the sheer scale or lack of clarity in the data. While it sounds like a formal ban, it is strictly a colloquial way to describe a mental or practical block in arithmetic.
Examples
This thing is really hard to calculate, no matter how I count it, the numbers don't match.
The number is so huge, how do you expect me to calculate it?
Common phrases
completely impossible to calculate
really hard to calculate
Common mistake
Do not confuse this with the formal term 禁止 which means to prohibit. Learners often mistake the sound for a legal restriction, but in this context, it functions purely as an adjective or verb describing the difficulty of computation.
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.
