The following sentence illustrates the differences in pronunciation of different tones and vowel lengths in what to a speaker of non-tonal language would seem to be just one syllable - GWAI. The transcription is in the Yale system and a recording by a native speaker of Cantonese is also provided. The character 嘅is a special one used for the Cantonese syllable ge, (a possessive suffix) used in colloquial Cantonese in place of the standard Chinese 的 ( pronounced `de' in Putonghua and `dik' using the Cantonese reading pronunciation). 喺 is similarly the Cantonese preposition haí (in, at).
Wùih gwài jihauh yáuh yàt go hóu kèih gwaai ge gwáilóu gwo louhgwái, jèung yàt jek hóu gwàai ge gwài báai hái yàt go hóu gwai ge gwaihtúng léuihmihn.
Literal translation: After return [sc. of Hong Kong to China] there is one very peculiar gweilo crosses the track, takes a very well-behaved tortoise, places it inside one very expensive drawer.