Advice On How To Pronounce 去，遇，据，许 Etc.

[Chinadoog]

Hey so I'm getting discouraged trying to pronounce the qu, xu, ju, yu sounds correctly. Do any of you guys have any advice? It's really annoying because words like 去 come up in almost every conversation. My tutor and gf don't seem to be able to teach me how to pronounce these words. They just say the words, and I say it back to them incorrectly.

If possible, I'm looking for some more technical advice than just 'practice.'

So if any of you also had trouble with these words but can now say them perfect, how did you learn them?

Thanks

[Daan]

Is it the initials you're having trouble with or is it the final vowel? If you're looking for a technical explanation on how to pronounce the final vowel, which is [y] in the IPA, have a look at the Wikipedia article on close front rounded vowels.

Note that this is actually the same final vowel as in, for example, nǚ 'girl, woman'.

[edelweis]

Pronounce eeeeee (or pinyin "yi"). Your lips are stretched.

Pronounce oooooo (or pinyin "wu"). Your lips are rounded.

Then say eeeeeeee again, keep the tongue in position, but move your lips into the ooooooo position.

You should be now saying the ü sound of qu, xu, ju, yu etc.

I attached a recording of myself doing just that...

eeee_oooo_eeeevvvvv.mp3

[flow]

i remember i had great difficulties in learning these from the language books i read as a teenager. the one thing that helped me most to just get the thing fixed in my mind was a translated novel that used a very reasonable transcription of chinese, one that makes at least a few of these ‘difficult’ sounds readily pronouncible to a german speaker. apart from that, one excrutiatingly important detail is exactly to FORGET THE LETTERS. this is so important. some people go on saying 西 xi as [ksi] for years because they just can’t get used to not think of ‘x’ as ‘eks’.

what you can do in this paradoxical situation is to use letters to fight the letters. research into descriptions of chinese language sounds, try to understand the phonology (the sound system) of the language, devise your own transliteration for chinese (it is said any serious sinologists contributed at least one novel transcription for chinese in their lives, so don’t be shy).

i seem to remember in the german system mentioned the used ü, tjü, djü, hsü for 遇，去，据，许. for a german, this looks familiar and you inevitably get quite close to the real thing. for a native english speaker, once they have come to accept the concept of the sound ü, maybe ü (or yü if you will), tyü, dyü, hsyü are better.

when i wrote my thesis i wanted to have a neutral and readible transcription. i did not want to use pinyin because of its irregularities (like you write nü, lü with an ü but xu, ju with an u, which is different from the u in mu; you write yong with a y, but qiong with an i). in that system, i used š to denote the (‘dark’) retroflex sibilant and ś to denote the (‘light’) sibilant; the aspirated (‘strong’) series of apical stops is written as t, the unaspirated (‘weak’) series of apical stops is written as d. this gives you, among other thing, these transcriptions:

i tśi dśi śi for 以 七 及 西

ü tśü dśü śü for 魚 去 句 旭

u tšu dšu šu for 無 出 主 書

u tsu dsu su for 無 粗 足 俗

now the beauty of the system is that it mirrors the regularity of the sound system with minimalist elegance. you already know what to do with i, u, t, d, s; as an english speaker, you only have to wrap your mind (your tongue) around the concepts of i-ü-u, š-s-ś, et voilà! you can already say at least the 16 syllables outlined above. profit!

[WilsonFong]

It's the same as the German u with the umlaut (ü) or the French u in words like "tu" or "vu".

[renzhe]

So if any of you also had trouble with these words but can now say them perfect, how did you learn them?

By being instructed to do this:

1) Round your lips like you're going to say "ooooo".

2) Say "eeee"

Even if it's not perfect, it should be very close.

If you don't round your lips, you won't be able to pronounce it reliably.

It's the same as the German u with the umlaut (ü) or the French u in words like "tu" or "vu".

They are the same in IPA, but I was always corrected when using the German ü. I pronounce them differently now.

It's most obvious if you compare "tschüss" and 去.

[Altair]

Then say eeeeeeee again, keep the tongue in position, but move your lips into the ooooooo position.

You should be now saying the ü sound of qu, xu, ju, yu etc.

I think this is good advice, but you can also try doing the opposite. First say oo (like the "oo" in "moon"). Then, while freezing your lips in the "oo" position, say "eee" (as in "see").

[Shi Tong]

IMO, the best place to start is on this point:

Can you pronounce 鱼 (yü2​)?

If you can, then remember that this sound is something which you can add prefixes to (or initials), which is what you're trying to attempt.

So the mastery of this sound is the key to the other sounds you're looking to pronounce.

If you want a description of the mouth position for this yü sound, I would say: slightly open your mouth, push your tongue on the left and the right hand side between your open teeth, make a loose "o" shape with your mouth, and leave it realtively untense, then push your tongue at the front up towards your front teeth, without touching.

Roughly speaking, if you push your tongue down in this case, you'll be saying "ooo" (something like the oo in fool), but when you push your tongue up, you'll be saying yü.

Obviously speaking, you can say the "ooo" sound without putting your tongue on either side between your teeth, but for yü, IMO, this is essential.

Also, if it seems too hard, you might be doing it wrong, because this sound, though unique and strange to and English speaker, it's shouldn't hurt!! ;)

Does anyone else agree with my mouth shape analysis?

ooyuu.wma

[Chinadoog]

By being instructed to do this:

1) Round your lips like you're going to say "ooooo".

2) Say "eeee"

This advice is immensely helpful. I also found the same instructions on John Padsen's (is that right?) website.

I feel like I can already pronounce 去 and those other words correctly, although it's going to take a while to feel comfortable saying them properly in conversation. 遇 is still the hardest pronunciation for me by far.

[snowfly]

You can go to this website http://ecl.iflytek.com/

input the Chinese characters and press button

[Guest realmayo]

I have problems too with this sound, partly because I never used to pay much attention to the difference between it and the other "u" sound. I have a book called "The Sounds of Chinese" by Yen-Hwei Lin which at one point looks at the "i" and the "ü" and the "u" sounds together, ie 比 绿 读。 It says all three sounds are "high". A "low" sound is where the jaw and the tongue are lowered as in 汉 or "how". But these three sounds are all "high": the jaw and tongue are raised high.

The book then goes on to group the "i" and "ü" together as "front" sounds, versus "u" as a "back" sound. To explain the difference between front and back, it suggests making the "i" and "u" sounds one after the other, noting how "the front part of the tongue is pushed relatively forward for and the back part of the tongue is pushed relatively backward for ." So front means pushing the tongue to the front, back means pushing it back.

So then how to distinguish these two "front" sounds "i" and "ü"? The lip position: "i" is unrounded (the lips are either in a neutral position or spread to the sides) while the "ü" is rounded (the lips are slightly protruded and rounded). Incidentally, the "u" sound is (obviously) rounded.

So these three sounds:

比 "i" is high + front + unrounded

绿 "ü" is high + front + rounded

读 "u" is high + back + rounded

I know these have all been mentioned individually below, but I thought it might be helpful to see the three sounds together.

& I think putting it like this shows how it ties in with other sounds. Pinyin's ju, qu and xu must all be the "ü" sound because --it seems to me-- that after arranging your tongue and lips to make the "j" or "q" or "x" sounds, there's no way you could then force your tongue "back" to make a regular "u" -- the tongue because it's already committed forward. Does that seem right? The "cu" sound is the opposite, the tongue is already committed to a downward movement with the "c", it would be really hard to push it to the front to make a "ü".

EDIT: if you make the "lü" and then "lu" sounds one after the other, does your tongue start in exactly the same place for the "l" in both instances?

[dumdumdum]

just try 七,一,机,西, then make your lips round. they are identical twins except for the round lips part.