Tones

Foundations

Tones in Cantonese define word meanings through pitch contour and height. Spoken modern Hong Kong Cantonese uses 6 distinct phonemic tones (3 flat pitch levels and 3 dynamic contours). Unlike Mandarin, Cantonese has no phonemic neutral tone, meaning every word and grammatical particle retains its inherent pitch.

How It Works

The Role of Tones
Tones are lexical and phonemic, meaning pitch is part of a word's dictionary definition rather than emotional expression. Pronouncing a syllable with an incorrect pitch will change the word entirely or make it uninterpretable.

The 6 Phonemic Tones
Modern Hong Kong Cantonese categorizes tones by relative pitch height and contour direction:

  • Tone 1 (High Level / 55): High, flat pitch held steady (e.g., 詩 si1).
  • Tone 2 (High Rising / 25): Starts mid-low and rises sharply to high (e.g., 史 si2).
  • Tone 3 (Mid Level / 33): Flat, steady pitch in the middle of your range (e.g., 試 si3).
  • Tone 4 (Low Falling / 21): Starts low-mid and drops to the bottom of your throat (e.g., 時 si4).
  • Tone 5 (Low Rising / 23): Starts low and glides gently up to mid-level (e.g., 市 si5).
  • Tone 6 (Low Level / 22): Flat pitch at a low-mid height (e.g., 事 si6).

Key Features of Cantonese Tones

  • No Neutral Tone: Unlike Mandarin, post-verbal aspect markers and sentence particles carry full tones.
  • Checked Tones (入聲): Syllables ending in -p, -t, or -k share the pitch heights of Tones 1, 3, and 6, but are cut short due to final consonant closures.

To learn standard phonetic transcription, see Jyutping. For dynamic spoken shifts, explore Tone Change and A particle's tone changes its feeling.

Examples (3)

  1. 廣東話有六個聲調。

    Cantonese has six tones.

    Word by Word: Cantonese have six [classifier] tones.

    Demonstrates Tone 2 (廣 gwong2), Tone 1 (東 dung1), Tone 2 (話 waa2), Tone 5 (有 jau5), Tone 6 (六 luk6), Tone 3 (個 go3), Tone 1 (聲 sing1), and Tone 6 (調 diu6).

  2. 買嘢同賣嘢係兩樣事。

    Buying things and selling things are two different matters.

    Word by Word: Buy thing and sell thing be two kind matter.

    Contrasts Tone 5 Low Rising (買 maai5 'to buy') directly with Tone 6 Low Level (賣 maai6 'to sell').

  3. 佢去市場試食。

    S/he went to the market to try the food.

    Word by Word: S/he go market try-eat.

    Contrasts Tone 3 Mid Level (試 si3 'to try') with Tone 5 Low Rising (市 si5 'market').

Common Mistakes

  • Applying English question intonation to sentence-final Cantonese words.

    你去唔去市場 (si5 coeng2)？
    你去唔去市場 (si5 coeng4)？

    In English, speakers raise pitch at the end of a sentence to signal a question. In Cantonese, questions are marked by words and particles, and raising the pitch of the last word changes its tone and can make it a different word.

  • Giving the particle 咗 the wrong tone.

    食咗飯 (sik6 zo3 faan6)
    食咗飯 (sik6 zo2 faan6)

    咗 is zo2, a high rising tone. Give particles and aspect markers their full pitch; a flat or dropped tone can change the word.

How It Connects

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TonesFoundations

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