Pronouncing 人

[Blackfist]

I've mentioned before that I have trouble hearing some of the sounds that native speakers are saying.

人 is a word that is giving me some trouble. Sometimes it sounds like it is being pronounced with a J sound like Jen, a common girl's name in America. Other times is sounds more like it starts with an R sound.

I know the pinyin is written with an r, but it sounds so much like a J to me that I've been pronouncing it that way. What do you think it sounds like?

[abcdefg]

It will depend, according to which native speaker is saying it and what is next to it in the sentence.

Sometimes it sounds like it is being pronounced with a J sound like Jen, a common girl's name in America. Other times is sounds more like it starts with an R sound.

Often it's something between the two sounds you mentioned.

Don't spend too much time worrying about it. It's a common word and its meaning will be clear from context.

[淨土極樂]

The 'r' in 'ren' is pronounced somewhat similar to the 's' in 'measure'. Try it.

[gato]

Like "s" in measure? Hope you are kidding.

[淨土極樂]

No, I'm not.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:IPA_for_Mandarin

"pinyin: r-; English approximation: pleasure"

http://chinesepod.com/tools/pronunciation/section/4

"The Mandarin r is fairly similar to the [ʒ] sound you hear in the middle of the word "measure.""

[tysond]

I've often had it explained to me as similar to the s in "leisure" too.

[gato]

I am not convinced by the IPA chart. I don't hear the correspondence between "r" and "s".

[fanglu]

Although that may be correct from a linguistic perspective, I don't think it's particularly helpful for learning how to pronounce 人.

[淨土極樂]

Still a much better approximation than "Jen", wouldn't you agree.

[淨土極樂]

double post

[roddy]

Yeah, you need to explain what the difference is for it to be useful. I suspect you'd be better off just sticking with a normal English r than sticking in ʒ, otherwise you're getting close to the pinyin zh- or j- ?

[Ruben von Zwack]

There is one potential for error, when you equate the Chinese "r" to English/American "j" like in "Jen", I think, and that is: "J" has got a hint of a "d" in the beginning [djen] which the Chinese "r" never has.

WhatI ever equation you use, I think it's fair to say that in Chinese, there are variations in pronunciation, and they are ok. Sometimes it sounds more like "r", sometimes more like "j" (the French j like in "je") and both is correct.

For producing the sound myself, I still dread saying the word 日 rì (sun). Fortunately you don't speak it out so often

淨土極樂's suggestion is interesting and helpful. Looking at it from a linguistic point is often helpful, I think, because the written form of a letter and what we think how it should be produced can be misleading.

[Guest realmayo]

I remember finding it helpful to group "r" along with "z", "c", "s" in terms of where & how the tongue is at the start of the sound.

(Though when I'm getting my non-standard on I much prefer using a light "l" instead.....)

[Lu]

I learned r- as follows:

Say the French je or Jean.

Say wrong or rare in English.

It's in between that j and that r.

Not sure if this is helpful for understanding r-, but it helped me in pronouncing it.

[imron]

The 'r' in 'ren' is pronounced somewhat similar to the 's' in 'measure'. Try it.

Please, no.

Using the pinyin 'r' sound is is how many Chinese people are taught to pronounce that 's' sound in English.

If you've ever heard and been mystified by a Chinese person saying they 'urually' do something, you'll know why this is a bad idea. The problem with these sounds is that in isolation they might be close, but when you are combining them with other sounds to form a word, they influence the surrounding sounds in different ways and end up sounding confusing and wrong.

This sound is one of the big pronunciation problems I found Chinese learners of English had the most difficultly correcting if they'd learnt it the wrong way using pinyin 'r' (much better to use English 'sh'). Don't go down the reverse of that path!

[Ruben von Zwack]

If you've ever heard and been mystified by a Chinese person saying they 'urually' do something, you'll know why this is a bad idea.

I heard people do that, and assumed they loved the erhua so much so they want to apply it to any language

[luoshan]

There must be some patterns/rules for the different pronunciations. Also, pinyin isn't a perfect transcription language either. I try to focus on what I hear and use the pinyin as a reminder.

[siledouyaoai]

The best way I have found to say it is to first say 'zhi'; keep your tongue in the same position, then say 'ren' by bringing it down and forward.

[hackinger]

I learned to pronounce pinyin consonants r, q, x... with the following explanation (I found the link some time ago in older forum threads):

http://www.sinosplic...darin-chinese/4

Cheers

hackinger

[Don_Horhe]

In Mandarin Chinese the 'r' sound is simply a voiced 'sh' sound. Do mind, however, that the English 'sh' and 's' as in measure, leisure, etc. are different from the Chinese 'sh' and 'r'. In English they are ʃ and ʒ, while in Putonghua they are ʂ and ʐ.