the nose knows

[Xiao Kui]

I want to improve my spoken Chinese so it sounds more native. It´s okay but it sounds more like a guy´s Chinese (admittedly my English voice is a little low and Jodie Foster sounding, but this is my chance to start over, right? new language - clean slate.) To me the good female Chinese voices sound really nasally (newscasters, etc.) I can kind of imitate the accent and it sounds pretty close I just feel like an idiot using my nose like that. For Chinese it must feel natural but for me it feels very unnatural. Any non native female students of Chinese out there got the nose thing down? if so how is working for you? Should I just go for it?!

[lxc_hello]

difficult to say before hearing your tongue by myself. but generally when you feel unnatural in your accent, chinese will also feel unnatural.

[Lu]

I started getting it down after spending months in Taiwan, there was a girl selling lemonade there who always said Ni hao like that, she sounded like a cat (meow). Trying to imitate her helped.

But I don't like the nasal sound, it's a bit too girlish to me (even though I am a girl myself), although it's nice to be able to do it.

If you want to learn it, the advise I can give is to spend a lot of time talking with Chinese girls who talk like that, it will start to sound more normal and it will slip into your own speech. Good luck learning.

[Quest]

To me the good female Chinese voices sound really nasally.

How? Like Jenny's?

[Ferno]

and all the x sounds shift to "s", right? ie xin --> sin, xiang --> siang

[Lu]

That's a different issue, and not only girls do that.