Differentiating 车/吃 Che/Chi

[xianhua]

How do other people cope with differentiating with these two sounds? I've never been challenged on my pronounciation as the two words are usually found within context and therefore the meaning is clear. However, having found this excellent forum, I thought it was about time I sorted out my 吃 and 车,- and 次 and 册 for that matter!

When I sit down and say the two together side by side, I find they are the same. I seem to recall that the 'e' sound should be more guttural. Are there any techniques which have worked for you?

[yonglin]

In my world, 车 has a very clear vowel sound, more similar to e in French (or ö in my language) than any particular vowel in English. 吃, on the other hand, doesn't have much of a vowel sound at all. To me, it's just ch or possibly chr. 次 has a very clear i (or ee) sound. (It is not the same as in 吃!) The vowel in 册 is the same as that in 车. I perceive of the i in 吃，次，一 as three very distinct vowel sounds.

I'm sure our more phoentically/IPA inclined members will be able to help you better. Also, this should be fairly clear if you listen to them next to each other, no?

[xianhua]

Thanks for the tips.

Having just glanced over a table which gives all the combinations of initials and finals, the 'i' sound may follow various initials to form one of: zi, ci, si, zhi, chi, shi and ri.

Perhaps I'm wrong in assuming therefore that 'i' plus any of the above initials would produce the same sound at the end?

[maike]

I think the only way I know how to phonetically differentiate the two sounds is as follows:

车(che) = ch + "euh" or "ugh"（not hard vowel sounds like "ee" or "yu")

吃(chi) = ch + "er" (the sound you make when you're confused over 车 and 吃!)

Hope this isn't too confusing!

[renzhe]

次 has a very clear i (or ee) sound

Are you confusing it with something else? Or could it be dialectal?

It's pronounced "c". The -i is silent, like in chi. I've never heard (or read about) anything else.

Perhaps I'm wrong in assuming therefore that 'i' plus any of the above initials would produce the same sound at the end?

They are the same, e.g. silent. Generally, -i can be

- silent (after c, z, s, ch, zh, sh and r)

- pronounced as -eeee (after everything else)

The -e final is kind of strange and doesn't really correspond to any sound in any language I know. It's kind of similar to the German "ö", but not quite. You have to hear it and emulate. It kind of opens toward the end, and it's long ("che" is longer than "chi").

This is one of the two problems I have with pronunciation. I can hear the difference and I can pronounce it, but if I get careless, they tend to become the same. My girlfriend says that there is a tongue rolling movement involved with -e, which I don't do (I pronounce it from the throat with no tongue movement), and maybe this is why I tend to forget it or something.

[trien27]

c: I personally believe this sound should be retained as "ts" like what they use in Taiwan to make it perfectly clear, so any sound that starts with a c, like 次 and 册 should be romanized as "tsi", where the i is like eeww, like the sound that American children make when they are disgusted with something, but without the w sound & "tsuh", where "uh" as in "uh oh!" and not "ci" or "ce".

吃 chi [for explanation, see above], and 车, che [see above for explanation]. The ch sound here is perfectly fine like in "kitchen" or "chain".

Edited July 25, 2009 at 07:58 PM by trien27
grammar correction

[trien27]

- silent (after c, z, s, ch, zh, sh and r)

The "i" sound after those consonants isn't SILENT at all. It's almost like it's silent, but actually the "i" makes the sound a bit longer. Compare the sounds of "zhi" in "zhi dao"[to know] & "zhong" as in "zhongguo" [China].

[yonglin]

It's pronounced "c". The -i is silent, like in chi. I've never heard (or read about) anything else.

Well, I bet we say it the same, just perceive of it differently. Hence the "in my world"...

(I think of it as a different kind of "i" which I don't know the name of in English/IPA, but some dialect speakers of my own language have this sound - maybe it's that they use it to replace "i" which makes me think of it as a sort of "i". On the other hand, I can make sense of vowel-less c, z, s sounds which clearly do not sound like 次、字、四, which is why it doesn't make sense to call them vowel-less to me.)

I agree with trien27 that the -i on ch zh sh r mainly makes the sound a bit longer.

Also, I don't speak German, so I have no opinions on German "ö".

[renzhe]

This chart agrees with yonglin, in that there are three different -i finals.

I have to admit that I've never heard the difference. Anyone got a sample that makes it clear? I'm really struggling to notice the difference here, and usually I don't have this problem. Also, the wikipedia entry doesn't make a distinction, and it seems like the IPA and Zhuyin don't either.

Is the main difference that the -i in ri, zhi, chi and shi kind of blends with the initial, and the -i in ci, si and zi kind of continues after the consonant is finished? That's the only difference I'm noticing. The final itself sounds like a neutral "uh" sound similar to the English indefinite article "a".

Maybe I need an hour or two with a trained expert in phonetics

[imron]

For chi/che, the difference between these sounds is entirely made with the the tongue. With chi, the tongue is curled up for the "ch" sound and then stays in that position when you say "i". For "che", it's almost identical except that the tongue flattens out when you say the "e" sound.

[Hofmann]

The [z̩] and [ʐ̩] finals were recently funked by someone. The article used to distinguish the final according to retroflex and alveolar initials. I'm in the process of cleaning up. Help me by looking where he edited. His oldest edits concerning Standard Mandarin were 09:21, 25 July 2009 in Erhua.

[wrbt]

One can hear a distinct vowel in che, not so much in chi. Previous poster had a pretty good phonetic representation of che with "chuh" I think.

I have problems with zh versus ji, as in zhao versus jiao. Usually not a problem because of context but for some reason I can't hear much of a difference.

[Scoobyqueen]

It's kind of similar to the German "ö", but not quite

I agree. Do you think it sounds like a medium thing between the German "ü" and "ö"?

[renzhe]

Not really, both "ü" and "ö" involve strong lip movement, unlike the -e in "che". I think that the unrolling of the tongue (like imron said) and an opening of the mouth towards the end kind of describes it best. At least, that's what I do.