User Comments - helenk

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helenk

Posted on: Please Speak Chinese
June 27, 2007 at 5:46 PM

AZERDocMom, You're right, I think it is a slight curling of the tongue- now I can hear why my Taiwanese friends have commented on how rounded and curly the mainlander pronunciations are. After I wrote my post I thought it's probably just that I only hear Taiwanese speakiing Mandarin, rather than mainland Chinese. Thanks for the confirmation! :)

Posted on: Please Speak Chinese
June 26, 2007 at 4:33 AM

A question about pronunciations: Sometimes the pronunciation in the audio files of certain sounds is unfamiliar and I often wonder if this is because the speaker has a regional accent? What I hear sometimes sounds as if the speaker is not rounding out or finishing a sound, but leaving it more open. So the pronounciation of Nǐhǎo for example by the speaker in this lesson's Fix mp3 file sounds more like “nee-hah” rather than “nee-how” (excuse the awkward transliterations). Also in this lesson, the pronunciation of Yīngwén was a bit strange. In the vocab and dialogue, the speaker pronounces the Yīng like “yung” but I’ve only heard it pronounced more like “yeeng” and when I checked the pronunciation guide (section 8), it sounds more like the way I’ve heard it. There are a couple more instances in this Lesson, but I’ve noticed these discrepancies in pronunciation in several other lessons (I’m only working on newbie and elementary) and kept thinking maybe this is just what happens when words get actually spoken and sounds run into each other or it's an accent issue since this hasn't come up when I've been trying to learn Mandarin with Taiwanese friends. Or maybe my sense of pronunciation is REALLY OFF or my hearing needs to get checked since nobody else seems to be having this reaction or problem with pronunciations??? Thanks for any help.

Posted on: Giving an Example
June 2, 2007 at 12:26 AM

A small question regarding a sentence given in the expansion: For the sentence: "I haven't given an example" (我没举例子)--- why doesn't the verb 举 follow with a particle here? as in 举个? I thought in the audio, Jenny said something about the verb 举 collocating with 例子 and calling for a particle??? thanks!