Korean → Cantonese
Cantonese uses 42 sounds. You already own 14 of them from Korean. The other 28 are the work — and 18 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 국 (soup).
the move: close, but not identical
Cantonese: skirt · written "kw"
Your /kʰ/ is the one in 코 (nose).
the move: close → near-close
Cantonese: star · written "i before ng/k"
Your /i/ is the one in 이 (this; two; tooth).
the move: close → near-close
Cantonese: same · written "u before ng/k"
Your /u/ is the one in 우유 (milk).
the move: longer
Cantonese: three · written "aa"
LONG a. saam1 三 vs sam1 心 — length changes the word.
Your /a/ is the one in 나라 (country).
the move: longer
Cantonese: to be (formal) · written "i"
Your /i/ is the one in 이 (this; two; tooth).
the move: alveolar → labiodental
Cantonese: to sleep · written "f"
Your /s/ is the one in 사람 (person).
the move: alveolo-palatal → alveolar
Cantonese: middle · written "z"
Your /t͡ɕ/ is the one in 집 (house).
the move: alveolo-palatal → alveolar
Cantonese: to go out · written "c"
Your /t͡ɕʰ/ is the one in 차 (tea; car).
the move: back → central
Cantonese: letter / to believe · written "eo"
Your /o/ is the one in 오늘 (today).
the move: rounded, longer
Cantonese: fish · written "yu"
French u.
Your /i/ is the one in 이 (this; two; tooth).
the move: it glides, yours would hold still
Cantonese: four · written "ei"
Your /e/ is the one in 네 (yes).
the move: it glides, yours would hold still
Cantonese: good · written "ou"
Your /o/ is the one in 오늘 (today).
the move: open → near-open, front → central
Cantonese: heart · written "a"
SHORT a.
Your /a/ is the one in 나라 (country).
the move: close, but not identical
Cantonese: not · written "m (alone)"
A whole syllable with no vowel.
Your /m/ is the one in 물 (water).
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 Korean 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.
to write
Closest thing you own: — but open → open-mid, longer.
street
Closest thing you own: — but it glides, yours would hold still, longer.
to teach
Closest thing you own: — but it glides, yours would hold still, longer.
small
Closest thing you own: — but it glides, yours would hold still, longer.
cup
Closest thing you own: — but it glides, yours would hold still, longer.
water
Closest thing you own: — but it glides, yours would hold still, back → central.
fragrant (Hong Kong's Hong)
Closest thing you own: — but open → open-mid, rounded, longer.
to open
Closest thing you own: — but it glides, yours would hold still, rounded, longer.
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.
| Korean | Cantonese | |
|---|---|---|
| Rhythm | Syllable-timed, phrase melody | Syllable-timed |
| Stress | None at word level. No syllable is reduced and no vowel becomes a schwa; every syllable is said in full. What an English ear hears as stress is the phrase-initial rise. | No contrastive stress; prominence comes from particles and from changed tone (變調) lifting a syllable to tone 2. |
| Pitch | Not tonal, and not a pitch-accent language either in the standard: Seoul Korean gives its pitch to the PHRASE, not the word. Each accentual phrase rises over its first two syllables and falls at the end (low-high … high-low), and the very first syllable starts higher after an aspirated or tense consonant than after a plain one — which is how listeners tell 달 from 탈 at the start of a phrase. Questions rise at the end, as in English. The Busan and Daegu dialects DO have lexical pitch accent (가지 is 'branch' or 'aubergine' by pitch there), which is why southerners sound sing-song to Seoul. | lexical tone — pitch changes the word |
What you have that Cantonese doesn't
20 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 Korean 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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