Vowels & Finals

Cantonese has a richer vowel system than Mandarin, with vowels like aa, oe, eo, and yu that have no direct Pinyin equivalent. The Jyutping vowels a, e, i, o, u map roughly to their Pinyin counterparts, but Cantonese adds the long vowel aa (like the 'a' in 'father', held longer) and distinguishes it from short a (like the 'u' in 'cut').

The vowels oe (as in French 'peu') and eo (similar but shorter) are unique to Cantonese and have no Mandarin equivalent. Example: 去 heoi3 uses the 'eo' vowel. yu represents the ü sound (same as Mandarin ü in 女 nǚ).

The most significant difference is in finals (syllable endings). Mandarin only allows syllables to end in -n, -ng, or a vowel. Cantonese preserves three additional stop endings from Middle Chinese:

-p — an unreleased bilabial stop. Example: 十 sap6 (ten). Your lips close but no air is released.

-t — an unreleased alveolar stop. Example: 一 jat1 (one). Your tongue touches the ridge behind your teeth but stops.

-k — an unreleased velar stop. Example: 六 luk6 (six). The back of your tongue rises to block airflow.

These stops are UNRELEASED — you form the mouth position but don't let air burst out. Think of the 'p' in English 'stop' when said abruptly. This is the feature that makes Cantonese sound so distinct from Mandarin.

There is a systematic correspondence: syllables ending in -m can end in -p, those ending in -n can end in -t, and those ending in -ng can end in -k. This parallels the nasal/stop pairs at each point of articulation.