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Phonetic Knowledge

Initials

Initials listening exercise

Initials reading exercise

Finals

Finals listening exercise

Reading Exercise

Tones

Listening Exercise

Reading Exercise

Daily Communication

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Phonetic Knowledge／

Understanding Cantonese

Introduction

Cantonese is a dialect which is popular in Guangdong and Guangxi. It is called “Gwongdong speech” in Hong Kong. Cantonese is the common language in Hong Kong society. It is used in different contexts, including political, financial, cultural and educational scenes.

Syllabic Structure

A Cantonese syllable consists of three elements: an initial, a final and a tone. There are 20 initials (including the zero initial), 53 finals and 6 tones in Cantonese.

Tones (6) refer to the pitches of the syllable	Initials (20) refer to the first part of a syllable, usually represented by consonants.
	Finals (53) refer to the last part of a syllable, which includes a medial, a main vowel and an ending. In Cantonese, a final is composed of a main vowel and an ending.

Listening exercise:

		initial	vowel		tone
		initial	main vowel	ending	tone
ax handle	Conan	/	o	/	1
south	Conan	n	aa	m	4
no	doesn't	/	/	m	4
hit	play	d	aa	/	2
table	snooker	c	oe	k	3
ball	snooker	k	a	u	4

Understanding Initials

Understanding Finals

Understanding Tones