Post a sample of your pronunciation here!

[cal2u]

The whole ethnicity thing can be a little bit of a sensitive issue, just because learners of Chinese often get treated differently based on that. My college roommate barely learned any Chinese growing up (he knew how to say “水” when he was 6 years old and staying with family in China), and when he started taking Chinese in college he never really got the whole tones thing down. With some Chinese people, there’s an understanding that 华人 *ought* to know 华语. If you don’t know it, they might not blame you, but they might look at you as someone who’s lost their culture. At the same time, as a white learner of Chinese, even if I were to get perfect pronunciation (or even just better pronunciation than most 华裔), I still wouldn’t be welcomed as “one of them” like a 混血 or 华裔 who has “rediscovered” their culture. Sometimes this means that as a foreign guest you’ll get special treatment, but at least personally I’d rather just be able to blend in and rely on my own social skills to build up friendships.

 

Maybe it’s more accurate to say  “a native or heritage speaker” (idk how to say that in Chinese) instead of “华人 or 混血,” but either way I hope we can all 多宽容一点 ?

[cal2u]

Quote

Hi, here's a link to an audio file I just recorded. Any feedback is appreciated. This is something I made up in my head (as opposed to written down) trying to use some grammar I have recently learned. I had a few false starts etc, so practiced it a few times. I'm elementary level, studying for around 8 months consistently. 

(I can't figure out how to reply to posts on here)

 

In replying to this, I just remembered that pronouncing 喜欢 as xi3huan1 is a Taiwanese thing. Maybe that's one of the reasons people keep saying my accent sounds Taiwanese.

 

I think that the pitch of your first "我“ is too high. Another thing that's common for native English speakers is to pronounce the "很“ with 4th tone because we're trying to emphasize how much we like something. I think that you made this mistake too. I also think that you held out the 比 in 比如 a little bit long. Usually Chinese syllables don't get held out that long (I think). When I'm trying to sound cute, sometimes I'll say 我觉得 like (wo3 jue2 dee2), but I've been told that's not the standard was to say it. I think that you might have pronounced 喝 with 2nd tone in “喝中国茶“ in the first sentence. 

 

Hope that this gives you an idea of some things to listen for! I'm obviously a non-native speaker, so it's always good to consult an expert

 

EDIT: I attached a file where I tried to copy some of your tones in the first half and  then use my "best" tones in the second half. Feel free to tell me my mistakes too. 

EDIT2: I tried recording the way I say 觉得 sometimes, and I only just realized that it sounds dumb. I'm also a bit suspicious of my hao pronunciation...

recording.m4a

juede.m4a

[suMMit]

@道艺黄帝

I see exactly what you mean about the 觉得

@cal2u Thats some great detailed feedback. Im going to look into those. Thanks

[Flickserve]

20 hours ago, 道艺黄帝 said:

Well if you have Chinese ancestry, I'd say you are significantly more likely to be able to speak Chinese than if you don't 

 

I think you need to be very very careful if you say this to an overseas Chinese or those with mixed parentage. 

[道艺]

I mean it's about a tame and uncontroversial statement as you can get...of all 中文 speakers in the world, I'd say 99.8% are of Chinese, dare I say, Han background. And on the flip side, I'd say of all people in the world with Chinese ancestry/Han background, at least 80% can speak 中文. So again, these are very safe assumptions.

 

My last name is "Desrosiers". It's about as French as you can get. If someone were to ask me, "Hey can you speak French?" (which happened a lot when I was in Europe), it's a pretty valid question. Just as I've come to accept the low low standards of Chinese people towards foreigners speaking their language. Statistically, how many foreigners living in China can actually communicate in Chinese? Seems like but a small percentage.

[edelweis]

On 9/1/2019 at 6:24 PM, 道艺黄帝 said:

Well if you have Chinese ancestry, I'd say you are significantly more likely to be able to speak Chinese than if you don't 

The statement above is indeed tame. But it is also not the same as your previous comment:

 

On 9/1/2019 at 1:11 PM, 道艺黄帝 said:

Wow! Assuming that picture is you, I always took you for being 华人 or 混血. Inspiring!

Having to learn Mandarin as a teen or an adult does not disqualify someone from having Chinese ancestors.

And some non-Chinese citizens born to Chinese emigrants parents will be pretty sensitive to someone saying "oh, since you did not learn Mandarin as a child by speaking with your family, you can't have Chinese ancestors".

 

(There are bunches of "French-born Chinese" around me who learnt Wenzhounese or Cantonese at home, and French at school, and either don't speak Mandarin at all or make a conscious effort to learn it as a "third language".)

[道艺]

Sure, I can see the confusion. My original sentiment was simply that where I once took him for someone who was born speaking both languages, due to both what appears to be native-level mastery of both languages, as well as the traditional dark hair & eyes. So when I found out his Chinese was learned after adulthood, it impressed and inspired me, as it means one day I may be able to reach a high level too. 

[suMMit]

Man I hate recording my voice. Even in English. This little recording was a homework assignment, to write and record a few sentences about living in a dormitory(The content is not true for me). I don't really like practicing stuff ive written, because I don't know if its correct and I don't have a native speaker model saying it. but then, I guess when I speak in the wild I don't have that either.

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/6kbd2mttx5ksurj/我不住在宿舍3.wav?dl=0

我不住在宿舍3.wav

[歐博思]

5 hours ago, suMMit said:

because I don't know if its correct and I don't have a native speaker model saying it

 

Your word-level pronunciation is pretty good, except for 同學 sounded like tóng qué.

[suMMit]

5 hours ago, 歐博思 said:

同學 sounded like tóng qué.

Yes, thanks, I hear that very clearly(especially the second instance) after you pointed it out

[889]

My only thought is that it sounds choppy and not very natural: you'd never speak in a robotic way like that in real life.

 

So now that you've got the tones and pronunciations of the words more or less down, work on the flow and rhythm of the sentences: do this sentence by sentence, repeating a sentence dozens of times until you feel you've got it down. Then move to the next sentence. Finally assemble them into the speech and get the flow and rhythm of the speech as a whole down.

 

In short, first work on the words, then the sentences, finally the paragraph.

[suMMit]

9 hours ago, 889 said:

My only thought is that it sounds choppy and not very natural: you'd never speak in a robotic way like that in real life.

 

So now that you've got the tones and pronunciations of the words more or less down, work on the flow and rhythm of the sentences: do this sentence by sentence, repeating a sentence dozens of times until you feel you've got it down. Then move to the next sentence. Finally assemble them into the speech and get the flow and rhythm of the speech as a whole down.

 

In short, first work on the words, then the sentences, finally the paragraph.

 

Yeah, I am struggling with this. I have been trying to do basically this for the last six months. But I'm not sure if I'm making and strides or not. I study almost nothing that I don't have the audio for , so I can hear a native speaker model (well, this piece I actually don't have any audio for)

 

Sometimes I think when I try to go more "natural", i get "lazy" with the tones.

 

As an experiment, here Is the same piece, but WITHOUT reading, just saying it from my mind. Is it any better/worse/the same (open question to anyone)?

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/kty74rszjjgw7af/宿舍 no read2.wav?dl=0

 

 

宿舍 no read2.wav

[889]

It's a lot better in terms of the flow. But you're right, the individual words are a bit muddier.

 

You also need to work on fitting your voice to the message: your voice needs to say you understand what you're saying. Yet you could be reading a recipe aloud for all the feeling you put into that. Don't just recite some characters: speak with the same natural emotion you use speaking English.

[suMMit]

18 hours ago, 889 said:

repeating a sentence dozens of times until you feel you've got it down. Then move to the next sentence.

 

Actually, thinking about it, I don't normally do this. I would normally go through the whole text and then start again at the top. Tried this today, and I agree, its a good technique.

[Tomsima]

nice job, sounds quite northern influenced, despite you being based in Guangzhou, don't know if there's any particular reason? felt like your zhu/ju distinction weakened when you recorded the speech more naturally, if that helps at all?

[suMMit]

@Tomsima thanks, I'll pay attention to the the zhu\ju

 

I first learned pronunciation with a 河北人 it also seems like most of my study materials are northern-ish. Im not a huge fan of the gz pronunciation, so i dont try too hard to imitate it.

[Flickserve]

10 hours ago, suMMit said:

Im not a huge fan of the gz pronunciation, so i dont try too hard to imitate it.

It could creep up on you.

[suMMit]

17 minutes ago, Flickserve said:

It could creep up on you.

? 我很怕

 

What I do like about it is the practice listening to Southern accents.  And a lot of people in GZ are from Hunan and Fujian. Plus, my current teacher is from Hubei, halfway between Xian and Wuhan. So I feel like I get pretty well rounded listening.

[imron]

8 hours ago, suMMit said:

我很怕

天不怕，地不怕，就怕广东人讲普通话

[Flickserve]

最怕