Golden Rule of becoming a native Cantonese speaker: Tones > Everything!
In this blog, we use Jyutping to indicate the pronunciation of Cantonese characters.
Previous lesson: Rimes with a & aa
All Rimes with e
In this lesson, we talk about Rimes with e. e is a very naughty sound because it has multiple sounds based on how you spell it.
Also, e can combine with o to create oe and eo sounds.
Rimes with e
| Jyutping | Sounds in English | Cantonese Example | Jyutping | Sounds in English | Cantonese Example |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| e | ai in pair | 些 | eng | eng in leng2 | 鄭 |
| ei | ey in prey | 四 | ep | ep in bicep | 夾 |
| eu | eil in veil | 掉 | et | et in pet | 坺 |
| em | em in gem | 舔 | ek | ek in trek | 石 |
We can see most of them are the same as e pronounced in English.
Rimes with oe and eo
oe and eo sound very similar. They were considered the same sound before, but soon linguists found that this sound behaved differently and had different consonances.
Therefore, they are split for specific use cases. For example, if there’s an eoi sound, there won’t be a oei sound.
| Jyutping | Sounds in English | Cantonese Example | Jyutping | Sounds in English | Cantonese Example |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| oe | ur in fur | 鋸 | eoi | an in France but ends with ng not n | 衰 |
| oeng | ern in cern2 | 薑 | eon | alm in calm with p instead | 詢 |
| oek | erk in berserk | 腳 | eot | alm in calm with t instead | 摔 |
2 Obviously, the oeng sound should have a “g” sound, so precisely, it should sound like “caring.” Here, the “ng” is similar to the “ng” in “sing.”
Learn a new word before you move on
Let’s continue with greetings, how to impress your Hong Kong friend that you haven’t seen for so long, by showing your Cantonese skills?
You may say 好耐無見, which means Long time no see!
Fun fact is, long time no see may acutally come from Cantonese users, who try to do direct translate from cantonese to english.
So again… 下次見!
Next lesson: Rimes with i & o
Further reading: Jyutping, The linguistic Society of Hong Kong
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