Hongkonger’s font annotates Cantonese pronunciations, sets tone for non-native learners
Jon Chui’s tool, Visual Fonts, accurately changes the Jyutping depending on context and can be used on a range of devices.
Visual Fonts can use the neighbouring characters to automatically select the right pronunciation. Photo: Visual FontsEvery week, Talking Points gives you a worksheet to practise your reading comprehension with exercises about the story we’ve written.
Hongkonger Jon Chui had a bold vision in 2007 – to create the first set of Cantonese fonts with built-in romanised pronunciations, making his mother tongue more accessible to the world.
Released last month, Visual Fonts uses Jyutping – a Cantonese romanisation system that has letters and numbers representing sounds and tones – to annotate Chinese characters on the screen of a computer, phone or other device.
One of its most striking features addresses a major challenge with learning Cantonese: the pronunciations change depending on the context.
Visual Fonts can correct the Jyutping in real time with remarkable precision. According to its creator, the technology matches the pronunciation to the character with an accuracy rate of more than 99.5 per cent.
“It’s exhaustive. One character can have multiple pronunciations, some even polysyllabic,” said Chui, 45.
The Hongkonger started this ambitious project because he wanted to address the lack of comprehensive, high-quality resources for non-native learners of Cantonese. Since 2017, he has been working full-time to bring his vision to life.
“I believe we need to modernise Cantonese pedagogy. Hong Kong remains a cosmopolitan city, and making the language accessible to non-native Chinese [speakers] is important,” Chui said, adding that his tool could also be useful for families who have left the city.
“With our recent diaspora: some parents want to pass on some cultural identity but find it hard to do so, and some children, in time, wish to find where they came from.”
Cantonese podcast helps immigrant kids from Hong Kong tune into their roots
‘It’s a complete miracle’
Cantonese’s reputation as a difficult and “dying” language scares off many learners. Unlike Mandarin with its standardised script, Cantonese’s written form is often misaligned with how it is spoken.
Spoken Cantonese is challenging to learn as a second language because of its many tones, use of slang, fast pace and cultural nuances.
The language uses six to nine tones, and the meaning of a word can change completely based on the intonation. Thus, Jyutping’s precise markings are a lifeline for non-native learners.
Now, Chui’s innovative Cantonese annotation provides the guidance that students need to read anything on their screen – even video subtitles – with no internet connection required.
In daily life, native speakers use about 3,000 characters, but Visual Fonts has 29,138 – covering everything that can be pronounced in Cantonese.
“[My font] really shouldn’t have worked. It’s a complete miracle made possible by the support of many people,” he said.
Chui’s meticulous font system integrates colours to guide a reader’s emphasis and pronunciation, as well as tone markings that make the characters easier to read. He also offers a suite of tools, including English translations, collections of common idioms and puns, grammar lessons and other teaching aids.
A tool for future generations
Chui sees the potential of his project to reform the way Cantonese is taught.
According to Chui, many Hongkongers overlook the importance of Jyutping because they naturally acquire the tones and pronunciation through daily interaction with other Cantonese speakers.
However, for those learning Cantonese as a second language – which often includes heritage speakers as well as the city’s local school students from ethnic minority communities – effective learning methods are scarce.
“Many Hongkongers argue that Jyutping is unnecessary,” he said, adding that many teachers believe people do not need to learn how to read colloquial Cantonese, which is seen as “inferior”.
“This ... highlights a lack of awareness or empathy toward the challenges faced by Cantonese learners.”
Deep Dive: How the language barrier hurts Hong Kong’s ethnic minority communities
However, Chui emphasised that the tool could also be useful for native learners since it could help students navigate the challenging vocabulary in classical Chinese texts.
Still, Chui’s fonts find their strongest foothold among adult learners, many of whom are heritage speakers in the West yearning to reconnect with their roots.
The creator noted that many children who have emigrated with their families from Hong Kong would lose interest in Cantonese at first as they try to assimilate to a new culture – but they might want to come back to it one day.
“Some parents may try to force their kids to learn Cantonese, but if no one speaks it with them in daily life, it won’t stick,” he said.
“In five or 10 years, as they grow up, some will start asking, ‘What is my story?’ If we don’t have the resources ready for them at that moment, their quest for identity will lead nowhere.”
To test your understanding of this story, download our printable worksheet or answer the questions in the quiz below.