Cantonese pronunciation question - /u/ vs /o/

[chrisp]

[in this post I'm not going to mark the tones properly; I'm more interested in the vowel qualities].

Something that's slightly confusing me is the pronunciation of sounds romanised with /u/ which, to me, sound like /o/ when pronounced. For example - the Cantonese pronunciation of "Kowloon" sounds, to me, like "Gau long", but is romanised as "Gau lung". Likewise, "yuk" for "meat" sounds like "yok" to me. Similarly, the numeral 6 sounds like "lok" to me yet is romanised as "luk". However, I *have* seen it romanised as "lok" so that surely means some people also feel that it is pronounced this way? I hear very little difference, if any, between the vowel sounds in "lok" and "gwok" (in the sense of "country / nation").

However, the /u/ in "jung" (as in "jung gwok" etc.) *does* very much sound like /u/ to me and not like /o/.

I'm just a little confused and would be grateful for some enlightenment!

[skylee]

However, I *have* seen it romanised as "lok" so that surely means some people also feel that it is pronounced this way?

The romanisation, especially the system used by HK Government in name translation, does not necessarily reflect the pronunciation accurately. But it is a widely understood system (sort of) that uses certain symbols (not necessarily the associated English pronunciations) to represent certain sounds. Jyutping is perhaps a more reliable/consistent romanisation system.

[Takeshi]

I found it weird too back when I was first studying Cantonese because I was used to 汉语拼音 already.

The thing is, Cantonese has to use a slightly strange romanization system because they sorta have 4 rows of vowels.

In the front:

诗 si (i)

食 sik (ɪ)

四 sei (e)

写 se (ɛ)

In the back:

苦 fu (u)

六 luk (ʊ)

好 hou (o)

国 gwok (ɔ)

Notice I only say "sorta". There is a sort of patterning system going on, and not all vowels can be used in an open syllable. I personally find the 2nd row of vowels to sound more like "e" and "o" even though they are often romanized as "i" and "u" because if they write them as "e" or "o" it would be difficult to write the vowels beneath them and writing "i" and "u" doesn't conflict with anything else. Just remember that they are different vowels that are sort of between i/e and u/o.

And yes, 六 and 国 have a different vowel. Try comparing 六 with 落 ("fall down"; you probably hear it in the term "落车", to get off the car). Both have the same consonants and tone, the only difference is the vowel. 国 should have the same vowel as 落.

[chrisp]

Thanks for the responses guys! Another question re pronunciation - how exactly is the Cantonese word for "pedestrian" (行人) pronounced? Is it "hàahng-yàhn" or "hàhng-yàhn". i.e. does the first character have a long vowel or a short vowel? I've seen 行 romanised with both a long /a/ and a short /a/.

[skylee]

I don't understand this type of romanisation.

But if you are talking about two pronunciations of 行 related to 行人, then I suppose you mean what is rendered in jyutping as haang4 and hang4. I think the former is the colloquial reading and the latter the literary reading of this meaning of 行. I don't think I know anyone who would pronounce 行人 as haang4 jan4. I myself and everyone I know all say hang4 jan4. I use haang4 when it means the action "to walk/stroll", like 行路/行街. When I read a poem, like 行行重行行, I read all the 行 as hang4 (not sure if this is "correct", though.)

Take a look -> http://humanum.arts....ch.php?q=%A6%E6

This website might be useful to you. There is recording of Cantonese pronunciations. http://humanum.arts....Lexis/lexi-can/

[chrisp]

Thanks for your answer skylee, and thanks for the links - I'll check them out! I think what confuses me is whether lots of characters just have different readings, or whether one is the "formal" reading and one is the "colloquial" reading, or whether it's a mix of both these. I've still only really just started learning, so have a long way to go!

[skylee]

Further to my 2, more information can be found about the evolution, convention and (causes) of inaccuracies of the HK Government Cantonese Romanisation scheme in the wiki pages below -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Kong_Government_Cantonese_Romanisation

http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%A6%99%E6%B8%AF%E6%94%BF%E5%BA%9C%E7%B2%B5%E8%AA%9E%E6%8B%BC%E9%9F%B3

[陳德偉]

Romanization of Chinese is always an approximate science in my opinion. There is of course an identifiable standard one can stick to when devising these writing systems, obviously. But not everyone's pronunciation will reflect this depending on many factors like age, where they're from, level of education, etc.

Another factor is that native speakers tend not to be very well acquanted with romanization systems, and if ever they need to use such a system they tend to make it up on the spot, which leads to many varied spellings for the same or approximate sounds. Just look at the many ways Chinese from non Hanyu Pinyin using regions alphabetize their names!

Try not to worry too much about it, once you have memorized the word then heard and used it enough times you will get a feel for it yourself. Also, hopefully with the passing of time you won't need to rely so much on romanization and you'll know the pronunciation by just seeing 九龍, 肉, 六, 中國 and 行人.

[Beardan]

Very good post. The same thing really confused me when i started with the u and o. Like in very cold, 'hou dung' sounded like 'hou dong'. But now i am starting to hear the slight diffference. I dont have my canto book in front of me but i think they likened the u sound to 'oo' in english and the o sound to the 'o' sound in english. im pretty sure its safe to say the u sound in yale romanization isnt the same u sound in english.

Good question about the haahng yahn as well. my dictionary has hahng yahn but walk from memory is haahng. So why wouldnt it be haahng yahn (by logic??).

Two good points here..!!

[Michaelyus]

行人 is classed as a literary word rather than a colloquial word, so uses hang⁴. Why it would be classed as a literary word, that's the tricky question. I think it must be just because it was adopted into Cantonese rather recently, and through a formal register. In general though (as you can see from CantoDict's entry for 行) compounds will take the literary pronunciation.

The pronunciation of "u" of Yale Romanisation (and Jyutping) varies somewhat with what comes after it. It's usually /u/, but in "ung" and "uk" it fronts and opens slightly into /ʊ/, as found in the English look (in the majority of pronunciations). Whereas "o" is usually /ɔ/, like the vowel of thought (except in "ou"); really quite a lot more open than "u". 行 has of course both pronunciations in Cantonese (corresponding roughly to xíng vs háng in Mandarin, although Cantonese is a lot more complicted; see CantoDict link above).