Conjunctions are the glue that holds your Cantonese sentences together.

They allow you to connect short phrases into longer, complex thoughts.

Native speakers rely heavily on these linking words during daily conversations.

Learning a few common conjunctions will instantly make your spoken Cantonese sound more natural.

In this guide, I’ll show you exactly how to use the most important Cantonese conjunctions.

Using and in cantonese

The most common way to say “and” in spoken Cantonese is 同埋 (tung4 maai4).

You can use this word to connect two nouns or objects together in a sentence.

It also translates to “with” when you’re talking about doing an activity with someone else.

You can also use 同埋 at the beginning of a new sentence to add an extra thought.

Expressing but in cantonese

When you want to contrast two ideas, you need to use a word like “but” or “however”.

Cantonese gives you two very common options for this: 但係 (daan6 hai6) and 不過 (bat1 gwo3).

但係 is the direct translation of “but” and works perfectly in almost any conversational situation.

不過 translates a bit closer to “however” and sounds slightly softer than 但係.

Because and therefore

English speakers normally just use the word “because” to explain a reason.

In Cantonese grammar, we typically pair “because” and “therefore” together in the exact same sentence.

You’ll introduce the reason with 因為 (jan1 wai6) meaning “because”.

Then you’ll start the resulting action with 所以 (so2 ji5) meaning “therefore” or “so”.

You can drop one of these words in casual speech, but using both together forms the most standard grammatical structure.

The two ways to say or

Cantonese has two completely different words for “or” depending on your sentence type.

If you’re asking a question and giving someone a choice between two options, you must use 定係 (ding6 hai6).

If you’re just making a regular statement about different possibilities, you use 或者 (waak6 ze2).

Making if and then sentences

Conditional sentences tell us what will happen if a specific condition is met.

Just like the because and therefore pair, Cantonese uses a paired structure for “if” and “then”.

You start the condition with 如果 (jyu4 gwo2) which translates to “if”.

You then follow up with 就 (zau6) which means “then”.

Notice that the subject (我) is placed right before 就 in the second half of the sentence.

Summary table of cantonese conjunctions

Here’s a quick reference table for all the conjunctions we covered today.