Tension when speaking

[Kijn the Relar]

So now I think I have a decent awareness of each tone and can pronounce them slowly however when I try to speak quicker, my tones cause alot of tension in my throat and jaw. I dont know if anyone has experienced this, is it just a matter of practicing slowly more?

 

More so is the sh zh sounds. I can pronounce then ok but I get so much tension from these sounds and its exhausting. Do I just need to keep practicing slowly? Anyone else relate to this?  How far back should my tongue be? I have alot of trouble switching between X and Sh in. Phrases like 「我是學生」cause me alot of problems.

 

 

 

 

[Yadang]

When you try to speak quicker, are you still trying to say the tones in the same way as when you're saying them really slowly?

 

If you are, that might be the problem. Tones in real native speech are a far cry away from the tones learnt at the beginning stages from textbooks. If you have a decent awareness of textbook tones already, start to listen to native speech and see if you can identify them there. Then try to imitate how they're said in real native speech. I recommend shadowing and/or chorusing. Record yourself saying a phrase that the native speaker said (you can use podcasts, or movies - or if those are still to hard, begin with textbook materials that are more near to their native counterparts) and then compare your recording with that of the native speaker. Identify places where you're off, or over-exaggerating (or under exaggerating) tones, and re-record, re-compare, etc. 

 

Anki has a nice recording feature for this so you can combing srs with chorusing. 

 

On sh zh pronunciation, have you looked into Sinoplice's pronunciation guide?

 

Also, check out the Chinese Pronunciation Wiki.

 

ChinesePod also has a pronunciation guide (made by the same guy, John Pasden) which is really good, and free.

 

Try looking at all three of these for sh and zh and see if one of them describes making them in a way that makes more sense to you.

[Flickserve]

Keep practicing and follow native speaker speech to get it smoother. 

 

It will happen many times with other combinations.  It's part and parcel of learning of any new language. 

 

I spent 3 lessons on getting better accuracy on z zh,  c ch,   s sh,