1. Writing down Cantonese Speech

To write down Cantonese speech, we can use Chinese characters or a Romanization system.

A Romanization system specifies how each sound in Cantonese is written down with the Roman alphabet. By using a Romanization system, we can use letters to write down Cantonese speech easily without knowing Chinese characters.

Listen to the examples.

There are several Romanization systems for Cantonese. The one we use in this book is Jyutping.

When we use Chinese characters to write down Cantonese speech, we write down the speech syllable by syllable. That is, we write down each syllable with one Chinese character. For example, the Cantonese word for phone has two syllables. We write down the word as

When we use a Romanization system, we also write down Cantonese speech syllable by syllable. For example, the Cantonese word for phone has two syllables. We write down the word as

Listen to the example.

Notice that we insert a space between syllables.

We will refer to the Cantonese speech we write down with a Romanization system as Romanized Cantonese in this book.

In this pronunciation guide, you will learn to say Cantonese speech written down in Romanized Cantonese. Later in this book, you will practice writing down Cantonese speech in Romanized Cantonese yourself.