Rough Translations
 White rock is white and smooth. Bring white rock to build a white pagoda. The white pagoda is built of white rock. Build the white pagoda with white rock. When the building of the white rock pagoda is completed, the white pagoda is white and smooth.- Enter the laboratory to press the emergency button.
- Dig the gold, dig the bones, dig the bones of the chicken.
- Get into the food laboratory and press ten emergency buttons. Literally:
enter (1st character) / food laboratory (2nd-5th) / pressing (6-7th) /
ten (8th) / [quantitative word] (9th) / emergency button (10-12th)
- A leg of bed hits a corner of wall, and the other way round happens.
Does the leg of bed hit the corner of wall, or the corner of wall hit the
leg of bed?
Literally: leg of bed (1-2) / hit (3) / corner of wall (4-5) / corner of wall
(6-7) / hit (8) / leg of bed (9-10) / you (11) / say, reckon, think (12) /
leg of bed (13-14) / hit (15) / corner of wall (16-17) / or (18) / corner
of wall (19-20) / hit (21) / leg of bed (22)
- The Dung's in the east of the town has a gourd bigger than the
watermelon of the Si's in the west of the town. On the other hand, the
gourd of the Dung's is a little bit bigger than that of the Dung's [N.B.
another Dung] in the east of the town.
Literally: someone (1-2) / say, rumour (3) / east of the town [the east gate]
(4-5) / Dung's [the family of Dung] (6-7) / [genitive word] (8) / gourd
['winter gourd'] (9-10) / bigger than (11-12) / west of the town [the west
gate] (13-14) / Si's [the family of Si] (15-16) / [genitive word] (17) /
water melon (18-19) / as well, also (20) / bigger than (21-22) / east of
the town [the east gate] (23-24) / Dung's [the family of Dung, N.B.
another Dung] (25-26) / [genitive word] (27) / gourd ['winter gourd']
(28-29) / [interjection, meaning scantily, a little bit]
- Within the Quarter Pounder with Cheese, you'll find sauce, onion,
cucumber, also cheese, lettuce and sesame - everyone who has tried this will be jolly!
Literally:
Quarter Pounder with Cheese (1-7) / sauce (8-9) / onion (10-11) / hold
in between (12) / cucumber (14) / cheese (15-16) / lettuce (17-18) / plus,
add (19) / sesame (20-21) / everybody (22-23) / have tried, have eaten
(24-25) / laugh (26) / [interjection, sounding HAHA] (27)
- A 0.5kg tortoise costs a dollar. A 0.5kg chicken costs seven dollars.
Does chicken cost more than tortoise, or tortoise than chicken? Afterall,
which is more expensive?
Literally:
one (1) / dollar (2) / one (3) / half kilogram [approximately] (4) /
tortoise (5) / seven (6) / dollar (7) / one (8) / half kilogram (9) /
chicken (10) / you (11) / say, reckon, think (12) / chicken (13) / more
expensive than (14-15) / tortoise (16) / or (17) / tortoise (18) / more
expensive than (19-20) / chicken (21) / [interjection, meaning so, then,
how about] (22) / whether (23-24) / chicken (25) / more expensive (26) /
or (27) / tortoise (28) / more expensive (29)
- When the postman delivers a letter, he simply delivers it swiftly.
- (A) drunk soldier stopped to listen.
- (A) rich woman carried her husband to the Fu's residence.
Thanks
Joe Buchanan, Ricky Fong, CP Lai, Kitty Leung, Carl Masthay, Julia Mok
Links
Ethnologue, Languages of the World:
Yue Chinese
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