zaat3札
Jyutpingzaat3
Yalejaat
Definition
To register accounts; to do bookkeeping.
colloquialworkmoney
How it's used
This term is primarily used in traditional small business or market contexts to refer to the act of logging daily transactions or tallying up sales. It carries a slightly old-fashioned or trade-specific nuance compared to more modern accounting terms. You will mostly hear it from shop owners or stall vendors who keep manual ledgers.
Examples
You help me record the accounts first, I will come back to pay later.
Business is busy lately, I have to do the bookkeeping every day.
Related words
Common mistake
Do not confuse this with the standard Mandarin term for accounting or bookkeeping, as 札數 is very specific to the colloquial Cantonese business lexicon and would sound out of place in a corporate or formal financial setting.
Grammar color guide
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Grammar guides
- In 30 secondsThe whole language at a glance. No tenses, no plurals, six tones, sentence particles. Read this before you dive into any specific topic.
- ParticlesSentence particles add tone, emotion, and nuance. Learn the most common particles in Cantonese and how to use them.
- Possession (嘅)How to say my, your, and his, and how to link a describing word to a noun, all with the little word 嘅 (ge3).
