Pronouncing 'C' and 'Z'

[geoffkhan]

Okay, so what's the difference between a "c" sound and a "z" sound? Do you put your tongue in a different place?

I've asked a lot of native speakers this question and even they are not certain.

Could you please help me out?

[林彪]

"C" in Pinyin sounds like "Ts" in English. So "Cao" in pinyin sounds like "Tsao". "Z" in pinyin sounds like a "Dz" in English. So "Zao" in pinyin sounds like "Dzao" in English.

The difference is that "z" is the voiced version of "c".

[ala]

c is aspirated /tsh/

z is unaspirated /ts/

The difference is never ambiguous in Mandarin.

A good estimate of the sounds is this

c = she cheats

z = Feds, except try not to voice the consonant. It's pretty similar to German z, as in Zeiss.

[geoffkhan]

Pretty minimal difference in my opinion. Oh well, I'll just have to get used to it. Thank you for the help!

What does "aspirated" and "unaspirated" mean?

[bjgodefr]

aspirated = you exhale (strongly)a puff of air after the aspirated consonant

unaspirated = you don't

I remember it like this: if a consonant has to be aspirated, I imagine that there is an 'h' after it (but i'm dutch speaking, not sure if h has the same function in english)

(p, t & k are aspirated consonants in english, e.g. park)

[Quest]

Pretty minimal difference in my opinion.

not really. for example, if you say ci4ji3, zu1lu3, and cu3mu3, no one would understand that you mean 自己, 粗鲁, 祖母.

The two sounds are very well distinguished by the native ear.

[ala]

(p, t & k are aspirated consonants in english, e.g. park)

Except when followed by s or sometimes as a double consonant (or c). In those cases, English p, t, and k are not aspirated.

Examples:

sky

spy

mustache

shopping

fricking

[geoffkhan]

Wow, thanks. That "aspirated" and "unaspirated" thing really helps me.

I guess it just takes practice now to distinguish them. Lots of practice.

[Altair]

One way to get at this is to put your fingers right in front of your mouth (or the flame of a candle) and pronounce these pairs of words:

tart vs. start

pie vs. spy

key vs. ski.

Try also "a purr" vs. "upper" or the first "pa" in "papa" with the second "pa".

The first in each pair is aspirated and the second is not. You will feel a puff of air on the first member of each pair, but not much on the second. If you use a flame, you will see it move with aspiration, but not really without. You do, of course, have to exclude the effect of the vowel that follows the consonant.

By the way, Chinese aspiration is stronger than what is used in English, but unaspirated consonants are pronounced similarly.

If you speak a Romance language with a truly excellent accent, you can also try to contrast how a sequence like "pa" is pronounced in that language and how it is pronounced in English. The difference will be in the aspiration or lack of it.

If you think you begin to get the hang of it, try reversing the sounds in the pairs I have listed above. Every native speaker of English, even without ear training, can hear when aspirated consonants are replaced with unaspirated ones, or vice versa. What at first sounds subtle now sounds really obvious. The only difference with Chinese is that failure to make this distinction correctly does not really interfere with comprehension in English. It just sounds strange or affected.

By the way, part of the accent that some Chinese have in English comes from the fact that they substitute the unaspirated voiceless sounds of Mandarin (or Cantonese, etc.) for the unaspirated voiced sounds in English. In other words, they use the "p" of "spy" to replace the "b" of "buy." Similar things happen with some French speaker speak English. This was even immortalized in some songs inspired by English soldiers fighting in France during World War I. (I think one goes like: "Marzy dotes and cowzy dotes and little lambzy divy," which should be: "Mares eat oats and cows eat oats and little lambs eat ivy.")