13. Written Cantonese

When people talk about written Chinese, they often refer to the variety of written Chinese that is similar to Mandarin. It is quite different from Cantonese in grammar and vocabulary. It is referred as 書面語 syu1⠉ min2⠜ jyu5⠔ (which literally means “language on books”) in Hong Kong. In Hong Kong schools, students learn to read and write 書面語 syu1⠉ min2⠜ jyu5⠔ in Chinese lessons. 書面語 syu1⠉ min2⠜ jyu5⠔ is used in books, newspapers and documents. Also, by convention, 書面語 syu1⠉ min2⠜ jyu5⠔ is usually used in lyrics of Cantonese songs and subtitles for movies and TV shows.

Cantonese can also be written down with Chinese characters. We will refer to Cantonese that is written down with Chinese characters as written Cantonese in this book. Written Cantonese is commonly used in less formal contexts, such as text messages, online discussion board posts, posters or less formal articles.

There are a set of Cantonese-specific words which are not used in 書面語 syu1⠉ min2⠜ jyu5⠔. Many of these Cantonese-specific words don’t have a standard written form. Native Cantonese speakers may use different Chinese characters to represent the same word (e.g., both 仲 and 重 for the word zung6⠤). Sometimes, they may even use English letters to represent a word that they don’t know how to write using Chinese characters (e.g., hea for the word he3⠒). They may also do so just for convenience (e.g., D for the word di1⠉ instead of writing the character 啲).

Note that the written Chinese you see in this book is written Cantonese instead of 書面語 syu1⠉ min2⠜ jyu5⠔. If you want to learn to read and write 書面語 syu1⠉ min2⠜ jyu5⠔, you should refer to other learning resources.

You have completed this Chinese character guide. You should be ready to learn some common Chinese characters in later units.