# Cantonese: 架喇



## Hyperpolyglot

What does this mean? It's usually used at the end of a sentence.


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## JieXian

Hyperpolyglot said:


> What does this mean? It's usually used at the end of a sentence.



How do you pronounce it? Gào làt?


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## indigoduck

Hyperpolyglot said:


> What does this mean? It's usually used at the end of a sentence.


 
It's marker of emphasis.

An example sentence translated into english is:
1. It's not like that!  唔係甘架喇！


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## Ghabi

JieXian said:


> How do you pronounce it? Gào làt?


In Jyutping that would be gaa3laa3.

For example, 宜家D細路係咁架喇 ji4gaa1 di1 sai3lou6 hai6gam2 gaa3laa3 "The kids are like that these days (what can you do about them!? sigh)".


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## Hyperpolyglot

So I can say I like something and add 架喇 to it? Example:
我鍾意架喇
So it adds the emphasis of it to make it sound like I like it more?

All it does is add emphasis, right? What about the following example?
唔好哊架喇 don't move
食飯架喇 eat rice
你去餐廳架喇 you go to the restaurant
早晨架喇 good morning
我愛你架喇 I love you
你幫我買野架喇 you help me buy something


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## Jerry Chan

Not really. You can't use it this way.

我走架喇  I'm leaving.
佢走咗架喇  He's already gone.

I think with 架喇, you're telling the listener not to bother doing anything.



Hyperpolyglot said:


> So I can say I like something and add 架喇 to it? Example:
> 我鍾意架喇
> So it adds the emphasis of it to make it sound like I like it more?
> 
> All it does is add emphasis, right? What about the following example?
> 唔好哊架喇 don't move
> 食飯架喇 eat rice
> 你去餐廳架喇 you go to the restaurant
> 早晨架喇 good morning
> 我愛你架喇 I love you
> 你幫我買野架喇 you help me buy something


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## Jerry Chan

Referring to this example:
係咁架喇 - that's the way it is.
That means we can't help it. Don't bother doing anything.


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## indigoduck

Hyperpolyglot said:


> So I can say I like something and add 架喇 to it? Example:
> 我鍾意架喇
> So it adds the emphasis of it to make it sound like I like it more?
> 
> All it does is add emphasis, right? What about the following example?
> 唔好哊架喇 don't move
> 食飯架喇 eat rice
> 你去餐廳架喇 you go to the restaurant
> 早晨架喇 good morning
> 我愛你架喇 I love you
> 你幫我買野架喇 you help me buy something


 
So many ways to express emphasis.  Seeing your examples, "架喇" is definitely not meant for "one size fits all".

I'm a cantonese student so here's my interpretion of why it won't work.  

唔好哊架喇 don't move  --> 唔好哊 !!  (i think the tone of voice takes care of emphasis)
食飯架喇 eat rice --> 食飯呀！  (instead of 架喇, i think 呀 will be used)
你去餐廳架喇 you go to the restaurant --> 你去餐廳呀！(similar to above)

早晨架喇 good morning --> 早晨 !  (i think tone of voice takes care of emphasis)

我愛你架喇 I love you --> Hmm, this might be ok, but i think it has the meaning of "come on, i do love you" after you add a character so that it becomes: 我係愛你架喇.  Not too sure about this one.

你幫我買野架喇 you help me buy something  --> No idea what to make of this one.


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## Ghabi

Come to think of it, I'm not really sure whether you mean gaa3laa3 or not. There're also gaa3laa1 (as in 我話咗架啦 "told you!") and gaa3laa4 (as in 係得咁多架拿? "Only this much?") As Cantonese orthography is not standardized, 架喇 may as well stand for these two.

As to gaa3laa3, to expand what Jerry says above, I think it's used to tell the listener that he can't or doesn't need do anything about some situation.

For example, my brother has done something wrong and my mother keeps nagging at him for that, so I tells her: 佢知錯架喇 "he already knows he’s done something bad, [so you don’t need to keep nagging at him]".


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## Hyperpolyglot

You see, I'm a native of cantonese but just wanna see how we native folks explain this phrase usage, and I mean it is completely understandable by me and all hong kongers and I know when to use it and it really based on whether it sound good and compatible for the sentence or not. So cantonese is not really an easy language for foreigners and not very official as well.

I dont know if it's used to tell the listener that he can't or doesn't need do anything about some situation because:
如果我唔聽佢吩咐去做，佢會殺死我架喇

So there's no official way to explain "架喇" except that it is an emphasis, but when should it be used? Depends on if it sounds good to the sentence?
And I don't wanna be like a spy or something, meaning I know cantonese because it's my native language and other hong kongers will think of me as defiant and competitive


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## Jerry Chan

如果我唔聽佢吩咐去做，佢會殺死我架喇

This doesn't sound like what a native speaker would say though.

A native speaker would probably say:
如果我唔聽佢吩咐去做，佢(實)會殺死我架!


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## viajero_canjeado

Ghabi said:


> For example, 宜家D細路係咁架喇 ji4gaa1 di1 sai3lou6 hai6gam2 gaa3laa3 "The kids are like that these days (what can you do about them!? sigh)".



I'm really fascinated by this example of yours because it makes absolutely no sense to me whatsoever!  Would you indulge me by helping to parse it a bit?

First I'll offer my guesswork:

宜家 = kids?
D細 = impudent?
路係 = is the norm?
咁架喇 = the little punks!

Look forward to a bit of enlightenment on the matter.  Oh, and I should point out that I was joking on the last guess, having sort of gotten the gist of what gaa3laa3 means by now.


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## Ghabi

Hyperpolyglot said:


> And  I don't wanna  be like a spy or something,  meaning I know cantonese  because it's my  native language and other hong  kongers will think of me  as defiant and  competitive


I'm not sure what you mean, but this is a language forum, where  one is always welcome to discuss and argue over any linguistic issue,  regardless of what one's mother tongue is. Also, Cantonese is not only used in Hong Kong, so it's not a family business for "Hong Kongers".



> 如果我唔聽佢吩咐去做，佢會殺死我架喇


I  agree with Jerry that it doesn't sound right. But there're many  varieties of Cantonese, so perhaps the usage is natural for you. Hope  others would chime in.




> So there's no official way to explain "架喇" except that it is an emphasis, but when should it be used? Depends on if it sounds good to the sentence?


Sentence-final particles constitute a tricky topic in Cantonese  linguistics, but it's not necessary to mystify them. I'm sure that,  after some research, you will be able to find many papers and books  dealing with this topic. Perhaps this is a good starting point.



viajero_canjeado said:


> Would you indulge me by helping to parse it a bit?


I'll spoil you.

宜家/而家 = 現在；如今
D/啲 = several usages, here used just like 的 as a possessive particle
細路 = 小孩
係 = 是
咁 = 這樣子


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## Hyperpolyglot

Ghabi said:


> I'm not sure what you mean, but this is a language  forum, where  one is always welcome to discuss and argue over any  linguistic issue,  regardless of what one's mother tongue is. Also, Cantonese is not only used in Hong Kong, so it's not a family business for "Hong Kongers".



I mean if I'm a hong konger and you're a hong konger then there's this competitive thing lol, just like dog's male to male aggression, but that's just me, my way of thinking.


如果我唔聽佢吩咐去做，佢會殺死我架喇

sounds natural to me and yes I'm a native speaker, although the profile says English but I always want to conceal myself online and act as a foreigner other than my native self and all I think of cantonese is that all the hong kongers have their ways of saying things but to the end it is almost all understood interchangeably between the native speakers, and most of them need to think a lot to put words into sentences and even though they are native speakers but most of them speak very broken cantonese, and you will hear a lot of them using "eh" "uh" when speaking cantonese, it's like pieces of broken words and they have to add together piece by piece, just too much "eh" "uh".


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## viajero_canjeado

Hyperpolyglot said:


> although the profile says English but I always want to conceal myself online and act as a foreigner other than my native self



I'm afraid you've let the cat out of the bag! 

As an aside, perhaps you could consider being straightforward on your profile - it might save some confusion in the long run.


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## Ghabi

Hyperpolyglot said:


> ... all the hong kongers have their ways of saying things but to the end it is almost all understood interchangeably between the native speakers ...


I'm not referring to the idea of "idiolect", but the fact that "Cantonese" is an umbrella term that includes many dialects/sub-dialects which in many cases are not really intelligible to each other.

Now if you're talking about "Standard Cantonese", the variety spoken in Guangzhou and HK, then I've to say that your sentence does sound odd to my ears. But let's wait for the opinions of others.


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## Martindehk

indigoduck said:


> So many ways to express emphasis.  Seeing your examples, "架喇" is definitely not meant for "one size fits all".
> 
> I'm a cantonese student so here's my interpretion of why it won't work.
> 
> 唔好哊架喇 don't move  --> 唔好哊 !!  (i think the tone of voice takes care of emphasis)
> 食飯架喇 eat rice --> 食飯呀！  (instead of 架喇, i think 呀 will be used)
> 你去餐廳架喇 you go to the restaurant --> 你去餐廳呀！(similar to above)
> 
> 早晨架喇 good morning --> 早晨 !  (i think tone of voice takes care of emphasis)
> 
> 我愛你架喇 I love you --> Hmm, this might be ok, but i think it has the meaning of "come on, i do love you" after you add a character so that it becomes: 我係愛你架喇.  Not too sure about this one.
> 
> 你幫我買野架喇 you help me buy something  --> No idea what to make of this one.



Back to the "main" question.  Actually, in the all these examples, you can simply add the word "呀" (but whether in the tone of a question or a statement, it really depends).  Overall, it helps to make the utterance softer and less rigid.  E.g., if police may say "唔好哊", but if a mother just wants to stop her children, she may probably say "唔好哊呀".


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## indigoduck

Martindehk said:


> Back to the "main" question. Actually, in the all these examples, you can simply add the word "呀" (but whether in the tone of a question or a statement, it really depends). Overall, it helps to make the utterance softer and less rigid. E.g., if police may say "唔好哊", but if a mother just wants to stop her children, she may probably say "唔好哊呀".


 
I think the 喇 is more of a casual or cute thing used to derive benefit from someone.

Contrast the difference:
唔好哊=don't move! (if you move, i'll pull the trigger)
唔好哊呀=don't move (didn't you hear me!?)
唔好哊喇=don't move (in a cute way because the speaker wants to derive benefit as a result of the person of not moving?)

I may totally have confused 喇 with another "la".  

Please correct me.


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## Ghabi

indigoduck said:


> I may totally have confused 喇 with another "la".


Yes, that one is laa1.

By the way, I've been pricking up my ears in the last few days to see how people use gaa3laa3. I've realized that the explanation in my previous posts is far from adequate. Now I think I'd put it this way:

gaa3laa3 is used to assure the listener that "something has already happened" or "the situation is like this" or "something will/won't happen". 
Besides the examples I give above, I may add: 

-(Said by the shopkeeper at a watch shop to a customer) 隻錶整好架喇 "the watch has been fixed, [so you can take it away]"

-(Said by a doctor to his patient) 準時食藥,好快就好架喇 "take the medication on time, and you'll recover very soon"

-(Said by an infatuated girl) 只要可以同佢一齊,我就開心架喇 "I'm happy as long as I'm with him"

-(Said by the boyfriend of the above girl to his friend) 佢咁鬼煩,我打死都唔會再同佢一齊架喇 "she's such a nuisance I'd never, ever want to be with her again"

I hope my attempt this time is a little bit better.


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## Hyperpolyglot

still, cantonese isn't like an official language, so there isn't any official grammatical  explanation as to when to use 架喇, or other words for that matter, if it sounds good, then use it.


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## van_XD

a funny post)
actually we don't(seldom) use "架喇" to say the phases belowtoo weird)

唔好哊架喇 don't move
早晨架喇 good morning
我愛你架喇 I love you

unless you're replying someone's sentennces in a conversation, to show your agreement.(but it doesn't like 'too' in English) 
most likely, we use "架喇" when it sounds natural in the sentence. 

i'm a native Cantonese speaker, hope to improve English


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