What is a good book that discusses the phonetics of Chinese sounds/syllables?

[mnanon]

What is a good book that discusses the phonetics of Chinese sounds/?? Looking for a book that discusses the tongue placement/movement, the opening/closure of the lips, and other aspects required to obtain better pronunciation?

I have a lot to practice, and would love to have a book that discusses these aspects for the Chinese Pin Yin Chart? (Essentially all the possible Chinese syllables)

[Don_Horhe]

The Sounds of Chinese by Yen-Hwei Lin is the only one in English I can think of.

[Olle Linge]

I strongly recommend a book called The Phonology of Standard Chinese. It is by far the best overview I've come a cross and contains an incredible amount of interesting stuff. Not all of it is practical, of course, but it does discuss pronunciation, pinyin, tones and so on. It is also fairly well writtend and well edited. Here is a complete reference:

San, Duan-mu. 2007. The Phonology of Standard Chinese. New York: Oxford University Press.

[mnanon]

Thank you, both books seem to complement each other very well.

[mnanon]

I have ordered The Sounds of Chinese by Yen-Hwei Lin and will order The Phonology of Standard Chinese as well a bit later. Looking forward to read the books.

[sleepy eyes]

I find Yen-Hwei Lin's book quite bad, particularly as the pedagogical textbook it proposes itself to be. It doesn't tackle phonological change, or assimilation and coarticulation etc., takes too much from the fable convenue instead of reliable data, and ends up falsifying the subject a bit. Which is rather strange, since the author seems to be either a fluent or a native speaker. I don't know how he got there. I don't know a single person who've used this book that didn't end up feeling either very conflicted or very confused when actually engaging native speakers on a broad basis. I mean all of that mostly in relation to his description of several of the consonants. Another user mentioned, some time ago, a textbook by one Raymond Huang that seemed promising, I wonder if he ever scanned that book as originally intended.

[mnanon]

Thank you for the heads up. I will be reading this in conjunction to my Chinese course(s). I will see if it is able to aid me in my pronunciation. The lecturers/tutors will be able to let me know if it is improving my pronunciation or not.

Je vraiment espere que le livre m'aiderait dans mes études.

[Olle Linge]

Just so you know, the book I recommended is fairly theoretical. I have learnt a lot from it regarding pronunciation and I think the book is awesome, but it isn't a practical guide to pronunciation. I didn't interpret your original post in that way, so I'm sorry if I've mislead you in anyway. What level is your Chinese? If beginner to intermediate, most people probably won't get much practical help from a book on phonology. However, if you're more advanced or quite theoretically minded, the book is excellent. There is thorough inventory of the sound system, but it covers about 100 pages and that's probably way too detailed for most people. So, I just want to say sorry in advance if you feel that I've mislead you.

[Don_Horhe]

The Sounds of Chinese has a large section on segmental processes (cf. pages 137-166) which gives a thorough account of coarticulation in Mandarin Chinese in its various forms. As far as the descriptions of vowels and consonants, I find them quite adequate, maybe even a bit too detailed and technical for one simply wishing to learn how to pronounce them.

If you're comfortable with reading Chinese, you might also want to check out 汉语语音教程 by 曹文 and 汉语普通话语音图解课本 by 金晓达 and 刘广徽 - the latter has pictures for every single sound

[mnanon]

Snigel, you did not mislead me in anyway.

The book (The Phonology of Standard Chinese) which you recommended me seems to be fantastic and I will order it at a later date (I am moving to another country, so I will first order it once I have moved). I browsed through the book and I believe it provides a lot important knowledge to those wishing to learn Chinese. I believe the book provides a very strong foundation on which to study Chinese from.

For other readers, you can browse through the book at http://www.amazon.com/Phonology-Standard-Chinese-Worlds-Languages/dp/0199258317#reader_0199258317

Thank you again for the tip, it is definitely an interesting book.

[mnanon]

Don_horhe, Thank you (Gracias?)

I am not competent yet enough to read Chinese. Do you have any examples from the inside of the book 汉语普通话语音图解课本 by 金晓达 and 刘广徽 ? Such as showing how shi4 (是) should be pronounced as an example if it would be helpful or if my girlfriend could help me translate some of the key points?

Edited Shi3 to Shi4

[Don_Horhe]

Yes, you can see sample content here. Unfortunately, I don't have a scanner to make images of the pages on 'shi'.

I would also like to second Snigel's advice. San Duanmu's book is indeed very informative, but it mostly deals with theoretical issues which might not be of immediate interest to the average learner. If, however, your goal is to develop a deeper understanding of Chinese phonology, do by all means get it.

P.S. I don't speak Spanish, it's only my nickname that gives this impression.

[mnanon]

Don Horhe,

I see. Thank you for the samples, very informative.

I have a strong interest in understanding of the Chinese phonology, believe it would help me.

Will try to get the book you linked as well.

Does the book come with audio samples?

[Silent]

Chapter 1 of the 汉语普通话语音图解课本 is shown here: http://www.blcup.com...11/content.html

As it's only 28 yuan it looks very worthwhile. Anyone know the shipping rates (to europe) of blcup? I don't see them at the website.

[jkhsu]

Such as showing how shi3 (是) should be pronounced as an example if it would be helpful or if my girlfriend could help me translate some of the key points?

I believe 是 is shi4 not shi3. Also be careful of how to produce the "sh" sound in Mandarin. Check out this crazy discussion on whether the Mandarin "sh" or Mandarin "x" sounds closer to the English "sh".

[mnanon]

Yes, my mistake, it is Shi4.

[mnanon]

Silent, I have ordered it with the HSK Level 1 book. I will see how what quote they give me and I will update here. I picked 'International Mail Service by air (averages 10-20 business days)'

[sleepy eyes]

How do I quote posts here?

Don, I have wrestled with that book twice. You are correct, but that section is very poor and does not work as a corrective. It is still ridden with several of the same mistakes and counterfactual information. He sees voicings that are simply not there, for instance, and that can be very confusing for the neophyte when exposed to the language. It's confusing enough to deal with a language with that much mesolecticism and local varieties. Indeed, the variety of putongua he is describing in the main text does not exist anywhere outside of the paper.

Considering it is intended as a pedagogical tool and not linguistic research or summary, there are better options out there.

Of course, we can deepen the discussion and counterbalance what I said by noticing that the phonological boundaries in chinese are quite different from i.-e. languages, but since, as I've stressed, this is supposed to be a pedagogical tool, it doesn't help the book much...

[sleepy eyes]

Anyways, back on topic, the example that I myself followed and would recommend is not to overtly stress yourself with pronunciation. After getting the basics down, test what you've got with native speakers, see if they get you, and use that as natural, intuitive correction tool. As implied above, there is an enormous margin for consonantal variation in putonghua across china. To a lesser degree, vowel(-istic?!) and even tonal as well. What you must worry about are the tones. I would say vowels as well, but those are fairly intuitive to most western learners, from what I've seen.

[mnanon]

Sleepy eyes, what book would you recommend which explains the tongue placement/movement, the opening/closure of the lips, and other aspects required to obtain better pronunciation?