Cantonese: spelling → sound

Cantonese syllables are (initial) + final + one of SIX tones, written 1–6 in Jyutping: 1 high ˥, 2 rising ˧˥, 3 mid ˧, 4 low falling ˨˩, 5 low rising ˩˧, 6 low ˨. Unlike Mandarin it keeps the old final stops -p -t -k (unreleased — the syllable just stops: sap6 十) and final -m (saam1 三). Long and short a are different letters: aa is long /aː/ (saam1), a is short /ɐ/ (sam1 心 — different word!). b/d/g are unaspirated /p t k/, p/t/k aspirated; z/c are /t͡s/ /t͡sʰ/ (often toward /t͡ʃ/). Two syllables are just nasals: m4 唔 'not', ng5 五 'five'. The same characters as Mandarin, utterly different sounds: 香港 is xiānggǎng in Mandarin, hoeng1gong2 in Cantonese.

Trace a word

Every box is one rule firing. Hover a box (or open the table) to see why. Rules are applied in order, first match wins — that order is the spelling system. Type Jyutping with tone numbers (nei5 hou2).

The rules, in order

74 rules. The left column is a pattern (regular expression) matched at the current position of the word; (?=…) looks ahead, (?<=…) looks behind, $ is the end of the word.