toi4 saan1台山
Jyutpingtoi4 saan1
Yaletòih sāan
Definition
Taishan (Toisan), a county-level city in southwestern Guangdong, China.
neutralplaces
How it's used
Taishan is historically significant as the ancestral home for many overseas Chinese, particularly in North America. In local Cantonese, it is often grouped with Xinhui, Kaiping, and Enping under the collective term Siyi. Speakers from this region often have a distinct accent known as the Taishan dialect, which is quite different from standard Hong Kong Cantonese.
Examples
My family members are from Taishan.
When did you go back to Taishan to visit relatives?
Related words
Common mistake
Do not confuse the pronunciation of the city name with the word for table, which is also written as 台. While they share the same character, the context of location versus furniture makes them easy to distinguish in speech.
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.
