How Cantonese Tones Really Work, Explained in 8 Minutes

[00:00:00]Here is the easiest way to master Cantonese tones if you keep messing them up. Whether you speak it at home but never really learned it formally or you're new to Cantonese entirely, learning Cantonese tones is absolutely the most important step after you ping files initials to learn the language.

[00:00:14]So, Chinese is a tonal language meaning one word in the wrong tone will have a completely different meaning. For example, the word say in tone three means four, but if you say it in tone two, say, it means to die. And so you don't want to mess that up, right? So, there's six Cantonese tones in total.

[00:00:30]You might have heard that there's nine and that's not incorrect, but really without overcomplicating your life, the other three are ones you can worry about almost never and the six tones pretty much cover all Cantonese words. So now, let's go over the six main tones real quick. First tone is what we call the high-pitched flat tone. Best way to think about it, do re mi fa so, that high flat [snorts] tone. For example, si, tin, sam, mau, piu, tang, all those are do re mi fa so, that exact same high flat tone. Now, where learners commonly struggle with this one is they feel they need to overexaggerate the flatness of it. Si. No, think of it like music class. By the way, I was bad at music, so I'm just guessing this is what music class was like, but all you need to do is just hit that note. You don't need to even maintain it flat, just hit that note and just fit. Okay? For example, si.

[00:01:24]Go. Right? I I I don't need to go go, cuz that's where you can struggle because trying to maintain that note, and this is what a lot of learners try and do, they try and like really exaggerate the the the tone and be like, go, but then it's really easy to kind of waver and be like, go or go, right? So, just all you got to do is if you're speaking and you hit that note, you hit tone one. All right, next we got the third tone. What What What What What Sheldon, what about the second tone? Did we just skip it? Yes, we skipped it. Why did we skip it? Well, Cantonese has two tone types, flat tones and what we call contour tones. Flat tones are in the name itself. It was like the one we just had, the first tone, high and flat, right? Contour tones, I'll explain shortly, but first, let's explain all the flat tones first. So, now the third tone is the middle flat tone. Best way to think about it, do re mi fa, say say say, c c c, then then fa fa fa fa, which is actually a a Cantonese word, actually, fa.

[00:02:23]All right, so tone three, middle flat.

[00:02:25]Now, with all flat tones, we need to make sure that the pitch remains steady throughout the whole syllable without any rises or falls. And so, once again, the easiest way to make sure you don't mess this up is to do what I mentioned earlier, right? Don't try and hold the note for a long time, because then you might mess it up and falter it, right?

[00:02:40]Just hit the note and move on. Say, c. All right, so now the last of the flat tones is the sixth tone. It's the low and flat one. Best way to think about it, do re mi fa, go back down one, mi, man. E e e sup sup sup dai dai dai mai mai mai c c c mm mm mm. Now, I know what you're thinking, "Sheldon, this is kind of hard. What if I like get it wrong?" Before we get into contour tones, I want to share exactly my method to make tones easier, and I call it the humming method. So, the humming method breaks up the tones into two parts.

[00:03:13]First, hum the tone, and then we'll fit the word into the tone. So, for example, tone one is bum bum bum, right? And then, once you kind of get used to humming it, then fit the word into the tone. Go go go, ting ting ting.

[00:03:28]Right? Then fit the word into the tone, but first, hum it. [snorts] Now, let's get into the contour tones. The reason they're called contour tones is cuz they're not flat, so it's like a contour, your face. There's three contour tones. Let's start with the easy one. So, the second tone is a high rising tone. You're starting from a low voice, and then you're rising up. Do not wobble, just keep rising it. Rise it from low all the way to high. See, six see, eat poo, E.

[00:03:54]So, according to the humming method, it sounds like this.

[00:03:59]Or see, or see, or see, poo, or see, poo, see.

[00:04:09]From from low to high. The key for this one is remember there's a little extra push. It's not you're not just going from low to middle. You're going from low to middle to top.

[00:04:19]Fifth is the mid rising tone. Now, it's very close to tone two, so it's a little challenging. It's a rising tone as well, but the rise is not as dramatic because it only goes from low to mid rather than low to high. So, according to the humming method, it's kind of like this.

[00:04:33]Notice how for the humming method tone two, it goes like this.

[00:04:39]Right? If you go tone two, it'd be tall.

[00:04:42]None, gone. So, it's an easy tone to say, but it's a hard tone to differentiate. So, kind of think about it like a shrug.

[00:04:49]Tone five is like a shrug. Like, see. Versus like a see, like see, fist up in the air. Like you're really going up into it. Now, before we get into the last tone, I really need to mention this to you. So, many people can get discouraged with these two sets of tones, the three six and the two five.

[00:05:07]And I want to say, it's controversial, but you have permission to mess these up. Chinese teachers will spend hours trying to perfect this, and by the end of that hours, you'll find that you can't say a word, but you worked on some random tone, and you get discouraged. You're like, "Wow, I spent all that time, and all I can do is say some What what did I learn?" And so, don't try and perfect this right now, okay?

[00:05:28]80/20, okay? If your pronunciation isn't perfect, people will still understand you. If your tones are wrong, people will still understand you. But, if you can't form a sentence and speak, no one will understand you. And so, especially with Chinese, which is a language that relies so heavily on context, people are always clarifying which version of the word was said because they all the same sound. they have gone piping a tire at the side And so to simplify our lives, and teachers are going to hate me for this, but there are six tones in the beginning. If you're struggling with six, simplify it.

[00:06:00]Put three and six, and two and five into one tone. There is the high flat tone, tone one. Then there is just the flat tones, tones three and six. Okay? Then there's the rising tones, right? Tones two and five, so put those together as one tone. There's a rising tone. Then there is the falling tone, which is tone four. I'll go to it in a bit. Okay?

[00:06:21]Simplify the six and just make it four.

[00:06:23]Don't spend hours on tones. Don't spend hours on that first line, because you can refine it later. But trust me on this, because I want to make sure that this is the last time you ever say, "I'm going to learn this language."

[00:06:34]All right, I don't want you to try to learn the language and then a year later you're still trying to learn the language. Or like two years later you're still trying to learn the language, and you're still at the same point. I want this to be the last time you say, "I'm going to learn this language." And so, trust me, you need to get a positive feedback loop to get it, otherwise you're going to say, "Screw this, I'm going to give up." So, do not [snorts] spend too much time on the tones, or caring about pronunciation. It is not important in the beginning. Okay, so now let's get into the last tone, tone four, the low falling tone. Best way to think about it, go. Go. Go. Technically on the music scale, do re mi fa so, do is like technically low flat, but if you actually hear it, it does have a slight fall. Like do. Do. Do. Do re mi fa so do, right? It's a slight fall, and so it's actually a pretty accurate representation of tone four in Cantonese, which is a falling tone. It's a fall from a low pitch to an even lower pitch. So, for example, do. See. Loy. So, the humming method looks like this. Mhm.

[00:07:34]Boom. Boom. It is from low to lower.

[00:07:38]It's not a chop sound like the Mandarin one. It's not like ling. Right? Yung.

[00:07:43]Yung. It's yung.

[00:07:45]moon pang leng see see gun see gun boom boom hm ga All right, so that's all our Cantonese tones. Don't obsess over it too hard, all right, just be familiar with it. Now click here to learn new ping and click here if you're a Cantonese speaker that wants to learn Mandarin.

[00:08:04]Zai jian.