opper567 Posted July 8, 2005 at 02:15 AM Report Share 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 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xng Posted July 8, 2005 at 02:35 AM Report Share 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 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
geek_frappa Posted July 8, 2005 at 03:06 AM Report Share Posted July 8, 2005 at 03:06 AM http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/297-laziness-in-cantonese-speakers Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quest Posted July 8, 2005 at 10:41 AM Report Share 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 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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