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 e

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In this lesson, we talk about Rimes with u, yu. Here we use u similar to languages like German or Italian.

And yu is equivalent to “ü” in German. Let’s take a look.

Rimes with u

For u, ui, un, ut, u sounds like “oo” in “foo”.

For ung and uk, u sound like “one” in “tone”.

Jyutping	Sounds in English	Cantonese Example	Jyutping	Sounds in English	Cantonese Example
u	oo in foo	夫(fu1)	ut	oot in boot	闊(fut3)
ui	ewy in chewy1	灰(fui1)	ung	one in tone	風(fung1)
un	oon in cartoon	歡(fun1)	uk	ook in cook	福(fuk1)

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 e

---

In this lesson, we talk about Rimes with u, yu. Here we use u similar to languages like German or Italian.

And yu is equivalent to “ü” in German. Let’s take a look.

Rimes with u

For u, ui, un, ut, u sounds like “oo” in “foo”.

For ung and uk, u sound like “one” in “tone”.

Jyutping	Sounds in English	Cantonese Example	Jyutping	Sounds in English	Cantonese Example
u	oo in foo	夫(fu1)	ut	oot in boot	闊(fut3)
ui	ewy in chewy1	灰(fui1)	ung	one in tone	風(fung1)
un	oon in cartoon	歡(fun1)	uk	ook in cook	福(fuk1)

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 e

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In this lesson, we talk about Rimes with i and o. Both are pretty intuitive for English speakers.

Rimes with i

For i, iu, im, in, ip, it, i sounds like “yee”. For example, “ee” in “see” or “keen”.

For ing and ik, i sound like “egg”. For example, “i” in “ignore” or “sing”.

Jyutping	Sounds in English	Cantonese Example	Jyutping	Sounds in English	Cantonese Example
i	ee in see	思(si1)	ip	eep in weep	攝(sip3)
iu	eal in seal	燒(siu1)	it	eet in meet	舌(sit3)
im	eam in beam	閃(sim2)	ing	ing in sing	升(sing1)
in	een in seen	先(sin1)	ik	ic in acidic	識(sik1)

Rimes with o

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(se1)	eng	eng in leng2	鄭(zeng6)
ei	ey in prey	四(sei3)	ep	ep in bicep	夾(gaap3)
eu	eil in veil	掉(diu6)	et	et in pet	坺(paat6)
em	em in gem	舔(tim2)	ek	ek in trek	石(sek6)

We can see most of them are the same as e pronounced in English.

Rimes with oe and eo

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: Introduction

Recap of Rimes

Rimes is a syllable of vowels with consonants that you can rhyme!

For example, in English, the Rime of “Cow” is “ow”; in Cantonese, cow is 牛(ngau4), and the Rime is “au”.

Difference of a and aa

Two vowels in Cantonese start with a. a sounds like “uh” in English, and aa “ahhh” in English.

And all their combinations as well. For example, 分(fan1) sounds like “fun”, and 飯(faan6) sounds like “fran” in France without “r” sound.

Still, it may be difficult to distinguish their difference when they form rimes with other sounds.

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: Introduction

Introduction of Onset

In this lesson, We start with Onset. They are all consonants that are used before vowels.

For example, “good morning” in Cantonese is 早晨(zou2 san4), where “z” and “s” are Onset here.

Onset

Basically, these consonant looks identical, or you may find alternative spelling in English, except
kw, z, and c might be a little unique.

Jyutping	Sounds in English	Cantonese Example	Jyutping	Sounds in English	Cantonese Example
-	character that have no starting consonant (Null initial)	呀(aa3)	k	k in king	卡(kaa1)
b	b in bar	巴(baa1)	ng	ng in sing	牙(ngaa4)
p	p in palm	怕(paa3)	h	h in harp	蝦(haa1)
m	m in mat	媽(maa1)	gw	gu in guava	瓜(gwaa1)
f	f in foul	花(faa1)	kw	qu in aqua	誇(kwaa1)
d	d in dip1	打(daa2)	w	w in wow	蛙(waa1)
t	t in tip1	他(taa1)	z	j in job but with a ‘t’ sound in front of it2	揸(zaa1)
n	n in nap	那(naa5)	c	c in chat2 without ‘h’ sound	叉(caa1)
l	l in lap	啦(laa1)	s	s in soup	沙(saa1)
g	g in gum	家(gaa1)	j	y in yes3	也(jaa5)

¹If you are a native English speaker, you may notice that the Cantonese “d” sound is softer than in English, but the “t” sound is more challenging (the difference is negligible here). But if you have a problem pronouncing this pair, try to make your tongue touch the upper front teeth when creating the “d” and “t” sounds.

Golden Rule of becoming a native Cantonese speaker: Tones > Everything!

In this blog, we use Jyutping to indicate the pronunciation of Cantonese characters.

Overview of Cantonese Phonology

Maybe you already know that we use one syllable for each character in Cantonese,
just like all other Chinese languages. It contains 3 crucial parts in order to pronounce the word.
That is the consonances, vowels, and tones.

In Cantonese, there are 19 consonances, 9 vowels and 6 tones.
That creates 1,760 different sounds to cover over 10,000 Chinese Characters.

Every Cantonese consonance and vowel pair can always be described as an Onset-Rime.

Phonology Structure

So what is actually an Onset-Rimes?
An Onset-Rimes is either a consonant-vowel or a consonant-vowel-consonant structure, For example:

• consonant-vowel: the word “rich” = 富(fu3) (sounds like “foo” in English).

• consonant-vowel-consonant: the word “bamboo” = 竹(zuk1) (sounds like “joke” in English).

Tones