How do you pronounce "晚上"?

[Christa]

How do you pronounce "晚上"? Do you say it as "wǎnshàng" like me? Or do you say it as "wǎnshang" with the second syllable becoming neutral? I was told recently that this second way is correct and standard but I don't remember ever hearing it said that way?

 

Is it really correct? Should the 上 become neutral? And, if so, is this part of a broader rule?

 

Be interested to hear what you all think,

 

Christina

[mungouk]

How are you defining "correct and standard"?

https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?page=worddict&wdrst=0&wdqb=晚上

 

(eep - edit to link to 晚上 not 网上...)

 

[imron]

31 minutes ago, Christa said:

Do you say it as "wǎnshàng" like me?

Yes if you are from Taiwan, no if you are from the mainland.

 

31 minutes ago, Christa said:

Or do you say it as "wǎnshang" with the second syllable becoming neutral?

Yes if you are from the mainland, no if you are from Taiwan.

[889]

Of course dropping the g is wrong, but I catch myself doing it all the time.

 

 

[somethingfunny]

Seems like I've got my Taiwanese accent down without even realising it.

[Christa]

16 hours ago, imron said:

Yes if you are from Taiwan, no if you are from the mainland.

 

Ah, I think I picked this up in Taiwan, yes.

 

Do they also do this in the southern Mainland?

[Christa]

It's weird though. When I listen to the pronunciation examples on forvo, they seem to be pronouncing the 上 as a fourth tone even when it's in 晚上 - this includes people from Mainland China.

 

Does it sound like that to you too? https://forvo.com/word/晚上/#zh

[Beelzebro]

I've hung about with mostly mainlanders and always heard it pronounced as a 4th tone.

[roddy]

I'd expect it to be a neutral tone. Allow me to appeal to authority Other authorities may be available.

 

Edit: Also allow me to be more useful - either is fine, but bear in mind who you're going to spend most time talking to (Taiwan? Beijing?) and being consistent (if you want the fourth tone in 晚上, I'd expect you to have it in 早上 too). 

[somethingfunny]

1 hour ago, roddy said:

if you want the fourth tone in 晚上, I'd expect you to have it in 早上 too

So you're telling me I've been saying that like a Taiwanese person as well?

[imron]

How have you been saying 里面 and 外面？

[Christa]

3 hours ago, roddy said:

晚上, I'd expect you to have it in 早上 too

 

Oh, I do...

 

3 hours ago, Beelzebro said:

I've hung about with mostly mainlanders and always heard it pronounced as a 4th tone.

 

Yeah, this is confusing me too. Isn't using the fourth tone for these quite widespread - even in the mainland?

[Beelzebro]

58 minutes ago, imron said:

How have you been saying 里面 and 外面？

 

This is what I do personally: 早上，晚上，里面 all pronounced with 4th tone. 外面，上面，下面，这边 all pronounced with neutral tone. Pronouncing any of these any other way just feels wrong to me.

[Christa]

55 minutes ago, Beelzebro said:

This is what I do personally: 早上，晚上，里面 all pronounced with 4th tone. 外面，上面，下面，这边 all pronounced with neutral tone. Pronouncing any of these any other way just feels wrong to me.

 

Me too. And aren't all these speakers using fourth tone too?: https://forvo.com/word/晚上/#zh

[陳德聰]

............ I think this is one of those “I probably say it using a neutral tone when it is convenient and with a full fourth tone when I am particularly enunciating” situations. I suppose this is “bad” if I am teaching people Mandarin and I tell them the tone is 4th when the dictionary says neutral (even the Taiwan MOE says it’s neutral!?). Whoops.

 

In reality, what’s probably happening is I think I am saying a fourth tone, but what actually comes out of my mouth is a neutral tone? I can’t be bothered to try to Praat some natural speech.

[Christa]

1 hour ago, 陳德聰 said:

............ I think this is one of those “I probably say it using a neutral tone when it is convenient and with a full fourth tone when I am particularly enunciating” situations. I suppose this is “bad” if I am teaching people Mandarin and I tell them the tone is 4th when the dictionary says neutral (even the Taiwan MOE says it’s neutral!?). Whoops.

 

In reality, what’s probably happening is I think I am saying a fourth tone, but what actually comes out of my mouth is a neutral tone? I can’t be bothered to try to Praat some natural speech.

 

Wow, this sort of thing really drives me crazy.

 

I also noted that Taiwanese dictionaries have it as a neutral tone. That's so weird. And it sound so odd to me when I say 晚上 with the 上 neutral. I feel like the word's unfinished.

 

I still don't get why it's listed as fifth - don't most speakers actually pronounce it as fourth?

[tooironic]

I can't open that forvo page right now, but I  think most would pronounce it with the neutral tone along with 早上. Either way it doesn't interfere with communication. You get the same thing with many other words in Mandarin like 爱情 打算 etc. We've been cataloguing them on Wiktionary for a while. (link)

[imron]

35 minutes ago, tooironic said:

打算

Wow.  This one is always 4th for me.

 

3 hours ago, Christa said:

Wow, this sort of thing really drives me crazy.

Language is flexible.

[snowflake]

4 hours ago, Christa said:

Wow, this sort of thing really drives me crazy.

 

There will always be regional differences and individual habits in expressing oneself....just think of the "in thing" a while back in Taiwan among some of the younger set to flatten tones. 

 

On that note, this happened to me in early March...... Pleco and some other online dictionaries have 针灸 (acupuncture) as zhēnjiǔ. Since I was going through sessions that word came up in my conversations. A native Mandarin speaker friend from the Philippines said it should be zhen1jiu4. We then asked someone from Shandong who said it should be zhen1jiu1. She ended up checking her dictionary which surprised her with zhen1jiu3. Then I mentioned this in a chat with someone from Taiwan who said it should be zhen1jiu2. She checked her dictionary which also had 1st tone, 2nd tone. 

 

[yueni]

 

6 hours ago, Christa said:

Wow, this sort of thing really drives me crazy.

 

It's probably if you're a more fluent speaker like @陳德聰, you don't actually pay much attention to tones and pronunciation because it's already second nature to you. Just like when you're speaking English, you probably don't pay attention too much and slur your words and pronunciation, which is fine most of the time, because most people understand what you're trying to say. There's a range of acceptable pronunciations, and neutral tones or fourth tones are both acceptable. Everybody would understand you, so nobody particularly cares.

 

Obviously, this can drive beginners and new language learners crazy, but for native speakers or near-native speakers, they're focusing more on the content they are saying, and as long as people understand them, perfect pronunciation isn't important. Good enough is more than sufficient for their speaking needs. For me, I don't know which I use... I'm probably in the same category as @陳德聰 at this point. I mostly pay closer attention to words I'm unfamiliar with or not used to. With words like 晚上 that are super simple and second nature to me, I don't spend time thinking about them, the way you are.