Common Phonetic Spelling

The Common Phonetic Spelling is the phonetic spelling system devised in 2012 by the British-based Chinese lexicographer Ian Low in his Chinese to English dictionaries.

The purpose of this system was to simplify and clarify understanding of Mandarin and Cantonese pronunciations. This was achieved by ironing out inconsistencies in the current spelling systems in both dialects where the same letters are used to represent different sounds. For example, the letter 'e' in Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin spelling is pronounced differently in he2和(IPA ɔ sound) and xie4謝(IPA ɛ sound). Similarly the letter 'e' in Cantonese Yale Romanization is pronounced differently as in je6謝(IPA ɔ sound) and jeung1章(IPA i sound). The Roman letters in Common Phonetic Spelling are transcribed directly from bopomofo so that there is no variation in the sound of each letter (except for the letter 'i' which is used both for the 'i' vowel and 'y' consonant sounds). Hence, the 26 letters of the alphabet represent the approximate same sound in both Mandarin and Cantonese. Additionally, the same tone numbers (1 to 5 for Mandarin, and 1 to 9 for Cantonese) are used to represent the approximate same pitch modulations in both dialects.

Consonant and Vowel Letters

The 26 letters transcribed directly from bopomofo are shown in following table.

The 12 bopomofo sounds not represented in the above list, together with their Common Phonetic spelling are provided in the table below.

Tone Numbers

The nine Cantonese tones are made up of the four musical notes numbered 2, 4, 5, 6 (re, fa, so, la) in the musical scale. If one takes note 2 (re) as the tonic, then notes 4 (fa), 5 (s) and 6 (la) are respectively the minor third, perfect fourth and perfect fifth of 2 (re). From the above 4 notes, one obtains the 9 Cantonese tones through the pitch modulations detailed in the table below. The first five Cantonese tones approximate to the five tones of Mandarin. It should be noted that the tones 1 to 9 in Common Phonetic Spelling correspond to the tones 7, 2, 4, 1, 8, 9, 5, 3, and 6 in traditional Cantonese numbering.