Sound like a "robot" when speaking

[emuboy]

Hello all,

 

I have recently been practicing my speaking and have been accused of sounding like a "robot" by a Chinese mate. I think this is because the only way he can understand me is when I force my tones and sound like a tool, when I speak with my normal voice (and still try to do tones) he picks me up on a lot of mistakes. We have tried talking about random conversations and reading through the text in a Chinese text book, with both culminating in the same robotic outcome.

 

Any ideas on how to improve this?

 

Cheers!

[ChTTay]

I personally found it just got better with practice. The more I learned and moved away from “beginner” the better I sounded.

 

I think that it helped I did A LOT of tone drills with my then tutor too. 

 

I’d suggest doing tone drills until you can’t even look at another tone mark. You can also try to learn sentences rather than words in isolation.   

[Flickserve]

It's a slow process with a lot of practice.

 

Pick a few short sentences that you want to say, listen to a native speaker recording many times over. You can put it on loop play. 

 

Try to pick out extra information within the sentence such as the volume of each word, the length of time it is spoken relative to other words. That is the tricky bit. 

 

Record yourself shadowing. Don't be over ambitious trying  to do too many different sentences at once. 

 

Some people advocate practising with tone pairs. 

[889]

"I think this is because the only way he can understand me is when I force my tones."

 

Forcing tones: this is just wrong. They should be clear no matter how softly or quickly you speak. Compare "See!" and "See?" in English: the difference is apparent and always apparent. No need to exaggerate, and you'll sound silly if you do.

 

Different voices have different natural ranges. For speech practice, find a partner whose range and timbre match yours, so you can mimic more easily.

[ChTTay]

Good point. Could be more to do with your friend than you.

 

I have found some people I’ve met have real trouble reconciling the fact I’m not Chinese with the fact I’m speaking Chinese.

 

I speak Chinese everyday and it’s fine. I know I’m understandable 80-90% of the time. 

[Flickserve]

You need the repetitive listening practice to sentences to pick up the rhythm of sentences. If you can't recognise the subtle differences of the native speech, then it would be very hard to reproduce it accurately in your own speech.

 

You can post a sample recording on this forum. I did it not long ago. It's good feedback. Like you I sounded rather like forcing the tones out (for some of them). Whilst you might be correct, there are some subtle differences which other here can point out into making it a bit smoother. 

[AdamD]

I agree with others here. You'll get better with practise. At first I sounded so horrible my classmates would laugh at me.

 

Part of this is coming to understand the nuances of the speech you're hearing. Normal conversation doesn't always follow the rules you've studied. For example, I was never taught about tone sandhi (the phenomenon of 3rd tone becoming 2nd tone), even though it's an absolutely intrinsic part of speech.

[Flickserve]

Right at this moment, I am in a Chinese tutorial centre where my kid has Mandarin tutorials. The doors are open. Another HK kid about 8-9 years old is reading Chinese Mandarin out loud. Her tutor is correcting her tones and pronounciation at a frequency of every 3 to 5 words. 

[Luxi]

Often it's not the tones and actual pronunciation that are at fault, but the lack of intonation. It's very important in Chinese, as it probably is in any other language. It's made worse because we're much too self-conscious about tones, makes the speech forced and lifeless. What to do? Breath deep, relax, don't think, be natural.

 

I'm a great believer in prolonged background listening. It helps pick up the 'melody', very much like learning a song or a piece of music. It's surprising how much one really picks up without paying attention or even understanding more than the occasional word. 

 

Edited to add: I don't know if this MOOC is still available, the lessons in week 1 and 2 have quite a bit about all the nuances of pronunciation, I found them quite helpful.

魅力汉语 ('The Charm of Chinese') MOOC

[Shelley]

29 minutes ago, Luxi said:

I'm a great believer in prolonged background listening. It helps pick up the 'melody', very much like learning a song or a piece of music. It's surprising how much one really picks up without paying attention or even understanding more than the occasional word. 

 

This... I also think you have to feel less self conscious and try and just let it flow naturally. I know people will probably disagree but don't put too much too much stress on the getting the tones 100% at the expense of natural speaking. This doesn't mean ignoring tones, work hard at them, do lots of shadowing, record your self, listen carefully, correct and repeat.

 

It will also become easier when you start thinking in chinese, remember it will all get better with time.

[emuboy]

Thanks for the replies. @Flickserve I've been working through the Growing up with Chinese series and it's great, up to about lesson 17 now. I think the take home message is to just keep working at it. I'll see where I'm at in another month and have a go at some background listening.

[Flickserve]

1 hour ago, emuboy said:

I've been working through the Growing up with Chinese series and it's great, up to about lesson 17 now.

 

Ahh, tried this series myself. Vocabulary is OK but the spoken dialogue is difficult to copy (for me). They speak very fast and sometimes slur words. It's totally native Beijing but rather difficult if you are A1/A2 level. Can't remember which one I got up to. From a certain episode onwards, editing out the pinyin becomes a laborious task. 

[emuboy]

Yep, I find it brutal. But considering I'm moving to Qinhuangdao next year I figure I may as well get used to it!

[imron]

On 12/22/2017 at 6:55 AM, emuboy said:

and sound like a tool

Do you actually sound like a tool, or do you just imagine you are sounding like a tool?

 

I ask because if that's the only way he can understand you then you are doing at least one thing right compared to normal.

 

7 hours ago, emuboy said:

I'm moving to Qinhuangdao next year

I used to live in nearby Nandaihe.  Make sure to check out the 董家口 section of the Great Wall, it's much nicer (and far less touristy) than 山海关 and 老龙头 (where the Great Wall goes in to the sea), plus the local village restaurants will do whole roast lambs.  Yum.

[歐博思]

If you might want some more focused feedback, you could post a sample of your pronunciation.

[Publius]

Yup, upload a sample and see how thoroughly we can pick you apart. Haha kidding. I'm just curious how robotic it can be.

 

Speaking of Beijingese, just watched a YouTube video by 拂菻坊. Their approximation of 不知道 with "pull it down" is hilarious.

[emuboy]

@imron I suspect it's both ways haha. Cheers for the tip on the Great Wall I'll be sure to go sus it out and get some nice shots!

 

Yeah I'll upload something tomorrow and see what you guys reckon.

[emma_dear]

Maybe try it with some other Chinese people. They are generally very impressed when you try to speak Chinese at all. Robotic is also a very weird way to describe someone's way of speaking. I would like to hear a sample now, too. 

[emuboy]

I don't think it's anywhere near as bad as it was back then at this stage. I think part of the problem is that I was often using the Wechat record message feature rather than actually having a normal fluid conversation. Before I sent a message I'd be repeating what I was going to say over and over again to myself to try and get the tones right. The result was that I over-exaggerated and ridiculously slow,  I must have sounded like a moron. I think it was a super useful exercise though as my tones are much better now. I've had better luck here focusing less on tones and more on just trying to speak at a reasonable pace - not too fast, but just fast enough that they don't lose focus.

[Dawei3]

Recently, a friend from Hong Kong, who can also speak Mandarin, commented on my Chinese.  She said my tones are right, but that I'm not "sing-songy enough."  Then she proceeded to speak with exaggerated vocal variety in her Chinese (while laughing).  

 

I know what she is saying and it may be similar to Emuboy's point.  In old Chinesepod lessons, I found most of the American instructors were boring when they spoke Chinese (except John Pasden).  My sense is they were trying to ensure they got their tones right and as a result, they lost much of the natural vocal variety in their speech  - and I likely do this sometimes.  Overtime,  I think I'm getting better.....