# CANTONESE: Addressing female stranger



## FurryFriend

Where I live in America, we tend to be a bit formal and we address people as "sir" or "ma'am" or "miss".

If I were in Hong Kong and I want to address a female stranger, I thought the proper phrase is 小姐.  But my mom said 小姐 could be rude because it could mean a prostitute.  Is that true?  If so, what's a polite/formal way to address a female stranger and I don't know her last name?


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## AquisM

小姐 is the appropriate term to address a female stranger. The term doesn't normally have the nuance of "prostitute" in Hong Kong, but seems to do so in mainland China (though, of course, that would be Mandarin). Perhaps other forum members from the mainland can shed some light on the matter.

In any case, you can safely use 小姐 to address female strangers in Hong Kong.


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## yuechu

I know that in Mandarin, there is also "大姐." Would this also be used in Cantonese? (It's also a bit different than 小姐, right?)

or how about the Cantonese 靓女?


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## Oswinw011

Yes, don't use it to address a young lady, be it in Mandarin or Cantonese in mainland. If you are in Tianjin, use 姐姐。Use 阿姨 to address a middle age woman. But I'm not sure how to address a young woman.


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## Oswinw011

yuechu said:


> or how about the Cantonese 靓女?


It's okay if you work in a service industry. If you were a taxi driver, you could call her 靓女。


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## SuperXW

In both HK and Mainland China, 女士(Ms.) is the universal formal way to address a female, regardless of age.
The counterparts are generally:
Ms. 女士
Miss 小姐
Mrs. 太太
Mr. 先生

Using 小姐 to refer to prostitute is an option. There're also:
Female prostitute: 鸡 chick 公主 princess 公关 PR(public relation)
Male prostitute: 鸭 duck 少爷 young master 牛郎 cowherd


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## FurryFriend

Sorry my friend.  Although I live in the US, I travel to HK all the time before the pandemic.  I've never heard anyone address a women with 女士 in HK.


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## AquisM

yuechu said:


> I know that in Mandarin, there is also "大姐." Would this also be used in Cantonese?


阿姐 is used (大姐 sounds a little more crude because it makes the woman seem older), but only to middle-aged/older women, and it isn't particularly respectful. If you were in a 茶餐廳 and you wanted to get the attention of a middle-aged/older female server (i.e., not exactly the most formal/professional situation), then maybe, but I still personally wouldn't use it. I certainly wouldn't use it if I wanted to let a random middle-aged woman know that she'd dropped her wallet.

@FurryFriend I should've also pointed out that 小姐 is the appropriate term to address young to middle-aged women. For older women (like visibly old), you'd be better off saying 姨姨 or 婆婆 (in increasing order of age).

There's also the issue of relative age. I, being a young male in my mid-20s, would basically always sound disrespectful if I called a middle-aged woman (i.e., an elder) 阿姐/靚女, but given the right context, it would be fine if my mother did the same.

If you ever have trouble finding the right term of address, just skip it altogether and initiate the conversation with _excuse me _唔好意思. It's always polite and it saves a lot of trouble.



yuechu said:


> or how about the Cantonese 靓女?


Everything above applies, but on top of that, most women under 40 would likely find the term sleazy and/or misogynistic, regardless of the context. Err on the side of caution and don't use it if not in a jocular manner.



FurryFriend said:


> Sorry my friend.  Although I live in the US, I travel to HK all the time before the pandemic.  I've never heard anyone address a women with 女士 in HK.


女士 isn't wrong, but it's not a form of direct address (i.e., you don't say it to the lady's face like you would _ma'am_). It's a formal form of third-person address (i.e., you might say 嗰位女士約咗陳醫生 _the lady over there has an appointment with Dr. Chan_).


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## T.D

Oswinw011 said:


> Use 阿姨 to address a middle age woman.


May I add that, titles like 阿姨/叔叔 and 爷爷/奶奶 are technically not a universal title for middle-aged/old men and women. It depends on the age gap between the addressee and the speaker. (e.g. It is OK for a middle school student calling a 40-year-old 阿姨, while a grey-head doing the same is just awkward)


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## FurryFriend

I'm the OP.  Here's thing I might have missed about my opening post.  I don't want to address someone with their age as a factor.  In America, we don't use age to determine how to address a stranger.  The only exception is, we don't address children as "sir".  But everyone over 18 years old gets addressed as "sir", "ma'am" or "miss".  So I'm trying to find the same in HK.

I don't know but it seems a bit ageist to address an adult women differently based on her perceived age.


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## T.D

I'll say this concept doesn't work in the Chinese language. I don't think we have universal titles that don't take other people's ages into consideration. The closest I can think of is 先生 for men and 女士 for women.

Oh and sorry I didn't realise you were asking about cantonese. My views are under a mandarin context.


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## SuperXW

FurryFriend said:


> I don't want to address someone with their age as a factor.  In America, we don't use age to determine how to address a stranger.  The only exception is, we don't address children as "sir".  But everyone over 18 years old gets addressed as "sir", "ma'am" or "miss".  So I'm trying to find the same in HK.
> 
> I don't know but it seems a bit ageist to address an adult women differently based on her perceived age.


Isn't the choice of "ma'am" or "miss" still based on their perceived age?
Isn't the guessing of 18 years old or not still based on their perceived age?
Anyway, I believe AquisM has given the detailed answer. In HK, 先生 is the equivalent of sir. 小姐 can definitely fit the usage of "miss", and often covers middle-aged "ma'am".


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## AquisM

FurryFriend said:


> I'm the OP.  Here's thing I might have missed about my opening post.  I don't want to address someone with their age as a factor.  In America, we don't use age to determine how to address a stranger.  The only exception is, we don't address children as "sir".  But everyone over 18 years old gets addressed as "sir", "ma'am" or "miss".  So I'm trying to find the same in HK.
> 
> I don't know but it seems a bit ageist to address an adult women differently based on her perceived age.


I understand, but it just doesn't work that way in Cantonese (or any Chinese language, for that matter). It's a different language, a different culture... you're not gonna find exact equivalents. Besides, as SuperXW noted, you can differentiate a younger woman from an older woman in English too if you want to.

The thing you have to understand is that the use of different terms for people of different ages (there are terms for older men too - 叔叔、伯伯 etc.) is actually done as a sign of respect for one's elders. Like I said in post #8, if a young man like me addressed a female elder 阿姐, it would be very disrespectful, whereas it would likely be fine if my parents did the same. At the same time, using formal terms like 先生、女士 for every elderly stranger you meet sounds cold. The compromise is terms like 姨姨、婆婆、叔叔、伯伯 that are simultaneously respectful and endearing.


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## fquocpk

Copy and paste the chart to 'Google translate' is enough for who are wondering a single word which act as “先生”, “女士” in chinese in compare to "sir", "ma'am" or "miss" in English, maybe.

抱歉，本人不會寫好英文。但及見上文提問者意欲追求客觀／準確／不含偏見的“代名詞”（他似乎是想要等同於英文pro.noun作用的中文單字？）。想提及一個小亮點。首先，現代職場中文……中國人或香港人也比較注重《倫常》和《紐帶》。欲較真者才用以下單字：

在無職位制約的情況下，二人萍水相逢，互不相干，形同陌路人，最直接的稱呼是：

age:
0---------x<14--------------x<18--------x<21-------x<40----|
0|---------|---------------------|---------------|--------------|----------|
0|---------|－teenager－|－adult－|-----married-------|
0|---------|---------------------|---------------|------------------------|

Pro.noun:
male----|---------郎--------|------郎------|----大郎----|---翁---|
（18歲以下“郎”字前可補前綴“小”字（e.g. “小郎”），21歲后“郎”字前可補前綴“大”字（e.g. “大郎”））

Pro.noun:
female-|---------娘--------|----姑娘----|----__娘----|-大娘--|
（18歲以下“娘”字前可補前綴“小”字（e.g. “小娘” or "小姑娘”），21歲后“娘”字前可補前綴“大”字（e.g. “大娘”））。

另外，只要己方年齡比對方年齡年長，可以在“郎”字／“娘”字後補後綴“子”字。（e.g. “郎子”, “娘子", “小娘子”）

“姑”娘：前綴“姑”字=未婚女子。在近代，“姑娘”一詞也有被用作稱呼一位臉容亮麗的已婚女子。

重申聲明，以上內容無論在現今中國內地、台灣、香港也不再常見。但是，只要你肯說，國人也能聽懂。

抱歉本人英文不行，求好心人翻譯（如果好心人覺得提問者有此須求才擇取要點翻譯吧，沒有請棄之）。


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