Cantonese is spoken by about
100 million people throughout Hong Kong, the southern provinces
of China such as Guangdong (Canton) and Guanxi, and in other
South-East Asia countries such as Vietnam, Thailand, Singapore,
and Malaysia.Because of early migration of Cantonese
speakers from Hong Kong and China, Cantonese has become
the predominant language in many Chinatowns throughout the
United States and around the world.
Currently, the most widely
used phonetic representation of Cantonese is the Yale system.
This system approximates Cantonese sounds using the western
alphabet. Although the Yale system uses the same letters
as English, many letters have adopted different sounds.
Each Chinese character has only one syllable and is made
up of three elements.The initial represents the beginning
of the word and uses a set of 19 sounds. These letters
can be compared to the way consonants are used in English.
There is a set of 51 sounds representing
the finals, which can be compared to the way vowels are
used in English. In total, the initial and final combine
to form about 590 sounds.
In addition, words in Cantonese
that have the same pronunciation can have different meanings
depending on what tone is used. Although there are as many
as 9 tones in Cantonese, we will be using only 6 on this
website. The tone reflects how the pitch of your voice changes
as you say the word. Changing the tone that accompanies
a word can have drastic changes on the meaning, as is seen
in the table at the bottom of the page. The tones on this
website are represented with numbers.
Initials:
p
t
k
ch
kw
b
d
g
J
gw
m
n
ng
f
l
h
s
y
w
These letters should be
pronounced aspirated. The sound is the same as in English,
but just with a little more air. One good way to tell if
you are pronouncing it right is to hold your palm a few
inches from your mouth and feel for the breath as you pronounce
the letter.
P—as
in "pill"
T—as
in "time"
K—as
in "kite"
Ch—as
in "reach"
Kw—as
in "quack"
These letters are unaspirated
and should be pronounced like the English equivalents.
B—as
in "ball"
D—as
in "date"
G—as
in "girl"
Gw—as
in "Guam"
These letters are all nasal
sounds. When pronouncing them, keep your mouth
closed, and let the sound resonate through your nose.
M—as
in "ma"
N—as
in "no"
(your tongue should be touching the back of the top teeth)
Ng—as
in "sing"
(pull your tongue towards the back of your mouth)
These letters should be
pronounced with a lot of friction in the sound.
F—as
in "far"
L—as
in "lay"
H—as
in "hoe"
S—as
in "see"
(blow out a little more air than normal)
These letters are semi-vowels.
Y—as
in "yet"
W—as
in "wet"
Finals:
A final is composed of a
main vowel with or without a consonant or semi-vowel as
an ending. The finals may be either long or short which
determines the pronunciation. For example, aai has
a long a and a weak i, while ai has a short a and a strong i. If a final ends in p , t , or
k , the actual
sound should not be made, but your mouth should make the
shape as normal.