Japanese → Cantonese
Cantonese uses 42 sounds. You already own 12 of them from Japanese. The other 30 are the work — and 24 of those are the dangerous kind: close enough to something you already say that you will substitute them without hearing yourself do it.
The silent swaps
Your mouth has something close enough to reach for. These survive for years precisely because they sound right to you — the fix is hearing the difference first, not trying harder.
the move: close, but not identical
Cantonese: Canton (in 廣東) · written "gw"
Your /k/ is the one in かさ kasa (umbrella).
the move: bilabial → labiodental
Cantonese: to sleep · written "f"
Your /ɸ/ is the one in ふゆ fuyu (winter).
the move: close → near-close
Cantonese: star · written "i before ng/k"
Your /i/ is the one in いま ima (now).
the move: aspirated
Cantonese: friend (in 朋友) · written "p"
Your /p/ is the one in きっぷ kippu (ticket).
the move: aspirated
Cantonese: same / with · written "t"
Your /t/ is the one in たべる taberu (to eat).
the move: aspirated
Cantonese: he / she · written "k"
Your /k/ is the one in かさ kasa (umbrella).
the move: aspirated
Cantonese: skirt · written "kw"
Your /k/ is the one in かさ kasa (umbrella).
the move: aspirated
Cantonese: to go out · written "c"
Your /t͡s/ is the one in つき tsuki (moon).
the move: rounded
Cantonese: bitter · written "u"
Your /ɯː/ is the one in すうじ sūji (number).
the move: rounded
Cantonese: fish · written "yu"
French u.
Your /iː/ is the one in おじいさん ojīsan (grandfather).
the move: close-mid → near-close
Cantonese: same · written "u before ng/k"
Your /o/ is the one in おと oto (sound).
the move: back → central
Cantonese: letter / to believe · written "eo"
Your /o/ is the one in おと oto (sound).
the move: uvular → velar
Cantonese: I · written "ng"
Younger speakers often drop it: o5.
Your /ɴ/ is the one in ほん hon (book).
the move: open → open-mid
Cantonese: to write · written "e"
Your /aː/ is the one in おばあさん obāsan (grandmother).
the move: close-mid → open-mid
Cantonese: I · written "o"
Your /oː/ is the one in とうきょう Tōkyō (Tokyo).
the move: uvular → velar
Cantonese: five · written "ng (alone)"
Your /ɴ/ is the one in ほん hon (book).
the move: fricative → lateral
Cantonese: to come · written "l"
Your /z/ is the one in みず mizu (water).
the move: it glides, yours would hold still
Cantonese: street · written "aai"
Your /aː/ is the one in おばあさん obāsan (grandmother).
the move: it glides, yours would hold still
Cantonese: to teach · written "aau"
Your /aː/ is the one in おばあさん obāsan (grandmother).
the move: it glides, yours would hold still
Cantonese: four · written "ei"
Your /e/ is the one in えき eki (station).
the move: it glides, yours would hold still
Cantonese: good · written "ou"
Your /o/ is the one in おと oto (sound).
the move: it glides, yours would hold still
Cantonese: small · written "iu"
Your /iː/ is the one in おじいさん ojīsan (grandfather).
the move: open → near-open, front → central
Cantonese: heart · written "a"
SHORT a.
Your /a/ is the one in あさ asa (morning).
Words you may say identically
Two or more Cantonese sounds landing on one sound of yours. Until the ear separates them, the mouth cannot — which is what the ear trainer is for.
Genuinely new
Nothing in Japanese sits close to these. They sound foreign in your mouth — which is the good news: you can hear that you are not saying them yet.
fragrant (Hong Kong's Hong)
Closest thing you own: — but open → open-mid, rounded.
cup
Closest thing you own: — but it glides, yours would hold still, rounded.
water
Closest thing you own: — but it glides, yours would hold still, back → central.
to open
Closest thing you own: — but it glides, yours would hold still, close-mid → open-mid.
small
Closest thing you own: — but it glides, yours would hold still, open → near-open, front → central.
nine
Closest thing you own: — but it glides, yours would hold still, open → near-open, front → central.
Rhythm and pitch
The layer spelling never records, and the one that makes a correct sentence still sound foreign.
| Japanese | Cantonese | |
|---|---|---|
| Rhythm | Mora-timed | Syllable-timed |
| Stress | No stress in the English sense — syllables are not louder or longer, so a Japanese speaker reading English tends to flatten it, and an English speaker reading Japanese tends to hammer syllables that should be even. | No contrastive stress; prominence comes from particles and from changed tone (變調) lifting a syllable to tone 2. |
| Pitch | Japanese sits between the tone languages and the stress languages, and gets its own name for it: pitch accent. A word has at most ONE place where the pitch drops, and where that drop falls is part of the word. 箸 hashi (drop after ha) is chopsticks; 橋 hashi (drop after shi) is a bridge; 端 hashi (no drop) is the edge. Unlike Cantonese there is no contour to learn per syllable — only 'where does it fall, if at all'. Tokyo and Osaka disagree about the answer for many words, and both are correct. | lexical tone — pitch changes the word |
What you have that Cantonese doesn't
19 sounds with no job in Cantonese. They are not mistakes — but they are where an accent leaks in, because a sound you own is easy to use when a hard one is due.
The honest caveat
This is a prediction from the shape of two sound systems, not a recording of you. It says what your inventory makes likely — it cannot know that your Japanese has a regional variety that already owns one of these, or that you learned Cantonese from someone whose accent you copied. A teacher listening to you beats it. Use it to know what to listen for.
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