Identifying Someone by Relationship
When we introduce a person, we can say the relationship we have with that person. We will learn the expressions we can use when referring to one single person and multiple people.
To refer to only one person, we can say:
We can also use a demonstrative construction to refer to a person based on the person’s distance from us. We can omit the noun 人 jan4 (e.g., 呢個人 ni1 go3 jan4 → 呢個 ni1 go3) because it is obvious in the context.
- CL = Classifier
- () = Words that can be omitted optionally
To refer to more than one person, we can say:
We can also use a demonstrative construction. To avoid repetition, only examples with 呢 ni1 will be included below. Simply replace 呢 ni1 with 嗰 go2 if needed. Also, the noun 人 jan4 will be omitted in the following examples.
To refer to exactly two people, we can say:
To refer to someone present in the conversation politely, we can say:
- Say 係 hai6 longer.
- We always omit the noun 人 jan4 after the classifier 位 wai2.
✔️ 呢位 ni1 wai2
❌ 呢位人 ni1 wai2 jan4
To refer to several people, we can say:
To refer to exactly two people, we can say:
We can also use the personal pronouns 佢 keoi5 or 佢地 keoi5 dei6.