opper567 Posted July 8, 2005 at 02:15 AM Report Posted July 8, 2005 at 02:15 AM I am studying Mandarin in America and decided to learn something about Cantonese. Teach Yourself Cantonese says that Cantonese has 7 tones The Cantonese-English dictionary by Philip Yungkim Lee says that Cantonese has 6 tones And CRI Learn Chinese says that Cantonese has between 9 and 10 Who is right? Are Cantonese tones not as essential to comprension as Mandarin ones? Quote
xng Posted July 8, 2005 at 02:35 AM Report Posted July 8, 2005 at 02:35 AM The correct number of tones in traditional cantonese is 7. But modern cantonese has "simplified" it into 6 tones. If you also include the k, p, t endings (fuk, fut etc), then it has 9 tones. But these 3 additional tones are actually similar to 3 of the first 6 tones. Fu 1 to Fu 6 does not include Fuk Quote
geek_frappa Posted July 8, 2005 at 03:06 AM Report Posted July 8, 2005 at 03:06 AM http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/297-laziness-in-cantonese-speakers Quote
Quest Posted July 8, 2005 at 10:41 AM Report Posted July 8, 2005 at 10:41 AM I thought about it more, Cantonese (at least the Guangzhou version) has more than 9. The usual 9 tones are 394052786, however, I found an additional tone that's actually a variation of the first tone. For example, 3 has mandarin's 1st tone, but can sometimes be pronouced like mandarin's 4th tone(not exact but close). Quote
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