Wishing a happy 30th wedding anniversary

Question

I wish to make a short video wishing my girlfriends parents a happy 30th wedding anniversary. The originally come from Hong Kong and speak Cantonese. I haven't met them yet, and my girlfriend told me I would probably call them "uncle" and "aunt".

What I want to say is something along the lines:

"Dear uncle and aunt, congratulations on your wedding anniversary".

What I have so far is:

"Dear uncle and aunt,

结婚纪念日快乐"

I'm not Asian myself, so I would appreciate if you could help me make a sentence. I'm in doubt about the following:

• Can I improve the sentence/is it respectful?
• What is the best way to find out how it's pronounced in Cantonese?

Thank you very much.

EDIT: Here's some context: They know my name and I have sent them two postcards before.

Answer 1

uncle and aunt

well, address them as "uncle, auntie", if they understand english (ask your gf)

in cantonese, address them as 世伯．伯有

世伯 - gf's father

伯有 - gf's mother, originally, it should be 伯母. well, cantonese speaking people have many taboos, "伯母" sounds similar to "百無" (hundred + nothing / lack --> lack everything). so, it's common to say 伯有 (有 means have --> have everything)

the pronunciation is:

世伯　 伯有

imo, your approach is too "direct". maybe, try to introduce yourself, then mentioned you "heard" from your girlfriend that, it's their wedding anniversary. so, you make this short video for congratulation.

i would suggest something like:

世伯　伯友 (or uncle, auntie)

你哋好 (~ how do you do)

我係阿 Sam (supposed "sam" is your name, ~ i'm sam)

聽 mary 講 (supposed "mary" is your gf's name, ~ i heard from mary that)

聽日係你地結婚30周年嘅紀念日 (~ tomorrow is your 30th wedding anniversaries)

喺呢度 (~ here, in the video)

祝你地結婚紀念日快樂 (~ wish you a happy wedding anniversary)

bye :)

check the above text with your girlfriend, get her approval :)

you may use the multi-function chinese character database to find out the cantonese pronunciation.

http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/

if you're using mac os x, copy the text to textedit.app, the text-to-speech is quite good, you may learn from it. i guess that windows has similar function, which i don't have experience.

have fun, good luck la :)