High Falling Tone in Cantonese

[Eugene Morrow]

I am currently learning Cantonese from two courses which are both on tape. I have a question about the high falling tone.
One course is from the US Foreign Service Institute (FSI) and was prepared in 1970. This course teaches SEVEN tones. This course has a textbook that uses the Yale Romanisation. The word for three ('saam') is high falling. I cannot reproduce Yale romanisation in this font, but hopefully you'll get the idea.
The second course is the Pimsleur course prepared in 1998. This course teaches only SIX tones. There is no textbook - it is sounds only.
The difference? The Pimsleur course (more modern) does NOT have a high falling tone. So the word for three ('saam') is high level in Pimsleur, rather than high falling in the FSI course.
Question to cantonese native speakers: is there a high falling tone anymore? Does it matter?
I am confused, because the word for think and the word for poem (syllable 'si') would sound the same under the Pimsleur system (both high level). However, under the FSI system the think would be high falling and poem would be high level.
I will be sad if the high falling has dissappeared. I think Cantonese is very elegant and musical, and losing a tone is losing some of the spirit.
Eugene Morrow

[lisa c]

I don't know either one of the courses, and I haven't formally studied Cantonese, but I think there still a high falling tone is one although it does kind of blend in. Think and poem do have have different tones although I think the tones are more obvious when used in a sentence.
Surfing the net I think some sites say there are 8 tones.

[Anonymous]

The High-falling tone is no longer distinguishable from the high-level tone in Hong Kong Cantonese, which the Pimsleur is probably based on. The FSI programme is really old, and perhaps the high-falling tone was still a feature of Hongkong Cantonese at that time. Present Hongkong Cantonese only has 6 tones which are distinguishable from one another. Whilst other dialects of Cantonese may have as many as 9 distinctly different tones, such as the Cantonese spoken in GuangXi province, and that of the Guangzhou province. But whereas these tones may be heard with a native ear, a foreign one might have trouble distinguishing these tones from the others. 'SI' to think and poem, a dialect which still retains its seven or more tones may distinguish it by tone, in Hongkong Cantonese the loss of the high-falling, and probably unpopularity of one usage of the word has meant that one tone has become dominant, the high-level.

[Kobo-Daishi]

Guang Zhou 廣州 is not a province. It is the capital city of the province of Guang Dong 廣東.
Kobo-Daishi, PLLA.

[Hubert]

Hi
I'm a native Cantonese speaker from Hong Kong.
The character "si" (思) has actually three tones:
1) high level: think, consider, etc.
2) high falling: (as in 思緒) thoughts and feelings; mood or line of thinking.
3) not pronounced as "si" but as "soi" (high level): having much beard
Till now, Cantonese still maintains 9 tones.
A little trick may help you remember them all:
The numbers: 3,9,4, 0,5,2, 7,8,6
exactly pronounce in all nine tones
3(high level)
9(high rising)
4(high falling)
0(low level)
5(low rising)
2(low falling)
7(high "closing" <-- I don't know how your text describes, it's 入 in Chinese)
8(medium "closing")
6(low "closing")
Hubert Lam

[Anonymous]

Whoops!
My bad... Sorry, my Geography ain't that hot (^_^) It's just that i was there (Gongjau - 廣州) om a recent family holiday, and noticed the contrast between HK Cantonese and the local variety. The way i spoke Cantonese made me stand out like a sore thumb.
(^_‾) Anonymous, 15.

[Anonymous]

Darn - the characters didn't come up in the post i posted before this one. Oh well, nevermind. I'm using an English version of Windows, and it doesn't handle characters well, at all!

[Kobo-Daishi]

Dear Anonymous,
You say you're using an "English version of Windows." And your previous posting has an e-mail address with the '.UK' suffix. I take it that you are in Britain.
Are you from Hong Kong originally?
You said that in Guangdong, your Cantonese stuck out like a sore thumb. Don't the people in Guangzhou watch a lot of satellite t.v. beamed from Hong Kong? So, shouldn't they be used to the way you speak, if you speak H.K. Cantonese?
Won't all that t.v. watching influence their way of speaking?
Kobo-Daishi, PLLA.

[Anonymous]

I actually posted my email address? Where? - I would never usually do such a thing.
Well, anyway I was born in HK, but barely reached two before my parents moved to GT. Britain. BTW, i'd like to make a correction, when i wrote about my spoken-tongue making me appear non-local i actually meant in Guangxi when i went to visit family in Ningming.
Whilst i was in GZ all the channels i ever saw were in Mandarin, and besides you over-estimate the power of media-influence; i'm sure it would take more than a couple of HK-accented television presenters to change the speech of an entire city - come on, what do you take these people for? That said, most of Britain's films and tv soaps are from America - i have yet to see people calling sweets 'candy', or calling mobile phones 'cell phones', a film a 'movie', writing analyse as 'analyze', or arse as 'ass' - okay, so you get the idea.
It's late, my eyes hurt... Please excuse any spelling mistakes (-_-)
Anon.

[Eugene Morrow]

Hello Hubert,
Thanks for your reply and the system of tones. Question: what is the tone for 1?. I assume this is the middle level (for example Sei for the number four).
Regards,
Eugene Morrow