Nanyang Cantonese (南洋广东话)

Downloads

Note

The PDFs above are written more for teachers than for students, and with the presumption that the user can read Chinese. Though, they can also be used as part of the learning materials.

The Vocabulary List PDF includes common Cantonese vocabulary (that are not used in Mandarin) and their corresponding hanyu-pinyin (汉语拼音) for typing purposes. The list is not exhaustive, and not all the Cantonese words can be found on every hanyu-pinyin input software.

Introduction

Cantonese is hard to learn because it has 6 tones and a lot more ending sounds than Mandarin. It also uses a lot of words and phrases that either do not exist or are obsolete in Mandarin. On top of that, unlike hanyu-pinyin in Mandarin, we do not have an easily accessible and legible system of pronunciation for Cantonese, which makes teaching non-native speakers incredibly difficult.

While Cantonese pinyin does exist in Hong Kong (HK), they can be confusing for people who are used to hanyu-pinyin. Thus, allow me the audacity to remap, rewrite and simplify the HK Cantonese pinyin into the Nanyang Cantonese pinyin in the PDF above, using hanyu-pinyin as the base.

If you find my PDFs and pinyin useful, please share them with your friends who are learning or teaching Cantonese. Thank you.

Contact

For free Nanyang Cantonese classes (or just the pinyin alone), enquiries, vocabulary entry requests, or collaboration to preserve other dialects, feel free to email me (Darius) at dariusjrtan@gmail.com.