Best Cantonese pronunciation system

[Quest]

i love you ... o oi lei ... (am i wierd?)

that's how a lot of HK people speak now, instead of "ngo ngoi lei/nei".

the only time I don't use "ng" is with the 五 sound.

[Claw]

that's how a lot of HK people speak now, instead of "ngo ngoi lei/nei".

Actually I've learned that the ng should only appear with tones 4, 5, and 6, and are left off on tones 1, 2, and 3. Some people make a "hypercorrection" and put the ng back on words with tones 1, 2, and 3. So the above example should actually be: "ngo5 oi3 nei5"

See this conversation for more details:

http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/phorum/read.php?f=1&i=347&t=343

[Quest]

(doubts)

[ala]

Actually I've learned that the ng should only appear with tones 4, 5, and 6, and are left off on tones 1, 2, and 3. Some people make a "hypercorrection" and put the ng back on words with tones 1, 2, and 3. So the above example should actually be: "ngo5 oi3 nei5"

You are most likely right. Because low tones 4,5,6 in Cantonese tend to correlate with voiced consonants in Wu. In the Wu dialects, [ng] is only present with a voiced onset; 我 has a voiced onset (ngu, wo, nga), 爱 (e) does not. Shanghainese has pretty much abandoned tones, but it keeps the ancient voiced/voiceless distinction pretty clearly. You can ask any Shanghainese on the street, and they'll tell you 爱 is "clearer" than 我. In Japanese also, 我 is nasal ga (voiced 濁り [nga]), and 爱 is just ai.

[Ian_Lee]

Undeniably 懶音 is very common in Hong Kong.

Sometimes when I watched some HK movies, I couldn't even understand the dialog. First I thought it was the problem of the VHS tape speed, but the same problem happens with the DVD too.

So I have to watch the subtitle even when I watch a Cantonese movie.

I guess the emergence of 懶音 is more related to the tempo of the city life. Many urbanites like to express as many ideas as possible in a relatively short time. So they skip a lot of those ngs and others which take extra effort and time to pronounce.

But now when I hear the more authentic Cantonese spoken by people in Guangzhou, it is a little bit weird to my ears.

[Claw]

(doubts)

Actually the CUHK online Cantonese dictionary/syllabary even shows this phenomenon. Take ngaa for instance:

http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-can/pho-rel.php?s1=ng&s2=aa&s3=-&

If you click on each of the characters with tones 1, 2, and 3, aa is shown as the correct pronunciation, while ngaa is shown as a "異讀字". If you click on the characters with tones 4, 5, and 6, you'll see that ngaa is shown as the correct pronunciation.

Of course, what people really say today is really all that matters. Practically speaking, you can say ng or a null initial for any of the tones usually. However, the ng tone distinction is an interesting thing to keep in mind because it's an indication of how Cantonese sounds evolved.

[calibre2001]

What about the saying the numbers like 33? I often hear this being pronounced as 'sa up sa' instead of 'sum sup sum'. Oh yeah this applies other numbers too.....

Is is part of the 'let's abridge our canto' phenomenon in HK?

[Quest]

33 is sa-a-sahm or sahm sup sahm

[geek_frappa]

those are elided forms.... your example,

33 becomes sa'ah saam instead of saam sup saam ...

cantonese love to shorten everything; hongkongers would dig a tunnel under the ocean, if it created a shortcut to japan.

i've tried to dig ... but i got tired.

when talking to old people in GZ, or SZ, i must say mat yeh ar (what?)... in HK or US i can just say mei'a? (what)

[Quest]

when talking to old people in GZ, or SZ, i must say mat yeh ar (what?)... in HK or US i can just say mei'a? (what)

really? we all say mei'a.

[geek_frappa]

i thought so, too... i'm just as confused as you ...

[Quest]

i m not confused

your friend looks kinda confused in that picture, is he not?

[Claw]

Well, saa saam is just 卅三 just like yi sap yi (二十二) becomes ya yi (廿二) in Cantonese. Mandarin doesn't seem to use 廿 or 卅 in speech though.

[Guest Yau]

the emergence of 懶音 is more related to the tempo of the city life. Many urbanites like to express as many ideas as possible in a relatively short time. So they skip a lot of those ngs and others which take extra effort and time to pronounce.

I don't think it's really related to the city life but it's about the diversified population. Teochewese, Hakkien, Hokkian, Shanghaiese and many other non-cantonese speakers fleed to hongkong earlier in the last century. All these foreign tribes were often more flexible to remove the less distinctive difference to make the learning easier. (consider R sound in hongkong english)

The emergence of so-called 懶音 or the coming extinction of "ng" sound is just a compromise for making cantonese widely spoken in Hongkong.

I can see this trend is now happened again in Shenzhen too.

[ala]

I don't think it's really related to the city life but it's about the diversified population. Teochewese' date=' Hakkien, Hokkian, Shanghaiese and many other non-cantonese speakers fleed to hongkong earlier in the last century. All these foreign tribes were often more flexible to remove the less distinctive difference to make the learning easier. (consider R sound in hongkong english)

The emergence of so-called 懶音 or the coming extinction of "ng" sound is just a compromise for making cantonese widely spoken in Hongkong. [/quote']

Don't those dialects all have the "ng" sound?

[Ian_Lee]

For the prevalence of 懶音 in HK, my another guess is that Cantonese has been spoken isolatedly in HK (and Macau) for over 10 years (mid-'60s to mid-'70s). By that time, there was minimum cultural and social contacts between HK and other Cantonese-speaking regions in Mainland.

Moreover, that was also the time of emergence of Cantopop in HK. (Until early '70s, Mandarin movies and songs were still the norms in HK.)

These two factors may converge to make the Cantonese spoken in HK more unique.

[Quest]

I believe in the migrants theory. If some of the children did not grow up in Cantonese speaking families, their Cantonese would tend to change slightly even if they still learn it perfectly from friends and other sources. When these children grow up and become famous public figures, they influence the others.

I think bilingualism changes a language much faster than isolation.

[Guest Yau]

Don't those dialects all have the "ng" sound?

If there's one sound for two characters, why we need to learn two? Whether or not to skip "ng" sound depends on the level of confusion. In Cantonese, the distort in communication is uncommon for having no "ng" sound. It will encourage people to gradually abolish it.

By the same logic, chinese tends to skip "R" sounds in english but when they live in the english speaking country, the "R" will gradually come back because they find it impossible to communicate with "R" in english.

that was also the time of emergence of Cantopop in HK. (Until early '70s, Mandarin movies and songs were still the norms in HK.)

Cantopop may only reinforce the widespread of "mutated" cantonese, even in Guangzhou.

我人生第一次去廣州時(幾個月前既事....), 一些老廣州跟我說: 哎, 香港人講野真難聽, 成日 "jit 係", 呢, 呀, 喇, 啊, 我都唔知佢地想講 Deee 乜.

佢每隻字都咬到好鬼正, 好似做緊60 年代播音劇. 最初聽時, 覺得老土左少少, 但聽真D, 又幾有西關風韻, 好風雅. 不過年青一代, 似乎無乜呢種韻味, 佢地講既同我講既, 都係懶音盡出, ng - n 不分.

唔知呢種叫文化大同, 還是文化侵略喇.