To have a better chinese accent, do I need to imitate a nasally way of speaking?

[deathtrap]

I notice a lot of Chinese men that I listen to have a high nasally pitched voice. Is this an aspect of the language or just them as individuals? I ask because I have quite a low tone of voice and fear it might affect how I sound when I speak Chinese.

Can anyone shed some light on this?

[jasoninchina]

I'm haven't noticed this, so I'm going to say its perhaps just them as individuals. There are plenty of Chinese folks with low voices, as is mine. I don't have much trouble being understood beyond what you might expect when speaking a foreign language.

btw, where have you been listening to chinese men?

[Daan]

Funny that you should ask. I was in a bar in Beijing a few weeks ago and ended up discussing learning Mandarin with a couple of Cantonese speakers. They initially didn't think much of my pronunciation, so I started mimicking theirs, which was significantly higher-pitched than mine. And they felt this was much better. Maybe you could ask a teacher or even a good friend to listen to you reading a few sentences in both your normal tone of voice and what feels to you as a higher-pitched tone of voice. I'm not saying Chinese men in general speak in a higher-pitched voice than Western men, as I really don't know whether that's true, but if it helps improve what people think of your pronunciation, then that doesn't really matter either.

In response to jasoninchina's post above me, you're quite right it didn't cause any trouble being understood, but it just seemed they perceived the higher-pitched pronunciation to be much more authentic. And that's valuable to me as well

[Scoobyqueen]

I think often women's accents tend to be higher pitched (but not always). I am not sure if some of it is not put on though. Wanting to appear a little girl. Seems to be a virtue

[renzhe]

It's less common than in Europe, but I've heard some Chinese guys speaking with a bass or baritone voice. The guy from 蜗居 comes to mind.

[rob07]

My understanding is that the mandarin first tone should be at the top of your natural normal voice range and your other tones will be correct if they are in the right place relative to that. Thus the correctness of your accent depends on having all your tones right relative to each other, it is not an absolute standard for each tone. As Scoobyqueen points out, most women are higher pitched than men, but the relativities as between the tones should be the same for both women and men.

So a natural low voice should not be a problem, but what might be a problem is if your first tone (and top of your second, start of your fourth) is not at the top of your natural normal voice range.

[Olle Linge]

I don't think that you should take your pitch range and move it upwards a few notches. However, I think spoken Chinese makes use of a broader spectrum than English, so low tones (usually the third tone) are much lower than the lowest tones in English, whereas the highest (e.g. the first tone) is higher than the highest tones in English. Thus, I don't think it's a matter of speaking with a higher pitch in general, but recognising the concept that Chinese makes use of a broader tone register. This will mean raising pitch in some cases (fourth tone start, second tone ending, entire first tone), but also lower some (third tone before a first, second or fourth tone).

[rezaf]

I notice a lot of Chinese men that I listen to have a high nasally pitched voice. Is this an aspect of the language or just them as individuals?

In the south or in the north?

[Guest realmayo]

The guy who plays Cao Cao in the latest (2010? 2011?) TV adaptation of the Three Kingdoms has a cool voice, I guess it's deeper than normal. Thought he was the coolest dude I've seen on Chinese TV .... until the Liu Bei guy rocked up.

[Gleaves]

姜文 has a cool voice. Imitate him. He also played CaoCao in that recent Lost Bladesman movie. Stealing his voice is on the top of my list of things to do once I master some sort of black magic.

[imron]

I was going to suggest something similar. We should start an 'imitate 姜文's voice' challenge

[renzhe]

Does putting golf balls in your mouth constitute cheating?

[Gus]

My Chinese classmates have told me that my voice seems to come from deep in my diaphragm, while they all speak from a place higher up in their throats. I know exactly what they're talking about, but I can't seem to produce the same effect in my own voice. It's not actually a difference in pitch, although whenever they imitate me it comes out sounding lower, and whenever I imitate them it comes out sounding higher and more nasally.

Anyway, I've wondered about this for a long time and was interested to see another foreigner post about it. Dashan's voice is pretty nasally, and he's the gold standard for us folk, right? Then again there are tons of commercials on TV with deep-voiced Chinese announcers that don't sound a bit nasal... GAH I DON'T KNOW!

[Guest realmayo]

Gus, I know exactly what you mean. What I try to do to get the more Chinesey sound is raise my jaw slightly higher and forward; this seems to bring the back/base of my tongue forward too and means that the air coming up through my throat comes more cleanly into my mouth, rather than being more obstructed on the way up: I think it is this obstruction that causes my 'normal' speech to vibrate more than seems to be the case in normal Chinese speech. Incidentally, for me it's vibrating in the throat, not the diaphragm. For me this vibration gives an "earnest" (for want of a better word) tone of voice, which I find characterises lots of Westerners' Chinese (including mine) but something I don't hear in the Chinese accents of, say, Koreans or Vietnamese, and of course not in native Chinese speech either.

Here's a couple more threads:

http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/21170-sounds-from-the-mouth-or-throat/

http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/25247-3rd-tone-the-throat-grinder/

[Sp3ctre18]

As I watch for new replies, this topic might help me perfect my own pronunciation, but I do have enough confidence in my mandarin pronunciation from some linguistic knowledge and speaking / comparing with native speakers, so I thought I'd say a few words on it.

I've heard this thing about the nasally sound, and though I understand the impression of such, I've never heard and still don't see it as something to intentionally go for, except MAYBE when you have an "n" for a final sound, but even that is slight.

I would ask if there are specific sounds (and if any, what region / dialect) you're referring to, which you are trying to correct. It would add a little bit more insight to what you're working on. Different regions (or even just major cities) have their dialects and oddities as any language / country. Also, typically, across east asian languages (and probably quite beyond if not everywhere), men have a muddier, darker pronunciation, while women have the clearer and - in the case of chinese - more nasal pronunciation.. If you're worrying so much about high pitch and nasalization, I suspect you are referring to some regional variant

Basically, i think you're worrying to much about the idea of nasalization, when you should instead simply think of sounding the vowels in the right area of the mouth. For example, a sound that commonly sounds nasal to me is simply the "a" final - especially in women: versions of "ba," "ta," "ma," etc.

But I don't think it matters if anyone considers it nasal or not; whatever is necessary to make it, will happen naturally if you pronounce the correct "a" sound.

This why some linguistics knowledge helps; check out a vowel chart for Mandarin and compare with English. You'll find that "a" in mandarin (for example) is pretty much the farthest front of the lowest vowels humans make (the open front unrounded vowel) more so than any "a" in standard american english. Just get that placement right and you should have the right sound.

Essentially I'm saying to make sure you've got your vowel sounds correct in the first place, instead of trying to figure out some blanket technique to solve all your problems and perfect your pronunciation. If you need such a thing, you probably simply don't have all your vowels spot on. Similarly, I also believe you shouldn't think about shifting your overall pitch. HOWEVER, doing so is probably narrowing your airspace and slightly shifting your vowels to what is sounding to you and others as more correct. Thus again, I say, my guess is that you need to revise them individually.

Just a thought; something to consider because in a sense, this might simply be how "I" do things.

[roddy]

姜文 has a cool voice. Imitate him. He also played CaoCao in that recent Lost Bladesman movie. Stealing his voice is on the top of my list of things to do once I master some sort of black magic.

姜文 would be a good choice, I think.

[Neil_H]

I always thought some of the deeper rougher voices of Chinese males was down to all the smoking they do. My Chinese farther in law does not smoke and his voice is higher pitch and clearer but his realatives all smoke and their voices are less clear (to me), sometimes slurred and much deeper.

Younger males seem clearer and not so deep but the heavy smokers depsite being in their mid 20's speak like their fathers.

[imron]

Haha, classic - 你要是不听我的话，这刀也不听我的话

How did I not know about this movie earlier!

[dd18]

My girlfriend has noted that my voice tends to be a bit higher when speaking Chinese. I'm not so sure about the nasally-sounding quality of Chinese speaking that you seem concerned with. I have noticed such a thing personally. My advice is to try just try and stay true to your normal speaking voice as well as you can while also retaining the ability to comfortably perform the 1st and 3rd tones. Trying to change your voice too much in order to sound authentic might produce a funny effect.

[MaLaTang]

actually to have a better accent i would think you shouldnt use the nasal tones and bring forth your words from your chest. have you ever listened or heard 北方 programs. they pronounce those words out of their chest like..“没事儿‘" but for some reason, whenever a local chinese man says 'hello', regardless of how deep his voice actually is, the 'hello' is always high pitched like mickey mouse.