What is more useful for learning pinyin: male or female voice?

[sbelous]

I recently developed Pin Pin for iOS ( http://pinpinchinese.com ) and used a female speaker because that is the way I learned. But, I've had a few requests for including a male voice set. On the other hand, I've also heard that male speakers generally aren't as clear with their pronunciation. What are other peoples' experiences? Do other learners think it would be valuable to have a pinyin chart with a male speaker's voice?

[Shelley]

I think that most programs that have speech include male and female voices just so that the user can choose.

Some people might find one better than another for reasons you may never be able to work out, so I would include both to give your program the added bonus of having the choice.

[Lu]

I'd say that if you can, include both female and male voices. After all, people will generally end up listening to both men and women.

[OneEye]

I think guys do tend to be less clear when they speak, but I seriously doubt that it holds true for single syllables recorded for beginners learning pinyin. It's more of an everyday conversation sort of thing. I agree that giving the option to choose one or the other would be more desirable.

[mikelove]

It's certainly possible to find a male speaker with a good clear voice - in our case we hired a connection-of-a-connection who's a radio announcer. Though I'd actually say that a range of pitches is more important than genders; if you can find a second female speaker with a much higher / lower voice than your other one, that would probably offer similar benefits.

[lechuan]

I'm a guy. When I was learning Japanese for fun, I was using audio lessons and imitating a female speaker. People told me I sounded girly when I spoke Japanese. For Chinese, I try to mimic only voices that are similar to my pitch, which is usually a male voice (though as Mike says, pitch is more important than gender).

[sbelous]

This is great feedback, thank you everyone! This is all very helpful

I think I will go ahead and include a male speaker in my next update. It sounds like the general concensus is that it would be helpful. And now, the idea of having a single pinyin chart with multiple speakers seems pretty cool to me.

mikelove:

That is also a really interesting tip. I hadn't thought about including alternative female voice sets! Something I am definitely going to consider going forward.

[imron]

I think I will go ahead and include a male speaker in my next update.

Try to get one that sounds like 姜文

[Baron]

Another reason for giving a choice of speaker is that apparently some female voices reach a pitch that is out of normal male optimal hearing range. I can't remember where I read that, it was either New Scientist or the Daily Mail.

Some Chinese women's voices are quite ear splitting in any case. The one they use on fluentu makes my ears bleed.

[sbelous]

hahaha good point!

[DespikableMi]

Try both because some female speakers have 女國音 when they speak.