pronunciation of palatals

[doug86]

Reading through one of my resources, i am being told that j-q-x are all palatal constants... there is a little diagram showing how the tongue is to be placed to appropriately pronounce these three letters however i still do not understand the positioning of the tongue and there is no examples of what it should sound like... can anyone help me in this matter?

[Rrina]

first of all keep in mind i do not yet speak chinese; i have less than one year of study and probably others will have better advice or correct me if i'm wrong.

from what i understand, the tongue tip is positioned against the lower teeth when pronouncing those three consonants; against the upper teeth when pronouncing z, c, s; and against the roof of the mouth when making the sounds zh, ch, sh, or r...

i found the following link was very helpful-

http://www.sinosplice.com/lang/pronunciation/03/

forgive the lack of caps, my keyboard is on strike

[lokki]

I recommend that link too. Here is a little excerpt regarding the j, q and x sounds.

Because it is the tongue blade producing the sound and not the tongue tip, Mandarin's j, q, and x sounds are different from any sounds in the English language. This kind of sound has a special name: a "dorsal."

The linguistic terms "palatal" and "dorsal" may seem confusing to you, but in Chinese they are extremely simple and quite illuminating. The Chinese word for "dorsal" is "she mian yin." Translated literally, it means "tongue surface sound" -- a sound produced using the surface of the tongue, or tongue blade (not the tongue tip).

[doug86]

thats excellent, thanx so much that answered my question perfectly... now for more learning