2nd, 3rd tone problems after aspirated fricatives

[fas_et_nefas]

Hi all,

 

This is my first posting, I have been lurking here for a while and decided now to register, having read so many knowledgeable posts. 

 

Recently I try to improve my command of tones; as with most people, I seem to have most problems with second and third tones, especially when they occur in combination with each other (2nd followed by third or vice versa). A special problem I ran into with my second and third tones is that, irrespective of the tones surrounding them, I have a difficulty in producing them following an aspirated fricative, in pinyin: ch and q, and to a lesser extent also c. 

 

As far as I could analyze the problem there are two separated but probably related instances of this difficulty:

1) I have problems producing second and third tones on syllabic consonants like 池(chi2) or 尺(chi3) in words like 電池(dian4chi2) or 公尺(gong1chi3) and also to a lesser instant with the likes of 詞(ci2) and 此(ci3).

2) With words with the initial q (which usually have a full syllabic vowel). My second and third tones in words like 事情(shi4qing2) or 交請(jiao1qing3) are sometimes equally off.

 

There are two possible reasons for this I can come up with:

1) These consonants, aspirated or not (zh,ch, j, q), don't exist in my mother tongue (German) or their aspiration is not distinguishing feature (c,z),  so that I have a special difficulty in producing them and need to pay special attention to them, which in turn leads to a neglect of  following 'more difficult' tones. I sympathize with this explanation, but it doesn't explain why I, as far as I can myself tell, have fewer problems with the unaspirated versions (zh,j) of the same sounds in combination with second and third tones.

2) I somehow have the feeling that to my ears, and probably also my brain, the aspiration of the sound has a certain 'tonality' to itself so that I have problems with adding another tone mark. This is a special problem with the syllabic consonants, but I guess it also plays a roll in the production of 'q-words'. I don't know if this makes sense. It might also be that this perceived 'tonality' is a result of my overdoing of the sound; as with most 'unnatural' sounds I either tend to assimilate them to 'natural' sounds of my mother tongue or I overdo them in my conscious efforts to produce them.

 

Anyways, I would like to know if anybody else has run up against this problem or can relate to it? I know that  the only way out probably is to practice, practice, practice, with the actual problem always in mind. But I'd anyway be interested in other peoples' thoughts and methods

[陳德聰]

It would be extremely useful necessary to hear what you end up producing instead of the correct surface form.

Are you able to produce the 2nd and 3rd tones without any issue in every other instance? I'm curious to see from a phonetic standpoint what it is that you are actually producing.

[roddy]

Instructions for attaching a sample here, although something like Soundcloud or any filesharing site would also work. 

 

Welcome to the site! Always good to see a lurker take the plunge into the warm welcoming waters...

[fas_et_nefas]

Many thanks for your replies,  陳德聰 and roddy.

 

I should like to think that I can produce 2nd and 3rd tones in isolation and also in shorter combinations with the others, with a slight difficulty when they are combined with each other. Whole sentences are another matter, and I think with them I'm more often partially off, depending on a lot of factors, especially my familiarity with the vocabulary and the speech situations I find myself in.

 

 I will any time soon try to record myself and post the results here. I'm not too handy with computers but with the instructions given here in this forum even I should be able to make some audio recordings. I have to admit I feel a little uncomfortable thinking about making my recordings available to the critical scrutiny of the forum users here, but in these matters there is probably no progress to be made without leaving one's comfort zone, 試試看.

 

Another short thought on the perceived tonality of aspirated fricatives. To my ears, with the harsh air stream exiting one's mouth, they just sound alien and (in my overdoing) very harsh, in themselves nearly like 4th tones, and this perception I think is a constant distraction for me in my efforts to produce the following tone. Anyway, a recording should shed some light on my difficulty.

[陆咔思]

You're definitely not alone with the problems with aspirated fricatives, it seems to be a somewhat peculiar problem of us German-speakers. I have long found this to be one of the most frustrating things about learning Chinese, even after years I still sometimes have problems keeping j/q, z/c and zh/ch apart. I think it is getting better, but very very slowly, and I doubt the distinction will be ever be as clear to me as for example the difference between d and t. I remember even learning to pronounce q, c and ch took a lot of work with a private tutor. I also had the problem of somehow associating aspirated fricatives with the 4th tone when I was a beginner, though that disappeared over time as I got used to the sounds.

 

As native speakers of English don't seem to have that problem I suppose it might be a good idea to get a private tutor who has much experience with German speakers, but that may be difficult to find.

[Ruben von Zwack]

I am German too and I found that whenever asked, "Is this bus going to Qiánmén?", people would ask back "Tiānānmén?". I think I do know how to produce a "q" though, and my teacher made me practise both names almost a hundred times, but "live" on the street, I still always got the same reply. 要命!

[knickherboots]

Analyzing the reasons for inaccurate pronounciation or tones will only get one so far. Yes, native speakers of, say, German and English, tend to have different weak spots. But there are strong speakers of Chinese from various linguistic backgrounds. I think that what you need is a patient and experienced teacher who can help you to both recognize and produce the correct sounds. This means being brave enough to expose your imperfections to others so that you can improve, as well as a technique for improving. (Mine is just listen, repeat, analyze (with native speaker feedback), adjust, repeat. Then repeat again and again in various ways.)

 

Pronounciation practice is tedious, exhausting work for most students, and most Chinese teachers will only "push" students so far. There are a few possible reasons for this: 1. Chinese language is a cultural marker associated with Chinese ethnicity, and 2. putonghua as spoken by "native" Chinese comes in a bewildering range of regional variants. Regarding the former, some teachers think, "Well, Chinese is really quite difficult, and we Chinese are special, so there are limits to what a run-of-the-mill foreigner can achieve." (That's also the reason why many Chinese are bewildered by ethnic Chinese who don't know the language, or don't know it as well as they "should.") On the latter point, I think the attitude is "Hmm. That doesn't really sound too good, but it'll do. She'll be understood. 差不多吧。"

 

Good luck!
 

[Michaelyus]

Aspiration raising the perceived pitch: this is actually a matter of some contention. The noise of aspiration is in general higher-pitched than the vowel (lots of noisy high partials), but whether it influences the vowel itself... that topic presents rather contradictory data.

 

As it so happens, one study found that aspirated Pinyin t- consistently causes a lower starting F₀ than the unaspirated Pinyin d- across most of the tones. (Xu & Xu 2003).

 

It kind of reinforces my pedagogical point to start 2nd tone rather low. I think many learners initially start 2nd tone too high, and so either raise it not enough (so it becomes a kind of low 1st tone, or a 3rd tone that's too high) or raise it too quickly and too extremely (which just ends in... pain, I imagine? At the very least, it's a distinctly unnatural sound!).

 

And is the 3rd tone being raised unnecessarily?

 

 

 

Surely though, "tschüss" is aspirated, whereas "Dschibuti" is not (and only marginally voiced), right? So it looks like German does have aspiration distinction in its affricates, even though they are placed slightly differently in the mouth. Admittedly, from my perception of German recordings the alveolar Pinyin c-/z- distinction is much harder to gain though...

 

 

 

We look forward to your recording.

[fas_et_nefas]

I have been away for a while, so I didn't follow up on this topic, my apologies. Actually, I plan to do my recordings next weekend when I have some more free time. Before that I can still familiarize myself with the recording program and think of a proper method to 'expose' my problems.

 

And Michaelys, in my variety of German there is no 'Dsch', which generally only occurs in foreign words. To make things worse,  my variety, Austrian German, does not know any real distinction between d,t and b, p either, something more to struggle with in Chinese. But you are right, in a word like 'tschüss' there is an aspirated affricate that is arguably close to the Chinese q, though, as you also say, the place of articulation of both parts of the affricate slightly differ in both languages (I guess it's always a good thing to think of Chinese sounds to be produced in most places of articulation more in front than their closest counterparts in many European languages)

It seems to me that the similarity here is as much a blessing as it is a curse. Initially you think that you can produce this sound with much less effort than other alien sounds that your native system totally lacks (as for me ch, zh, sh, r), but the more you dive into the language, the more you can also see that old habits die hard - that you either systematically use the 'closest relative' from your own mother tongue or that in any conscious effort to change this bad habit, the sound you try to produce seems far stranger than most totally alien sounds  - at least that's my experience . 

[Ruben von Zwack]

Oh, you're Austrian, that's cool! We're neighbours then.

 

I know what you mean that it is a blessing and a curse. At least it's easy for us to say "xue"! But when I attended at a language school in Beijing recently, the first thing my teacher did was correct my "sh", "ch" and "zh". Seems I was positioning my tongue wrong all the time before. I can only imagine what strong of an accent that created.

[alanmd]

I created a little script which could be used by the original poster to create lists of words that cause pronunciation problems: example list based on the original post - you can modify the regex quite easily, or deselect all the HSK levels and search again if you want more obscure words.