Correlations between Jyutping (Cantonese) and Pinyin (Mandarin)

[Aika]

Hi,

 

Mandarin is basically Cantonese pronounced differently, but the grammar/structures are the same and some of the pronounciations sound extremely similar.

 

Is there a list out there, that shows the pinyin for the two dilects side-by-side? So that way, since I'm a really good cantonese speaker, I can just memorize the list of Mandarin pinyin that correlates to Cantonese pronouncations, so I can know both languages without learning each word individually like a new language.

 

For example:

 

Shì=sai3        

jiè=gaai3

[Hofmann]

You're neck-deep in misconceptions here. You may want to do some reading on Chinese languages and Romanization.

[Aika]

Without a doubt, you would see the uncanny resemblance between them if you knew both languages.

I've been studying Mandarin for 3 years and I know I could do significantly better if I can translate Cantonese and Mandarin directly between each other, without using English as a buffer.

[dwq]

I see where you're coming from, yes I agree there is resemblance, but it doesn't always work. You picked an interesting example with shì as it corresponds to many characters with different Cantonese pronunciations.

世 sai3

逝 sai6

事 si6

市 si5

式 sik1

室 sat1

In the other direction, for sai3:

世 shì

細 xì

I'd say pronunciation in one will give you a hint of what the pronunciation is in the other, but it would be quite daunting to try to systematically remember them.

[Flickserve]

Without a doubt, you would see the uncanny resemblance between them if you knew both languages.

I've been studying Mandarin for 3 years and I know I could do significantly better if I can translate Cantonese and Mandarin directly between each other, without using English as a buffer.

After 3 years, I would have thought you had it worked out

I am nowhere experienced as you, I speak Cantonese fairly fluently as a second language. After thinking about what you wrote, I don't seem to use English as a buffer all the time. In fact, I'm not trying to use English at all (maybe that's my problem!). Granted my sentence structures are rather simplistic.

Why don't you just translate straight from Cantonese to Mandarin anyway? Just read the character and it should come without needing to use English.

[Angelina]

”Mandarin is basically Cantonese pronounced differently, but the grammar/structures are the same and some of the pronounciations sound extremely similar.“

I don't think so, structures are different too.

[Flickserve]

Is this the sort of thing you are after?

[Hofmann]

OP probably wants a list showing Cantonese and Mandarin descendants of Middle Chinese syllables, but without Middle Chinese, and in Jyutping and Pinyin. I think I remember seeing one in IPA...Can't find it anymore.
 

you would see the uncanny resemblance between them

Only as uncanny as the resemblance between other related languages like English and German, yet few people say that English is basically German pronounced differently. There are other differences besides phonology.

[Kobo-Daishi]

@Flickserve,

 

Where is your sample image from?

 

Kobo.

[Flickserve]

From this book

[Aika]

After 3 years, I would have thought you had it worked out

I am nowhere experienced as you, I speak Cantonese fairly fluently as a second language. After thinking about what you wrote, I don't seem to use English as a buffer all the time. In fact, I'm not trying to use English at all (maybe that's my problem!). Granted my sentence structures are rather simplistic.

Why don't you just translate straight from Cantonese to Mandarin anyway? Just read the character and it should come without needing to use English.

 

Because I'm learning Mandarin from a public school teacher who only knows Mandarin and English. She gives me a sheet with words listing the Mandarin pinyin, the Chinese character, and the English definition.

 

I find that I already know half those words by translating them to Cantonese in my head, but as for the other half- I'm not sure what it sounds like in Cantonese so it's harder to memorize those words.

 

I read the Mandarin character, and I'm trying to translate it straight to Cantonese- but I don't know how! I need to know the correlations between Canto pinyin and Mandarin pinyin in order to do exactly that. 

[Aika]

 

I don't think so, structures are different too.

 

Which ones are different?

I found every one of them the same.

 

 

Is this the sort of thing you are after?

Attached Thumbnails

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YEAH!!! My mom said books like that exist, but they're only sold in China in the Guangzhou region (a cantonese region where cantonese speakers are attempting to learn Mandarin)

I'm not the best at Cantonese, better at English.

I thought doing this method would improve my (pretty good but not great) Cantonese, and my bad Mandarin.

[Aika]

 

OP probably wants a list showing Cantonese and Mandarin descendants of Middle Chinese syllables, but without Middle Chinese, and in Jyutping and Pinyin. I think I remember seeing one in IPA...Can't find it anymore.

 

 

 

YES! I've been searching for one online.
 

 

Only as uncanny as the resemblance between other related languages like English and German, yet few people say that English is basically German pronounced differently. There are other differences besides phonology.

 

 

I think Canto and Mandarin are more connected than English/German.

But think of it this way-

A German wants to learn English, but the German lives in China.

The German's Chinese teacher teaches him some English by giving him definitions of the English word written in Chinese ( the German knows both Chinese and German.)

I believe the German would learn a lot faster of he translated directly between German and English without using Chinese as a buffer.

Yeah...That's kinda what I said earlier.

[Aika]

From this book

 

I think I need that

I have Chinese Regents this month too (which includes a speaking part)

[Flickserve]

Because I'm learning Mandarin from a public school teacher who only knows Mandarin and English. She gives me a sheet with words listing the Mandarin pinyin, the Chinese character, and the English definition.

I find that I already know half those words by translating them to Cantonese in my head, but as for the other half- I'm not sure what it sounds like in Cantonese so it's harder to memorize those words.

I read the Mandarin character, and I'm trying to translate it straight to Cantonese- but I don't know how! I need to know the correlations between Canto pinyin and Mandarin pinyin in order to do exactly that.

use pleco! If you pay the extra, you can look up the word and it will give you the cantonese and say it out.

[Flickserve]

Which ones are different?

I found every one of them the same.

YEAH!!! My mom said books like that exist, but they're only sold in China in the Guangzhou region (a cantonese region where cantonese speakers are attempting to learn Mandarin)

I'm not the best at Cantonese, better at English.

I thought doing this method would improve my (pretty good but not great) Cantonese, and my bad Mandarin.

tbis book I found in Hong Kong. Only seen it in one bookstore. That's why I took a photo of the cover so you can look it up. However, the relevant pages only a small portion of the book.

The book itself is only about 11USD.

Going by what you wrote, it seems you speak Cantonese but don't read Chinese.

[Hofmann]

I find that I already know half those words by translating them to Cantonese in my head, but as for the other half- I'm not sure what it sounds like in Cantonese so it's harder to memorize those words.

So you want to look at Pinyin to predict Jyutping? I hope not, because any sort of system like that doesn't work very well. You're better off looking up the Jyutping for each word, and that's not implying that the word actually exists and is used the same way in Cantonese.

[Kobo-Daishi]

@Flickserve,

 

That's quite an interesting book. But it seems they've only got one reading for the characters.

 

For instance, in Cantonese 平 also means "cheap, inexpensive" where it would then have a reading of "peng". That is, I think it's so. I tried looking up the character at the CantoDict found at the www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk site, but, they don't differentiate between the readings and definitions. Though in the "words" that use the character to mean "cheap" and the examples for meaning of "cheap" all seem to use the "peng" reading.

 

And the readings aren't in Jyutping and Pinyin as the OP requested. Yale and Wade-Giles?

 

@Aika,

 

 

YEAH!!! My mom said books like that exist, but they're only sold in China in the Guangzhou region (a cantonese region where cantonese speakers are attempting to learn Mandarin)
I'm not the best at Cantonese, better at English.
I thought doing this method would improve my (pretty good but not great) Cantonese, and my bad Mandarin.

 

 

By coincidence, after viewing your original post, I went searching for such a book. I wasn't able to find one, but, found one for my dialect, Taishanese, and Cantonese.

 

 

It's a good resource for me. Not great since it's not exactly like my dialect. It's based on the Taicheng standard. I guess mine isn't based out of Taicheng, but, it still good to have.

 

The readings in the square brackets are Cantonese and the readings in parentheses are in Taishanese.

 

It shows that 万 has 2 readings, 慢 and 麥. And that in the surname 万俟 it's read as 麥奇. Kind of cool to know.

 

Heck, why don't you use the CantoDict at the Sheik web site?

 

Or if you know programming, pull the data from the Unihan file at the Unicode web site.

 

 

A dictionary file with readings in Cantonese and Mandarin that I think Querido posted at one of the threads in these forums. Search this forum. Just extract the data.

 

Kobo.