higher voice when speaking Chinese

baifameizhong

October 31, 2008, 04:11 PM posted in General Discussion

My wife (who is Chinese) yesterday pointed out (again) that when I speak Chinese my voice usually is a little (or a lot) higher than when I speak English.

This is obviously not something I am that pleased to hear because she said it makes me sound cute (which is fine when I am with her, but it is obviously not what I want when I get in touch with Chinese for business purposes). I then tried to make my voice go lower but it didn't sound natural (not just me who thought so but her as well).

I am not quite sure what to do about it. First I guessed that I had that because I had mainly learnt from Chinese women (even the main Chinese Co-host on Chinesepod is a woman....don't get me wrong, I think Jenny is doing a great job) .

But then I started listening to a few other foreigners (men) who could speak Chinese more or less fluently and noticed that several of them also had that higher and more feminine voice (including occasionally John on the podcasts, although I didn't sound cute, but his voice did good up a bit).

I really am not sure what to do about this. Do any of you have any idea about how I can get a natural deeper voice when speaking Chinese? Is it the breathing maybe?

Would appreciate any sort of input.

David

xiaohu

October 31, 2008, 05:04 PM

David,

Don't worry, it happens to us all. It's a product of the four tones and the phonetic structure of Chinese. The more you speak Chinese the more you'll find the right sound within your vocal spectrum to sound natural, and in all probability that's going to be higher than your English speaking voice.

changye

November 01, 2008, 03:36 AM

Hi David,

As xiaohu said, "higher voice" is inevitable when you speak Chinese. Furthermore, you would probably find yourself speak louder in Chinese than in English.

There is an interesting hypothesis about the "high tone". It says that Chinese, especially northern dialects including Mandarin, gradually obtained its high-pitched sounds due to the influence of languages of northern ethnics such as Mongolian and Qitai, who conquered China (completely or partly) after the 10th century.

Northern ethnic groups, nomads/hunters who live in the grassland/woods, need to speak high (and loud?) so that they can hear each other clearly. For instance, you can still hear entering tones (入声) in some southern Chinese dialects, but they were dropped in northern dialects because they are acoustically disadvantageous for transmission of sound.

I don't know whether this hypothesis is academically plausible or not, but I think it's very attractive, at least. For the record, I hear that the pronunciation system of Korean language also got influenced by Mongorian in the 13th　～ 14th century, the era of Yuan dynasty (元朝), although the language still preserve entering tones, unlike Mandarin Chinese.

bababardwan

November 01, 2008, 03:54 AM

changye,

I love explanations like that ,that have an historical and practical basis.Makes sense anyway.Thanks.

bababardwan

November 01, 2008, 05:26 AM

David,

I found that when I was saying something in first tone and wasn't understood,my first tone would go even higher,much to the amusement of my family.But fortunately I'm not [and I hope you're not] as high as the guy in this video:

baifameizhong

November 01, 2008, 09:28 AM

changye,

that's a very interesting idea and it at least sounds plausible.

That my wife categorizes my voice (occasionally) as cute does, however, indicate that is a bit higher than that of Chinese men (not including the guy from the video....thanks for the link :).

I appear to have it more when I am using words and structures I have just learnt (ones that I can not yet use fluently yet). So it looks like I will be stuck with the golden rule of learning Chinese ...好好学习天天向上。

David

tvan

November 01, 2008, 01:36 PM

baifameizhong, the criticism I got when first learning Chinese, was that concentrated on tones so much that I sounded angry (in Chinese), especially with 4th tone. That went away with practice; now, I just have a lousy accent.