<p>Depends. if you have all tones incorrect, then it's hard to guess what you are saying, but if you have only 1 or 2 incorrect, generally people can understand you. For example, if I say, I duck your mom. You probably get the meaning. but if I say, I duck your nun. you will be confused. </p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-08-05T06:53:24.627Z
2016-08-05T06:53:24.627Z
Atmega 328
<p>Since every phoneme has many different tones, the possible permutations get very large very quickly. Each phoneme can have up to 7 possible meanings based on the tone. If you speak a sentence of 5 phonemes for example where each phoneme has 7 possible meanings the number of possible sentences is about 16,000.</p>

<p>Of course the context helps to narrow down the possibilities, so if you are in a restaurant ordering from a menu then a smart enough waiter might be able to figure it out, but in general proper use of tones is essential.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-08-14T02:54:14.153Z
2016-08-14T02:54:14.153Z
D Halliday
<p>Do Cantonese speakers still understand speech when all syllables are spoken in a neutral tone (similar to the Mandarin's 5th tone)? And to what extent do they understand it?</p>

<p>I spoke to a Cantonese waiter and I was particularly tired at that time so I was unable to articulate my tones and they seem to not understand anything at all.</p>

<p>I heard somewhere that if you forget the tone it's safer to use a neutral tone to avoid saying bad words and the like.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-08-05T09:39:05.837Z
i think that the answer is no. one could not "grep" the correct character from syllables without tones.
水巷孑蠻
<cantonese><topolect>
Comprehension of untoned speech in Cantonese
# Comprehension of untoned speech in Cantonese

(Asked by: username_0 on 2016-08-05)

Do Cantonese speakers still understand speech when all syllables are spoken in a neutral tone (similar to the Mandarin's 5th tone)? And to what extent do they understand it?

I spoke to a Cantonese waiter and I was particularly tired at that time so I was unable to articulate my tones and they seem to not understand anything at all.

I heard somewhere that if you forget the tone it's safer to use a neutral tone to avoid saying bad words and the like.

**Tags:** cantonese, topolect

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: i think that the answer is no. one could not "grep" the correct character from syllables without tones.  

---

## 2 answers

### Answer by username_2 on 2016-08-05. Score: 1

Depends. if you have all tones incorrect, then it's hard to guess what you are saying, but if you have only 1 or 2 incorrect, generally people can understand you. For example, if I say, I duck your mom. You probably get the meaning. but if I say, I duck your nun. you will be confused.


---

### Answer by username_3 on 2016-08-14. Score: 0

Since every phoneme has many different tones, the possible permutations get very large very quickly. Each phoneme can have up to 7 possible meanings based on the tone. If you speak a sentence of 5 phonemes for example where each phoneme has 7 possible meanings the number of possible sentences is about 16,000.

Of course the context helps to narrow down the possibilities, so if you are in a restaurant ordering from a menu then a smart enough waiter might be able to figure it out, but in general proper use of tones is essential.


---

