Pronunciation...the hardest aspect of Chinese?
xiaohu
January 22, 2008, 09:32 AM posted in General DiscussionI was wondering what other Chinesepod users felt was the hardest aspect of learning Chinese, is it Grammer, Characters, Particles, Pronunciation?
Also I was wondering if any Chinesepod users have any tips for accent reduction?
I wanted to relate a story of my own experience and some thoughts about the issue of pronunciation that I thought could be of some help to other Poddies, and would also welcome stories about other's experiences learning the Chinese language.
Also I was wondering if anyone else thinks written pronunciation guides are useful, or do you think sticking with pure, listening and repeating is the way to go?
So without further ado...
(Don't worry, the story is mainly in English! LOL!!!)
To get Chinese pronunciation really authentic it's not that easy, but just remember, if you really want your pronunciation to be perfect, then it's a combination of careful study of the pronunciation guides (I think the ones here on Chinesepod are really good) and careful listening.
If you really listen and repeat and compare your pronunciation with the native speakers, then you'll know what you're doing wrong and the pronunciation guides give you the tools to fix it quickly.
I'll give you an example from my own experience, the three sounds, "ji, qi, xi" I always had trouble with. From the beginning I knew there was something wrong with them but didn't have any idea how to fix it. Most pronunciation guides (as well as my private tutor) only concentrated on the sounds, "Zhi, Chi, Shi and Ri", since if we pronounce our "Ji, Qi & Xi" with an American accent, then no misunderstanding will arise, and besides I was always told my pronunciation was really good and that I had a special gift for pronunciation. Not just by my teacher but by all the Chinese People I came accross with...so you'll see sometimes scrutiny and fair, constructive criticism can help you immesurable more than emply compliments!
I would listen to native Chinese speakers and the speakers on my Pimsleur CD's, and would hear things like, "在一起" (zai yi qi) and when I would make the "Qi" sound, it just never quite sounded right.
I'd say some of the most basic words, like “谢谢" and "小姐" (xie xie and xiao jie) and absolutely cringe at the sound of my own voice because I KNEW EMPHATICALLY there was something I was doing wrong...but I couldn't figure it out! Even my $50 dollar an hour private tutor said there was nothing wrong with the way my "Ji, Qi, Xi" sounded! But that's only because when I would say the sounds all alone I couldn't really clearly hear what I was doing wrong.
When you say the words in a sentence, then you can plainly hear the American accent come accross. But I'll get into that more in a minute.
Then just about a year ago I went on John Pasden's (Chinesepod's John Pasden) website sinosplice.com and discovered his pronunciation guide for correcting the common mispronunciation of "Ji, Qi and Xi" and I knew I'd found the answer I was looking for! Keep in mind this is after FOUR YEARS of study of this language...and I STILL couldn't get a handle on what I was doing wrong by listening alone!
As it turns out, these sounds are completely foriegn to English speakers but they are much harder to correct than the Ü with the 2 dots (umlaut) because you can't SEE what you need to do to pronounce it correctly! As in the case of the Ü with the Umlaut, you can see the lips rounded in a tight hole and the dimples forming in the cheek so saying words like 绿茶，and 身略 (LÜ Cha and Sheng LÜe) are pretty easy to figure out because it's VISUAL, but with the "Ji, Qi, Xi" it's INTERNAL! It's a sound produced from completely inside the mouth.
The "Ji, Qi and Xi" sounds are actually made by pressing the tip of your tongue on the bottom of your lower teeth, with the center of the tongue touching the Alveolar Ridge. The way we make the sounds in English is with the tip of the tongue turned up, touching the Alveolar Ridge, thus giving the American sound to it.
That's why the Chinese describe it as being a "flat tongue" sound, and that's why you hear a sort of soft hissing sound with this group of sounds, as the air travels downward on a slope accross the surface of your tongue and out of your mouth.
So to really hear the difference between the sounds, reverse everything. Replace your English "she" with the properly pronouned Chinese sound "Xi", say, "Xi said xi wants to take a xiao-er (shower) in a xi-ny (shiny) new xiao-er (shower)" and the difference between the individual sounds really comes accross! I thin much more so than when pronouncing our butchered "Gee, Chee, She" sounds in Chinese, and I feel this can help really help bring it all together! It helps you to realize how important these little details of pronunciation are.
But I digress, anyway needless to say I was ELATED! I finally had the answer to the question that had been plaguing me for all those years!
Correcting these sounds didn't happen overnight, I had to constantly concentrate on proper tongue placement, as well as having to learn how to move the tongue smoothly through quick combinations between, the flat tongue and rolled tongue sounds, words like 洗手间 (xi shou jian...bathroom) were especially difficult because it's a quick transition between Flat Tongue, (to) Rolled Tongue, (and back to) Flat Tongue...but after a months of constant work I finally got it.
So...that being said my Chinese speaking abilities gained newfound confidence! I know it sounds corny but it's true, and actually, finally getting that group of sounds correct led me to totally re-examine my pronunciation and by being honest with myself I found there were plently of other sounds I wasn't pronouncing correctly either! Since then I've gone on to fix pretty much all the pronunciation problems and I honestly feel my pronunciation is really really close to sounding totally Chinese!
To tell you the truth, when you want to blend in perfectly with a society, the more like them you SOUND...the more like them you LOOK!
One time I was out with a group of my Chinese friends and we went to a place where it was necessary for me to speak English, so I was busy conversing with the Clerk in English and when I came back to my group they said that, when watching me speak English one of them remarked, "哇， 小虎的英文很厉害啊" (Wow, Xiao Hu's English is really great!), the others started busting up and said,
"小虎就是美国人并不是中国人，当然他的英文很好呗！" (Xiao Hu is American, not Chinese...of course his English is great!)
The other told me, "我已经这么习惯跟你说中国话好像我完全忘记你是美国人！" (Apparently I'm so used to speaking Chinese with you that I totally forgot you are American!)
It sounds kind of dorky to say I owe so much improvement to John Pasden, but I do!
So, the point of my long winded story is just that if you want to correct your pronunciation, first consult the written guides to give you the clues on how you are supposed to place your tongue, lips, etc., and what you are supposed to do with the passage of air out of your mouth, once armed with that knowledge, then go back to the Pinyin sound chart and listen to each sound individually. Having previously studied the pronunciation guide you will know basically what to do to replicate those sounds, after which you, MIMIC, MIMIC, MIMIC! Mimic the sounds individially at first, then start combining them into words, and finally sentences, and before you know it, you yourself will actually become widely regarded by the Chinese People as a true 中国通！
sebire
January 22, 2008, 09:47 PMI think the interesting thing with pronunciation is not just tongue position etc. but to me it seems like Mandarin sounds resonate in different parts of the body. I think it sounds a lot more "head voice" than "chest voice" (to use a singing analogy). If you listen to Jenny/Connie etc speak, its sounds (to me at least, maybe you all think differently) a lot more in the nasal/front of mouth region, whereas in English, I think I form the sounds further back in my throat. As for the most difficult aspect, for me it is actually remembering vocabulary. I have no discipline.
lunetta
January 22, 2008, 11:44 AMI'm having a another problem with my pronunciation and I was wondering if anyone else has experienced this. My Chinese friend told me I pronounce dian as jian and tian as qian and by recording myself I've noticed I've the same problem with diao/jiao and tiao/qiao.
goulnik
January 22, 2008, 11:48 AMthe point of my long winded story is just that if you want to correct your pronunciation, first consult the written guides to give you the clues on how you are supposed to place your tongue, lips, etc., and what you are supposed to do with the passage of air out of your mouth, once armed with that knowledge, then go back to the Pinyin sound chart and listen to each sound individually. Having previously studied the pronunciation guide you will know basically what to do to replicate those sounds, after which you, MIMIC, MIMIC, MIMIC! Mimic the sounds individially at first, then start combining them into words, and finally sentences...I have to admit I didn't read the long winded story, just the conclusion. I completely disagree with the theorical part (read and study), but I entirely agree with the practical part, i.e. mimic mimic. All I would say is close your eyes and repeat, repeat, repeat. That incidentally applies to any language, not just Chinese. Why I disagree about the first part is because you don't learn do ride a bicycle, roller skate or otherwise by reading textbooks on the physics.
fudawei
January 22, 2008, 12:14 PMThe hardest aspect of Chinese has not been listed yet. The hardest aspect is the glut of homophones compounded by the addition of near-homophones (ie: same sound/different tone). This is exacerbated by the fact that Mandarin is a rapid-fire staccato language largely composed of single syllables. You don't have a whole lotta time to think. More often than not, I find myself listening to a streak of Mandarin and saying to myself: "Okay ... I'm pretty sure I hear a 'bu' and maybe a 'wo' in there." And by the time I've said that to myself, the speaker is 6 sentences further into their utterance.
marcelbdt
January 22, 2008, 12:26 PMgoulniky> Actually, I think that xiaohu argued his conclusion quite well in the story. And as for how to learn to ride a bicycle.. I remember that my daughter had a terrible time doing this by repeating, repeating and repeating. She believed that when things got difficult on the bike, it was safest to slow down. She repeated and repeated this, but consistently failed, until she finally accepted the theoretical point we kept telling her: It is actually easier to keep your balance if you are going fast then if you are going slow. Sometimes a moderate amount of theory is helpful.
goulnik
January 22, 2008, 01:02 PMmarcelbdt, yeah, 'talk/walk faster/slower', 'breathe normally, look up' 等等 is useful advice. The friction on the bearings on the other hand, or applying a force of intensity x at y degrees on z axis...? Limited used in situ.
fordbronco
January 22, 2008, 01:02 PMThanks for the story Xiaohu. Goulniky... I agree with the mimicry, but not so much the statement about physics. I believe theory and advice from others can definitely shorten the time needed to find the correct tongue position, and help with other aspects of pronunciation. Otherwise, it's purely trial and error, with an ear that is already specifically trained for your own native language. But I'm not saying it can't be done. Also, I find reading books on the physics of sports greatly helps me, and brings my game to the next level. Any reason why this comment window I'm typing in is so small?
fordbronco
January 22, 2008, 01:05 PMActually there wasn't anything nearly that technical in the original post.
henning
January 22, 2008, 03:13 PMXiaohu, very interesting post. For me the soft spots are others then the above mentioned, though. "i, qi, xi" are moderately OK and the ü poses no problem at all to a German speaker. I have become convinced, hovever, that there is an international agreement to mark the "most freaky idiomatic sound" of a language with a uniform letter: "r". In all languages I encountered it, it is problematic. And in Mandarin it is almost worst case. Also the "i" and "e" can be really tricky - also hard to distinghuish in some cases ("chi" vs. "che"). Nevertheless, taking into account my confined "talent", I am not aiming at "perfection". Never reached it in English - although the "mimic, mimic" approach lowers the degree of awkwardness in the accent when staying in a pure English speaking environment after several weeks (it becomes worst in a mixed English-Chinese-German situation). For me there will never be a "fully-there" moment. I just have absolutely no talent at mimicking sounds, my tongue is like a brick. I cannot even adquately imitate the local Cologne accent, although I have been surrounded by it since almost 36 years. My wife never lost her Chinese accent entirely, although she speaks a very good German. When my Chinese is as understandable as her German is right now, I consider me at the goal.
RJ
January 22, 2008, 11:06 AMI have to agree that pronounciation is the hardest part and I too have read John Pasdens material with great interest. I was delighted to find such an explanation. I recommend this highly and if anyone has not read it yet, they certainly should. Another problem I have is that I cant even "hear" some of the sounds made in Chinese without practise let alone re-create them. Learning to make the sounds correctly helps you hear them as well and I think this is what wei1xiao4 is getting at in her comment. Sure it helps. At least I believe it does.
RJ
January 22, 2008, 03:24 PMfudawei - I believe you have summed it up perfectly. Piece of cake.
frank
January 22, 2008, 03:27 PMFuDaWei, you've hit upon my problem exactly. My listening comprehension is atrocious. I keep watching Chinese movies and doing this thing where I hear the sentence, and I don't immediately understand it, but when I see the translation on the screen, I can immediately translate the English *back* into Chinese and then match it to the sounds I just heard. Then I get it. Does that make any sense?
furyougaijin
January 22, 2008, 03:46 PMI'm sure John's guidelines on pronunciation are great help... but I definitely recall seeing the diagrams with tongue positions for these sounds in the first few chapters of some very basic textbook, like New Chinese Reader or something similar... :-) On mimicking: surely, some people are consciously or sub-consciously able to readjust their tongue and lips position to reproduce what they hear with a high degree of accuracy. However, not everyone is able to do it. The bicycle comparison doesn't work here: we can easily observe how other people operate the bicycle in great detail. We don't have the same ability to observe the inside of other people's mouths to see how they make these sounds. That's why I do believe these charts and explanations actually are very helpful - they are shortcuts to be used instead of just searching for these sounds in your mouth by trial and error. I'm not a native speaker of English and hence not so prone to be misguided by pinyin and yet, personally, I was very happy to see the charts (in the New Chinese Reader) when I first approached those sounds. Try giving a bicycle to someone who's never seen one in use before: they might have a hardest time figuring out how that thing actually operates...
fudawei
January 22, 2008, 04:53 PMYeah, Frank ... that's why I like Russian. Lots of 32-syllable words, plenty of time to think -- heck, you can almost make a sandwich and check your email by the time they finish. Chinese don't play that.
pipsy
January 22, 2008, 05:23 PMThe next time I meet someone who speaks a foreign language to me I will ask them to repeat what they just said only say it faster as I did not get it the first time. Somehow I do not think this will work!
calkins
January 22, 2008, 07:33 PMfudawei, your analogy is so perfect. I've had the same experience more times than I'd like to admit! xiaohu, thanks for taking the time to share this story.
fudawei
January 22, 2008, 09:15 PMI realize that all languages *seem* fast when you first study them, but Mandarin really is fast by any objective standard. Heck, I got an audio-book of "War & Peace" in Mandarin. -- It's 14 minutes long. ;) Thank you ... I'll be here all week. Try the dànjiǎo and don't forget to tip your fúwùyuán.
frank
January 22, 2008, 09:28 PMROFL Brilliant, FuDaWei! (And hey! They took your capitals, too! 小偷!!!)
RJ
January 22, 2008, 03:20 PMYes, Mimic is the key but some guidance on tongue position gave me options to create those sounds that were not natural for me and I maybe would never have hit on. I agree it is impossible to go around picturing tounge position as you speak. It has to come natural but the example with the bike re go faster instead of slower is a good analogy. The knowledge can help.
wei1xiao4
January 22, 2008, 10:41 AMWow, I do hear the difference! My pronunciation is atrocious. Maybe this is one piece of the puzzle I can work on. A few weeks ago I posted a comment that I was having difficulty with my listening comprehension, and someone posted (forgive me that I can't remember who but thanks for your comment) that part of the problem could be due to my poor pronunciation. Which makes me think that if I improve one, the other will follow. I'm hearing the words and speaking the words in a sort of "Chinglish", so when they are said in real life, I don't recognize them. Can anyone shed some more light on this phenomenon for me? Does improving one's pronunciation aid their listening comprehension?