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| INTRODUCTION |
| David: Welcome back to CantoneseClass101. I’m David. |
| Nicole: 大家好 (daai6 gaa1 hou2). I’m Nicole. |
| David: In our last lesson we talked about sounds in Jyutping. |
| Nicole: I hope you like it. |
| David: In this lesson, we’re going to talk about Cantonese tones. |
| Nicole: Yeah the beautiful tones! |
| David: sounds like music to you, but really scary to a lot of us who are learning Cantonese for the first time. You guys can’t even agree, are there 6 of them, or 9 of them. |
| Nicole: Well, there are only 6! |
| David: In this lesson, we’re going to learn about the 6 tones. Let’s start at the beginner, with the 1st tone. |
| Nicole: si1. |
| David: That’s the 1st tone, high and flat. |
| Nicole: si1. |
| David: High and steady. |
| Nicole: That’s right, it’s very easy! |
| David: And that’s the highest tone too. |
| Nicole: Yes really high, si1 . I’m singing here. fan1 or ba1. Those are all 1st tones. |
| David: And they’re all high, and they’re all flat. OK, the 2nd tone is a rising tone. |
| Nicole: si2. |
| David: This is called Mid Rising tone. |
| Nicole: si2. it’s a little bit lower than the 1st one. It sounds like the intonation we use in English when we ask a question. |
| David: Like when we say ‘huh?’ or "see?" |
| Nicole: Exactly. si2. fan2, ba2. |
| David: Sounds completely like the English question "see?" |
| Ok, now let's try to put the 1st tone and the 2nd tone together. |
| Nicole: si1 si2, fan1 fan2, ba1 ba2. |
| David: Right. So the first 2 tones are down. |
| Nicole: Yay! |
| David: What's the 3rd one? |
| Nicole: si3. |
| David: The third one is also flat and steady like the first. But it is lower. |
| Nicole: si3. |
| David: Flat tone , in the middle of your voice range. |
| Nicole: si3. fan3. ba3. |
| David: Let's hear 1 and 3 together for comparison? |
| Nicole: si1, si3. fan1, fan3. |
| David: Ok. How about all 3 together? |
| Nicole: si1 si2 si3 |
| David: Sounds like music. Okay, 3 down! |
| Nicole: Now we only have 20 to go! |
| David: 20?! |
| Nicole: Kidding. We are half way through. |
| David: So got three more to go. What’s the 4th tone? |
| Nicole: si4. |
| David: This is a flat tone, but very very low. |
| Nicole: si4. |
| David: This is the 4th tone. It makes you sound unnaturally low. |
| Nicole: si4. |
| David: Just remember, low and flat. The lowest. |
| Nicole: si4, m4… |
| David: Just like in the word m4 goi1. |
| Nicole: That's 4th tone, and then 1st tone. Really low, then really high. m4 goi1. |
| David: And that’s the word for “excuse me”, and “thank you”, and “please”. |
| Alright, let’s put all 3 flat tones together. |
| Nicole: si1 si3 si4. |
| David: Right. |
| Nicole: si1 si3 si4. |
| David: Our next time tone, tone 5, is low rising. |
| Nicole: si5. |
| David: It starts low and it rises. |
| Nicole: si5. |
| David: So it's like the 2nd tone only a lot lower. |
| Nicole: Exactly. si5, fan5, ba5. |
| David: Let's hear 2nd and 5th tone together. |
| Nicole: si2, si5. fan2 fan5. ba2, ba5 . |
| David: okay, we’ve done 5 tones. Of course, there’s one more tone coming up. |
| Nicole: yep, that one is actually a bit tricky. |
| David: It's another flat tone. |
| Nicole: And in the middle. si6. |
| David: It’s sort of low, but not in the bottom there. |
| Nicole: si6, fan6, ba6 |
| Davidt: So to conclude, we got 6 tones, 4 flat tones and 2 rising tones. |
| Nicole: Right. Let's listen to the four FLAT tones. si1, si3, si4, si6. |
| Nicole: Ok, and now the 2 rising tones. |
| Nicole: si2, si5. |
| David: So that's it. The 6 tones. Nicole, before we go can you give us a quick review? |
| Nicole: No problem, I will say the six tones in a row, so you can hear the difference. si1 si2 si3 si4 si5 si6 . |
| David: Let’s hear that one more time, quicker.. |
| Nicole: si1 si2 si3 si4 si5 si6 . |
| David: Okay, now, before we move on. We want to deal with the point we mentioned at the beginning. You say there no extra tones, these 3 tones that some people talk about. What are they? |
| Nicole: Ok. There are Entering Tones: Entering high-flat, entering mid-flat, entering low-flat. |
| David: So what do they sound like? |
| Nicole: sik1, sek3, sik6. |
| David: So it’s sorta like tone 1, and then tone 3, and then tone 6 |
| Nicole: Yes, 3 flat tones. |
| David: And they end with -p, -t, and -k. |
| Nicole: And they’re the silent -p, -t, -k. |
| David: So that’s our almost silent glottal stop. |
| Nicole: Yes. sik1, sek3, sik6. The reason I’m saying that the’re not real tones, is that they’re using the same pitches that we already introduced at the beginning of our lesson. |
| David: The tones aren’t new, we just have a special name for them because they end with a different sound. |
| Nicole: Exactly. |
| David: that's why you said there are only 6 tones. |
| Nicole: Right! |
Outro |
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