Cantonese Pronunciation Tool - Jyutping Translator

How to use this Cantonese jyutping translator

Introduction

This online Cantonese pronunciation tool can convert text into several different formats:

1. Jyutping
2. Yale romanization of Cantonese
3. International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)

The jyutping converter understands both simplified and traditional characters.

To create this phonetic converter we used Chinese dictionary CC-CEDICT, Cantonese dictionary CC-Canto and information from Wikipedia.

If you need to copy the phonetic transcription into another program or print it, please read our FAQ.

Watch a tutorial "How to convert text to phonetic transcription and listen to audio recordings of words"

Premium features: high-quality computer-generated audio and automatic translation

The subscription Premium gives you access to some additional features in this phonetic translator:

1. You will be able to generate the audio of your text using a selection of high-quality text-to-speech voices.
2. You will be able to obtain an automatic translation of your text into your native language.

Please read our FAQ to learn more about premium features.

Built-in Cantonese dictionary

This phonetic translator has a built-in Cantonese-English dictionary. It contains more than 100,000 words.

Before you can activate it, make sure this page is displayed in English. If necessary, set the page language to "English" in the top left corner.

Here's what you need to do to activate the dictionary:

1. For the setting Transcription display options select the option transcription above each word.
2. In the section Choose what you will see when you click the word turn on the option word's meaning.
3. After submitting your text, click on any word in the results to see its definition.

Create your own custom word lists

You can create your own custom word lists using this phonetic translator. Here's how you can do it:

1. For the setting Transcription display options select the option transcription above each word.
2. In the section Choose what you will see when you click the word turn on the option " to word list".
3. After submitting your text, click on the word you want to add to the word list and then click the button " to word list".
4. You will be prompted to select the transcription and enter the meaning/translation of the word (the latter for most languages is optional).
5. Once you finished adding words to your word list, click on My Account at the top of the page and then on My word lists. You will see the list of all your word lists.

There are so many things you can do with your word list:

1. export it into a file (Word, Excel, plain text),
2. print it from your browser,
3. share it with other people (for example, your students),
4. practice pronunciation of every word using the audio recordings of real people (if available) or high-quality text-to-speech voices.

Watch a tutorial "How to create custom word lists"

Chinese characters worksheet generator

This tool also allows you to create your own worksheet to practice writing Chinese characters. In order to do that, you will need to submit some Chinese text. Then you may choose your worksheet settings:

• How many times each character will be displayed
• Regular (kaishu) or running (xingshu) script
• Font size
• Grid style

Learning Cantonese as second language: phonetic transcription can help you improve your Cantonese pronunciation

Cantonese pronunciation can appear quite complicated for people starting to learn Cantonese. Consider the fact that Cantonese has 9 tones. If you don't learn how to inflect your voice in 9 different ways, native speakers will not understand what you are saying!

One of the most popular system to transcribe Cantonese is jyutping. It is good, however there are better alternatives that will help you with your Cantonese pronunciation.

If you want to progress quickly we highly recommend you use International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) to help you learn how to pronounce Cantonese words correctly.

This tool will serve you as an Cantonese pronunciation guide and will help you save time. You will no longer need to look up the pronunciation of words in a dictionary.

If you use the phonetic transcription regularly in combination with Cantonese audio and video recordings, your pronunciation and listening skills in the Cantonese language will improve.