Similar Cantonese and Mandarin pronunciations

[Xiao Kui]

I have recently started learning Cantonese. I already have studied Mandarin for many years and I notice some Mandarin syllables seem to correspond to Cantonese ones pretty regularly. I know there are probably many exceptions, but I've noticed (please excuse my Cantonese pinyin, I haven't learned the Yale sys or jyut pin yet.)

lou - lau

gui - gwai

xing - seng

hao - hou

etc, etc, there are many others

Do you know where i can get a list like this (I know it doesn't help for tones) so I can perhaps make an educated guess abt how sth is going to be pronounced in Cantonese when I already know it in Mandarin? Thanks!

[yonglin]

just a few observations from sb not quite proficient in either (cantonese in yale)

到 dao vs.dou

老 lao vs. lou

好 hao vs. hou

头 tou vs. tau

狗 gou vs. gau

(note, yale -au = pinyin -ao)

学 xue vs. hok

行 xing/hang vs. haang/hang/hong

下 xia vs. ha

是 shi vs. si

声 sheng vs. seng

上 shang vs. seung

小 xiao vs. siu

桥 qiao vs. kiu

火 huo vs. fo

化 hua vs. fa

话、华 hua vs. wa

题，体 ti vs. tai

带 dai vs. daai

太 tai vs. taai

问，文 wen vs. man

for tones, your guesses will be more qualified from canto->mando than the other way around.

mid flat and low flat in cantonese always fall in mandarin (unless they end in p/k/t - these are not *really* mid-flat and low-flat, just pronounced as such)

rising in cantonese usually 3 in mandarin

high tones in cantonese sometimes 1 in mandarin

awaiting a better response from somebody more proficient....

[wai ming]

These might be what you're looking for:

Cantonese --> Mandarin sound conversion

Mandarin --> Cantonese sound conversion

Also, tone conversions.

[Xiao Kui]

wai ming

Thanks, those links have just the kind of info I'm looking for. It seems like there are often multiple possibilities in Cantonese for each Mandarin syllable, so I have my work cut out for me.

yonglin,

Thanks for your observations. Cantonese has double the tones, so a Cantonese speaker converting tones to Mandarin doesn't have to do nearly as much guesswork, and definitely has the advantage - at least there are some similarities. So far I'm finding my experience at learning Cantonese a lot easier than when I started Mandarin from scratch. It's more like my experience of being a native English speaker learning Spanish, so Cantonese seems more fun than intimidating to me - I don't think I can resist. Either I'm a sucker or I'm abt to have a lot of fun learning a new language.

[atitarev]

I also use HanConv, an offline tool, which can convert characters to Pinyin (Mandarin), Yale and Jyutping (Cantonese). http://www.icycloud.tk. This site seems to behave funny at the moment.

[Xiao Kui]

Thanks for your recommendation, atitarev. Right now I get a 404 File not found error message for that link, and an extensive search for HanConv only comes up with other broken links. I'll continue to keep an eye out for it. In the meantime if someone has it and can post it elsewhere (legally) or is willing to email it to me please pm me for my email address. Thanks!

[atitarev]

Xiao Kui, please PM your email address, I will send the zipped file to you. It slightly exceeds the limitations on attachments on this forum.