need your feedback for pronunciation samples

[skylee]

Sometimes, IMO, people need to be encouraged in a positive manner and offered a more down to earth explantion of something.

I agree. We need more kind people here (in the world, I mean).

[hewching]

Here's another example:

Zhāng Róng: Bái jiàoshòu, gōngzī de shì wǒ bù-qīngchu. Qǐng nín kàn yíxià....(jiāogěi Bái jiàoshòu yífēng xín)

Bái jiàoshòu: N. (dǎkāi xìnfēng) Xìn-shang shuō nǐ yīnián zhèng sìwàn bāqiānkuài qián. Yíge yuè zhèng sìqiānkuài qián. Búbì fùshuì.

Zhāng Róng: Hǎo. Xièxie nín bāng wǒ máng. Qǐngwèn, nín gōngzī duōshao?

Bái jiàoshòu: Ē.......a......,bù-duō.

Thanks again!

wong2.wma

[dehuaye]

to hofman,

I didn't imply that you didn't help me. I KNOW You really didn't. all you gave was a Sh&ty comment saying "if.... talk to my teacher". I am here to experience and for fun so I read stuff from anything. if you don't have anything nice to say, don't give me a story about WTF.

you can't even put a sentence together. WHAT? you don't understand? ask questions! Don't imply.

[roddy]

Yes, the feedback could have been friendlier and more constructive, but also there's no need to get this worked up about it. Perhaps you can both discuss it via pm.

I agree with No. 41.

[Shi Tong]

hewching, generally really pretty good. I think you may have a couple of problems distinguishing zh/ch/sh and j/q/x, because to me, it sounds like you say baijiao(xiu4)​ instead of shou4. You're tripping over yourself in places to speak quickly, so you could slow down a but, but it sounds like you've done a lot of practice and you understand Mandarin, so well done!

[Hofmann]

dehuaye,

Have you considered the feedback I gave you in the other thread? Did you expect me to shower you with praises? Think about what you (or your professor) asked for and what I gave you and your classmates. I think I'm allowed to be a little blunt, as I hear student after student making the same mistakes. That tone pattern mismatch (even though it wasn't the professor's fault) prompted me to question the professor about the class's problems. It didn't involve you until you jumped in with stuff about me not trying to help you. So ungrateful you are, I wonder why your professor hasn't apologized on your behalf.

I'm sick of these students. Shi Tong, 指望你了.

[roddy]

Sorry, but where I'm sitting you've not been a little blunt, you've been unnecessarily rude. The way a bunch of students have turned up and posted seemingly random readings has not been ideal, and to be fair this is partially my fault - there are probably better ways to organize the thing and I should probably have suggested some, but I haven't been that active lately.

But they're learning Chinese, they've made the effort to record something and put it on here, and if anyone's going to give feedback it might as well be done in a way that will encourage rather scare off.

People often describe this site as friendly and helpful. I'd like that to continue.

[Shi Tong]

Hellooo..

Maybe the suggestion that Hoffman was being unhelpful is a bit unfair, IMO. He is trying to help, and just because a, b or c doesn't understand the comment, they should put effort in to understand what the comment is for.

I think also, as was said before, Hoffman didn't understand the sentences listening to them twice. If he genuinely didn't understand them, then TBH, this isn't his fault either.

Maybe it's his fault if he was too blunt, but if the students are asking for comment, then they must expect negative and positive, and not all of my comments have been 100% positive either.

I'm still interested to know from the students/ their teacher, what this course will give them as a certificate and what they will be able to use this for, what kind of level of Chinese is expected of them, and how long they have been learning, because as I said somewhere else, they sound like 3-12 month students.

That said, I think there are quite a few, IMHO who are really pretty good and should continue their Chinese learning.

Either way, I will continue to listen to posts left for comment and leave feedback, since I think it's only fair if people need help. I'm also looking forward to hearing some improvements from the students and will be interested in their progress.

[chrix]

I can really understand both sides here. I still stand by my comment that posting this kind of exercise on a forum like this is not too useful.

Also, Shi Tong, I didn't mean to imply that people are not to respond to this kind of request, what I meant is that it's rather unlikely that many forum members will respond, which is kinda borne out by the fact that only two have (at least consistently), which is different to when veteran members posted their pronunciation...

I still don't understand the idea of having your pronunciation corrected by fellow learners anyways. How can you be sure their pronunciation is good enough, or let's say their ability to correct others' pronunciation is good enough, when even some native speakers can't do it properly without training?

[huaxia]

what this course will give them as a certificate and what they will be able to use this for, what kind of level of Chinese is expected of them, and how long they have been learning, because as I said somewhere else, they sound like 3-12 month students

As I mentioned somewhere before, they are in the 2nd semester Chinese class. So, yes, Shi Tong, you are right, they have studied Chinese for about only 6-7 monthes. And most of them, if not all, were zero beginners at the very beginning of the course. This is a foreign language course for undergraduates, and we meet one hour every day from Monday to Thursday. They fulfill the foreign language requirement by taking this course, while quite some of them are attracted to the class due to their interest in Chinese culture. We have been most doing all four skilks (listening, speaking, reading, and writing charactors), but of course for the first two semesters, of course listening and speaking are the main focus. Considering the limited amount of class time and other tasks/subjects that the students have to take on, I think they should be pround of themselves.

Based on past experience, usually after Chinese 2, there are usually 1/3 of the studnets will continue with Chinese 3 (some graduated from the university while others filled out the foriegn language requirement, so there is not enough motivation for them to continue.) But 1/3 do stay.

[hewching]

Thank you Shi Tong for the help! It seems that through all this debate on this forum about constructive criticism being "overcritical", I feel like you're being much too generous with your compliments. Thank you again, I'll make sure to work on the said pronunciation problems.

A side note to Hoffman, if you're "tired of these students", I'd suggest that you just don't post anymore comments/replies. Some of us are just here for help and to hear different opinions. There's no need to be harsh or rude.

[imron]

Before everyone jumps on Hofmann, although he could have worded his replies more nicely, he does raise a valid point - don't lose sight of this just because you don't like the way he responded, because if you don't spend time at the beginning working on your pronunciation, especially tones, you will end up spending a *long* time later trying to correct the problems, or you'll just have to deal with people regularly not understanding what you are trying to say. It's one thing for your teacher to understand you, after all, as a teacher of Chinese as a Second Language he/she'll be familiar with the common mistakes that foreign learners make and will be able to compensate for them. Don't expect the same level of understanding from native Chinese speakers with little/no exposure to foreigners speaking bad Chinese.

You might also find this post on advice for beginners useful:

Pronunciation

Bad pronunciation habits are more easily acquired than lost, so don’t acquire them. You’re going to be reliant on pinyin for quite some time, so learn it early and often. Remember pinyin letters do not have the same pronunciation they do in your native language – the pinyin wǒmen is not the English women. Listen intently and repeatedly to the audio for your course, and use Audacity or a similar tool to record yourself and compare. If you have any time with a tutor or native speaker, spend the bulk on pronunciation and speaking.

Tones are often taught poorly or not at all by teachers and textbooks. But a student of Chinese cannot overlook the tones any more than a student of English cn ovrlk vwls. Do not ‘worry about them later’; you will not ‘pick them up over time’. You probably won’t produce tones accurately in conversation at first, but work from recognition to production in single syllables, to words, to sentences. Make sure you know the tones for every item of vocabulary you learn - if you don’t know the tones you don’t know the word. Further reading

It’s like playing the guitar or tennis – frequent, repetitive practice is key.

That's good advice. Those of you who have been picked out on pronunciation would be wise to listen to it. Edited April 29, 2010 at 02:37 AM by imron

[Shi Tong]

Chrix, Imron, I totally agree..

I still don't understand the idea of having your pronunciation corrected by fellow learners anyways. How can you be sure their pronunciation is good enough, or let's say their ability to correct others' pronunciation is good enough, when even some native speakers can't do it properly without training?

A valid point, but some people find it harder to understand their own language in some cases than someone who has learned it from the ground up- I would ask my wife an English grammar question because she has an MA, and I dont really "understand" English grammar (to a certain degree), I just use it. But if I needed an explantion or a grammatical name for something, I would definately ask her, she would know better than I!

hewching, it's always a pleasure to try to help a fellow human being.

Actually, I still stick by my comments before that, actually Hoffman's analysis of pronunciation problems is probably more accurately thought out and explained than mine while I know the specifics of the problem, I dont always know the right terms for them and Hoffman consistantly does. So, while I think in some cases he's been a little ruder than necessary, I also think that Imron is right, as his quotation suggests.

One thing I think is quite interesting, IMO of the posts so far is that a lot of the actual sentences said are relatively complicated. Obviously the first lessons were things like "what's your name" and "how old are you" etc, but progressing this far with problems like tones and pronunciation is, in some cases, maybe a step too far and a struggle for some of the students.

huaxia, I personally think it's normal for a lot of students to still be speaking incorrectly in some cases, even at 6-7 months. I met an English person in Taiwan once who was still answering his phone as wèi​ instead of wéi​. He'd been there for 6 months and was saying "oi" to the person down the phone.

[huaxia]

work from recognition to production in single syllables, to words, to sentences. Make sure you know the tones for every item of vocabulary you learn

I agree it is very good advice. For beginning learners of Chinese (and probably any other tonal language), you can never overemphasize the importance of tones. I think that's why most of the feedback here has been something like "you need more work on your tones". We all appreciate it and know it's true. In addition to this generic advice, I'd (and I have been doing this to my students) also direct their attention explicitly to a few specific words that were pronounced with the wrong tone and demonstrate the correct tone (if in face to face context). I think more explicit and specific advice with specific words are more practical for the students to have something to work with. Of course, it'll not be possible for the teacher to correct very single mistake of every single student. (Plus, some of them will stop taking Chinese formally.) For students who want more opportunities or assistance outside the classroom, it'd be nice to become a member of a community like this, among other means such as making friends/IMpal (?) with local native speakers/advanced learners.

[huaxia]

Hi, all posters and readers of this thread.

First of all, I wanted to thank all of you, EVERYONE, for your thoughts/contribution to this topic. As I wrote to Roddy just a moment ago, your contributions to the discussion there have made me to think about and reflect on the teaching of Chinese, the tone issues, the specifics of the assignments that I gave to the students, the way a public forum may react to an "onslaught" of newbies, and many other pieces that are related to. I actually think this is like an opportunity for my professional development, as a teacher.

For this current project I have asked this group of students to do, it is the first time that I tried to introduce a public online forum site to a college foreign language class. This is the last week of the project (we are wrapping up the semester). So from now on, maybe there will be no more request of "please comment on my pronunciation; I'm doing this for my class project" (might be a few late submissions or some may still continue doing this because they really enjoyed the experience here, but it won't be for a class project.) The pronunciation samples are only part of the project that I asked them to do (as I said, the major purpose of this project was to introduce this site to them for their future Chinese study. I also asked them to read the threads to collect info for different topics, etc.) But I do agree, the pronunciation sample task may not be the best. From the experience of this time and after getting the suggestions/feedback from you all, I now think in the future I'll do something similar but probably better. But, hey, I did say this is a pilot project, right?

Again, thanks to all of you. BTW, now I feel I'm "hooked" to this site.

[chrix]

huaxia, glad you like the site. Welcome and looking forward to your contributions

[ktorres728]

Here is a poem called Song Youren by Li Bai that I was supposed to perform.

I appreciate any feedback!

Kai Li.wav

[skylee]

ktorres728, I have sampled your recording because it is a poem. Do you know the meaning of the poem?

My general impression is that -

(a) there are many mistakes in your tones, e.g in the beginning of the last line it should be xiao1 xiao1, but you sounded like xiao2 xiao3. Another example, the word at the very beginning is qing1 shan1, and you said qing1 shan3. You pronounced many words in tone 3. Why is this preference for tone 3 (or were you trying to make them sound like neutral tone)? The tones are so wrong that it is difficult to understand what you said (this is especially so because it is a poem, not just some daily conversation).

(B) some of the pronunciations are wrong. For example, "bie" has become "bei", "yun" has become "yan" and "luo4 ri4" has become something that I don't know how to describe.

© your voice is very small in the recording. A lack of confidence?

You could make reference to the tones in this recording. But don't imitate the "yun" and "yi" in it.

Edited April 29, 2010 at 11:32 PM by skylee

[renzhe]

Perhaps a better way to deal with similar projects in the future would be to start a thread dedicated to a particular class or exercise, with all the feedback going in there?

Mandarina's thread was used by old-timers to have a listen to each other and put a voice (and pronunciation) to the name, which helps to put the person's other posts into a context. The text was very challenging to read without preparation. That thread really lost focus when it was flooded with new posts.

While I agree that registering in order to post your own sample and receive feedback is completely legitimate, I do feel that it would have been happier in its own thread, that had the context of a first-semester class doing a homework exercise. Perhaps the feedback would have been different then, as well, if you didn't have to live up to the standards of people like imron, heifeng, yersi, mandarina and the like.

And I think that you're being a bit hard on Hoffman. His tone was not friendly, but he did download and listen to a bunch of samples from people he doesn't know and will never meet, and offered criticism for each one of them. He didn't have to do that. You can use it to improve, whether it was friendly or not. Some of us didn't get any feedback at all.

[Shi Tong]

hello again..

Actually, one thing I did feel was a shame was that because there was such a flood of requests, it's difficult to listen to each and every one of them and then correct all of the flaws. For example, yesterday I went through one particular sample which I listened to and noted all of the tonal flaws, but with the second post, I simply didn't have time.

Maybe you or your students, next time, can (as renzhe suggested) keep a very seperate thread of the forum where these are posted and then take turns, expecting full feedback from at least one of us before moving onto the next student.

I feel that this could be achieved by taking a more relaxed approach to it (suggest to one student to post a sample, and wait until the discussion has slowed before the second student is suggested to post a sample), and do this over a whole year instead of in a week or so.

I'm glad you've enjoyed it here though, and I hope that some of your students will carry on and flourish. I will keep an eye out for new posts and comment if I can!

To torres: Once again, very quiet.. one thing I thought was very interesting was that I really did think you were saying 小小 xiǎo​xiǎo​ (xiao2xiao3) or "very small" instead of xiao1xiao1, which skylee just pointed out.

This is so important it's unreal- I dont know the poem, but whatever you just did by accident was that you told me "small" instead of whatever you were trying to convey, and as skylee said, in a poem, tones are even more essential because they lack context which you will find in every day conversations. This means that I will never ever know that you're trying to tell me xiao1xiao1 not "small", because I have no context.

EX: If you said "这个 zhè​ge 表 biǎo 小小 xiǎo​xiǎo​ 的 de​" (this watch is very small), and you accidently said xiāo​xiāo​, I would still know what you meant by context (this watch is xiāo​xiāo​), I would simply assume you mean it's small, not something else.