does anyone else get "t" and "p" confused?

[Ferno]

ie "tiao" and "piao"... this has happened to me several times (I check the dictionary and find out that it was a "t" instead of a "p" or vice versa, much to my surprise! ), but they seem like completely different sounds. Are the two sounds closer in mandarin?

[Quest]

no, they are very different.

[hakkaboy]

But I might get a j and a d confused. I remember talking about Beijing's Haidian area once, and the Chinese person I was talking to thought I was saying Haijian because I didn't touch the teeth for the d - the influence of an English accent!

[Lu]

I get that too (dian and jian, diao and jiao), never noticed until a friend completely didn't understand what I was talking about, after that I started to try and say them right. For some time I turned every jian into a dian, but I think I got it now.

[Altair]

ie "tiao" and "piao"... this has happened to me several times (I check the dictionary and find out that it was a "t" instead of a "p" or vice versa, much to my surprise! ), but they seem like completely different sounds. Are the two sounds closer in mandarin?

I have occasionally had this problem as well. It may have to do with the fact that the aspiration in Chinese is stronger than in English and that this causes English speakers to pay less attention to the ealier portion of the sound that precedes the puff of air.

[Ferno]

hmm Altair I think that just might be it...

[rockytriton]

I don't get those two confused, but when listening to rosetta stone say "zhuo zi shang" (on the table) and "zhuo zi xia" (under the table), it's nearly impossible to tell the difference without looking at the text.

[Ferno]

my biggest problem with listening now is the n/ng ending thing. Some people just simply pronounce all "ng" endings as an "n" - as if Mandarin didn't have too little syllables as it is. ie even with Jenny on Chinese Pod, I have to double-check every word that I learn and correct half of my "n" endings into "ng" endings... is my hearing bad or do some (southern?) speakers care as little about differenting "n" and "ng" as they do "sh" and "s"?

[peterwelm]

Femo:

I'm a southern speaker,southern speakers care more about the difference between "en" and "eng"( "in" and "ing" too,but "an" and "ang" can be very easily distinguished) than that of "zh/ch/sh" and "z/c/s".Because "eng/en" "ing/in" are difficult to be distinguished.

My expression in english is poor,I don't know whether you can understand or not.

[Ferno]

yes I understand perfectly Why the name "peterwelm"..did you just choose an English name for the forum or is it something else?

If Henan people pronounce the "ng", then I think it depends on the area of the South. Ala mentioned in the non-mandarin forum that Shanghai people do not distinguish n/ng endings because Shanghai-hua is a Wu dialect and Wu dialects do not distinguish n/ng ending. I also remember some posts a few months ago about Hangzhou people not distinguishing n/ng - well, Hangzhou is near Shanghai so Hangzhou-hua is probably a Wu dialect too.