How to pronounce my name?

As I mentioned earlier, my name is Joshua Yàthín Y̖u. Joshua, originated from the Holy Bible, should not be any problem for English speakers. What about Yàthín Y̖u? As I have introduced, I am a Chinese so I have a Chinese name. I was born in Hong Kong and live here so I speak Cantonese, so do my name. And people put the family name at the front for Chinese names while at the same time, one Chinese word produces one syllable. So my name would be Y̖u Yàt Hín. But for some reasons, in official administrations, my name is always simplified by removing the tone, which was represented with diacritics in the previous notation. However, Yu Yat Hin is just a representation of my Chinese name, not a new name given to me based on my Chinese name. Therefore I would really prefer to pronounce it in the original tone. Although it may sound problematic to English speakers, I really appreciate it.

Let's look at the "tones" of Cantonese. There are totally 9 tones in Cantonese. Different tones give different meanings, even for the same sets of vowels and consonants. The 9 tones are respectively: Upper Level, Upper Rising, Upper Departing, Lower Level, Lower Rising, Lower Departing, Upper Entering #1, Upper Entering #2 and Lower Entering. Take "si" as an example, it produces nine completely different and unrelated words: 詩 (poem), 史 (history), 試 (trial), 時 (time), 市 (market), 是 (affirmation), 識 (knowing), 錫 (tin), 食 (eating). The tone can be represented in many different ways. For instance, si1, si˥, si˥˧, sí, sî, sī, sì all means the same thing, only that they were introduced in different context.

The nine tones are actually not that complicated than it sounds. They can be divided into 3 groups. The first 3 in the first group, the 4th, 5th and 6th in the second group and the last 3 in the last group. Now, for English speakers, please check out how these 3 diacritics are pronounced: sí, sǐ, sī, by reading foreign names or resources in the Eastern Europe. These 3 diacritics represents the first 3 tones. The second group of tones are actually lower versions of the first group. They pronounce exactly the same but an octave lower. Yes, just like in music, you say the words in the first group with an A above middle C, then you will say the words in the second group with an A below middle C. Easy, isn't it? The 7th tone is actually done by adding an ending consonant k to the 1st tone. For example, the 7th tone of si, represented as "sík", is exactly the same to the word "sick", without actually producing the k sound. And the 8th and 9th tones are just lower versions of the 7th tone. 8th tone would be "semi-lower" and 9th would be around an octave lower just like in the second group. Use your imagination!

There is disappointingly no standardized way. My representation makes use of tone diacritics. In which the nine tones are represented: sí, sǐ, sī, si̖, si̗, sì, sík, sīk, sìk. In my name, Y̖u is of the 4th tone; Yàt is of the 6th tone and Hín is of the 1st tone. Putting them all together, we still have one more problem to solve. It is that the diacritic is added beneath the y instead of the u in Y̖u. It is because that the vowel is actually "y" instead of "u". Y represents the close front rounded vowel. This vowel is used in many languages other than English. But the Scottish way of pronouncing the word "food", is literally "fyd", making use of this vowel. If you have a Scottish friend, please go ask him. The "u" in the word Y̖u is actually completely meaningless but to make it look better. Maybe the people in the government think the Y looks lonely, or a single Y may mislead people to pronounce it as "Wai".

So, after a long story of phonetics, you can now properly pronounce my name. If you have interests in Cantonese phonography, please check out the Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantonese_phonology.