basic pronunciation questions

[daydreamer]

I can think of to explain the Chinese r to an English speaker is:

it's between the English r (as in round) and the French j (as in Jaques).

Thanks, I think it's useful. I found lots of English speakers can speak a lot or a little French. I'm going to try it soon, and will tell you the result.

As to the shi/si-thing: don't people in your city differ between shi2 and si4 by tone? Even if they say si instead of shi for 10, there is still the difference between si2 (10) and si4 (4). This is hard to hear for a foreigner, but it does show how important tones are.

Yes They do. but the bigest problem is, recognizing between 2nd tone and 4th tone is one of the hardest part for him....

[leosmith]

The way I found r was to make the english 'er' sound, then push my tongue closer to the roof of my mouth. Don't actually let it touch the roof, and keep the air flowing above it. It takes some tongue adjustment and relaxation, but that seem to be it.

Here's another question - when a syllable has no initial, is it pronounced higher? The table I'm using

http://lost-theory.org/chinese/phonetics/

pronounces the 'a' higher than 'ba', for example.

[daydreamer]

I can think of to explain the Chinese r to an English speaker is:

it's between the English r (as in round) and the French j (as in Jaques).

Yes this is very useful:) I tried two English speakers, they all success!

[HashiriKata]

Here's another question - when a syllable has no initial, is it pronounced higher?

I don't think so. I think the samples you referred to happened to be recorded at different times when the reader happened to be in a different states of excitement

[owen]

zai can be described as "tzai" - because it's voiceless but unaspirated (compared to cai - tshai). Of course, both consonants should be pronounced together.

Wouldn't a better description be "dzai" as 'd' is voiceless and unaspirated whereas 't' is voiceless but aspirated?

[atitarev]

My Quote

zai can be described as "tzai" - because it's voiceless but unaspirated (compared to cai - tshai). Of course, both consonants should be pronounced together.

Your Quote:

Wouldn't a better description be "dzai" as 'd' is voiceless and unaspirated whereas 't' is voiceless but aspirated?

Owen, how do you render that the initial "z" is voiceless? For "cai" you can have "tsai", for "zai" - "tzai". Better still, leave pinyin as it is and explain what the sounds are like, which is the usual method. Describing one language sounds with the letters of another is always a problem.

[owen]

Describing one language sounds with the letters of another is always a problem.

I agree. But i still think "dzai" is a lot more intuitive and phonetically accurate due to the simple fact that when an english speaker sees a 't' at the beginning of a word they are going to aspirate.

What do you mean when you say the initial 'z' is voiceless? Certainly not to my ears and mouth.

[leosmith]

z [ts] unaspirated c (halfway between beds and bets), (more common example is suds)

(from wikipedia)

I don't think so. I think the samples you referred to happened to be recorded at different times when the reader happened to be in a different states of excitement

Heh heh, thanks HashiriKata. Maybe he sat on a feather?

[atitarev]

What do you mean when you say the initial 'z' is voiceless? Certainly not to my ears and mouth.

I was going to explain but this site will do it better than me:

Search for the string (under Consonants):

There are no voiced consonants in Chinese.

http://olimu.com/Notes/ChinesePronunciation.htm

Don't be affected by pinyin, Wade-Giles system reflects better the difference between Chinese consonants (also in the above site) in that respect. I prefer hanyu pinyin still.

[daydreamer]

I just found that when you pronouce "z", pronouce it as "dz" and at the meanwhile make your tongue touch the bottom teeth, that sound alright.

[Gulao]

There are no voiced consonants in Chinese.

Can't be that great of a site, for all they neglect "r."

[owen]

No voiced consonants in chinese? There are at least 2 ('l' and 'r') - 2 more if we consider the nasals ('n' and 'ng').

I suspect we might be quibbling over the details of morphological desciptors. Though it seems to me if one is explaining the sound of chinese for the purpose of teaching an english speaker they should use that persons linguistic framework to explain. In the final analysis all of these statements 'this is voiced/unvoiced/aspirated/fricative/nasal/etc.' are arbitrary. I just think i would get way further teaching someone to make an approximation of the chinese initial 'z' by using 'dz' than 'tz'.

[atitarev]

Agree about R, L, N and NG (adding M to the list) but they have no voiceless equialents and they are voiced by their nature. By all means, Owen. I can't provide you another interesting link but they were discussing how Chinese native speaker hears.

Let's compare Russian and Chinese phonology - I will use Russian since it is an opposite of Mandarin in this respect - there's no aspiration whatsoever in Russian but strong differentiation between voiced/voiceless. So if a Russian speaker says "папа" (like "papa" but with no aspiration at all) a Chinese untrained person hears "bàba", they ignore the voicelessness of "p" but they hear that it is unaspirated and register "b", not "p". English sounds have both voiced/voiceless and some aspiration, not as strong as Chinese, that's why Chinese speakers are often (not always able) to hear if it is a P or B but confusion exists on both sides. I could use a French/Italian speaker vs Mandarin in my example, since these languages have no aspiration either. So the initial P in Paris sounds almost exactly like B in Mandarin's 巴黎 Bālí, but the initial in B 波尔多 Bōěrduō (Bordeaux) can be confused by a French speaker for a "P" - by some English speakers as well, I think.

Of course, you can get away teaching the way you prefer but I just wanted to go into a bit more detailed discussion about differences in phonology.

[owen]

So a french person would say that 'baver' (to drool) and 'paver' (to pave) are pronounced identically? Same for any word that is the same save for the exchange of b and p?

I never would have guessed. That makes me think even less of the spelling system.

[atitarev]

I thought I expressed myself well, please reread my post. French B and P are not the same, I haven't said this, the first one is voiced, the second is voiceless but that doesn't make a lot of difference to a native Chinese speaker, since Chinese B and P are different in unaspirated/aspirated.

IPA doesn't use symbols B-P, D-T or G-K D when describing Mandarin (B, D and T non-existent) phonology but p-pʰ t-tʰ k-kʰ:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Mandarin#Phonology

[owen]

Sorry if i misunderstood what you were saying about french b and p. Perhaps its that canadian french is a little more aspirant than parisian french.

The whole idea of labeling consonants voiced or unvoiced doesn;t seem all that convincing a descriptor. It seems to me language is somehow resistant to being cut up and analyzed that atomically.

[atitarev]

No, in standard French they don't aspirate consonants, but:

/p/, /t/ and /k/ are never aspirated in French, unless one wants to indicate contempt.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_phonology

Neither does Spanish (at least standard), in case you are exposed to this language more:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_phonology

[Lorean]

Hey, several things. I think a good approach to teaching the pronounceation of 'z' is to first teach 'c'. 'c' is easier to teach because it occurs naturally in English, for example the word "it's". However, it will take time to be able to produce the 'c' sound without any preceding vowels. e.g. saying "it's" is easy, but saying it without the "i" is harder. Going from "c" to "z" isn't that hard once you understand that the only difference is aspiration. You can teach the concept of aspiration by having the student place a piece of paper infront of their mouth, pronounce "c", and notice the paper move forward. To make "z" they have to perform the exact same linguistic acrobatics except without making the paper move forward.

Another thing, while the French "p" and Mandarin "b" are both considered to be voiceless unaspirated bilabial stops they are infact recognizably different sounds. (I can verify this because French is my first language and Mandarin is my 3rd). Catford's "A Practical Introduction to Phonetics" categorizes them as distinct sounds accordingly.

Peace.