唔係呀嗎

简 唔系呀吗 · 繁 唔係呀嗎
Cantonese · source Jyutpingm4 hai6 aa6 maa5

Meanings

  1. surely it can't be; it can't be true, can it?; you must be kidding; you gotta be serious; seriously? you got to be kidding!; really? That can't be! [colloquial]
About these definitions

Source definition segments, in their original order. Characters a definition cites are shown without their Mandarin pinyin; classifier lists that CC-Canto copied from CC-CEDICT are marked Mandarin. The community dictionary is not independently verified by zimai.

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Reading & tones

Schematic citation-tone diagrams from the source numbers. These are not recordings or predictions of connected speech.

Tone difference from Unihan

  • 呀 is read aa6 here; Unihan’s citation reading is aa1. Same syllable, different tone across these source readings. CC-Canto also lists 呀 aa6 as its own entry.
  • 嗎 is read maa5 here; Unihan’s citation reading is maa1. Same syllable, different tone across these source readings. CC-Canto also lists 嗎 maa5 as its own entry.

Computed by zimai: each syllable of the CC-Canto word reading is compared with Unihan 17.0.0 kCantonese for its character. The comparison does not say why a reading differs (a changed tone, 變音, a reading tied to one meaning, or a source variant).

Same syllable, six tones

mm1—呣m2m3—唔m4notm5—m6—
haihai1—hai2—hai3—奚hai4where?hai5—系hai6to be
aa丫aa1fork哑aa2dumb亚aa3Asiaaa4—aa5—aa6—

Characters whose customary Unihan reading (kCantonese) is this syllable in each tone, chosen as in the tone atlas (2013 standard level, then the number of CC-CEDICT words they form), with CC-Canto 2017's meaning for that reading; a dash means no catalogue character has that reading. Checked syllables (-p, -t, -k) normally carry tones 1, 3 and 6. Character readings, not word readings; no frequency implied.

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Written characters

Both source spellings are represented. Written membership is not an etymological or semantic claim.

Cantonese characters and the Mandarin bridge ↗

Mandarin comparison · separate source entries

CC-Canto includes this pinyin reference: wu2 xi4 ya5 ma5. It does not establish a Mandarin word with the same meaning.

Look up this spelling in the Mandarin dictionary ↗
Compare dictionary sources Wiktionary · 1 sense

Wiktionary English definitions · Chinese section

Independent source senses for this spelling, with usage labels retained. Not matched to the pronunciation above.

phrase

  1. (Cantonese) No way!; You've got to be kidding me!

Source page · dump 2026-09-02 · Contributors & history

Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0 · source & license · Data pack

CC-Canto · Pleco Inc. · edition 2017-02-02
Source line 22,976 · Original publisher · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Edition & transformations
Exact source record & identity唔係呀嗎 唔系呀吗 [wu2 xi4 ya5 ma5] {m4 hai6 aa6 maa5} /surely it can't be; it can't be true, can it?; you must be kidding; you gotta be serious; seriously? you got to be kidding!; really? That can't be! [colloquial]/

SHA-256: 3ac563157ff8eb807023121f5c7514aa8da66e36bf69e644c926c27ed76dbb0e