silent 'n' in shenme and zenme?

[goldie]

when i used bopomo, i never wrote shenme with the 'n' , it was always sheme. same with zenme. when you speak it, you also don't hear the n, so why is it there in PINYIN? when i teach my students, i drop the n, simply because i don't want them pronouncing it. can anyone explain where it comes from in PINYIN and why isn't it in BOPOMO?

goldie

[HashiriKata]

Hi,

"shenme" should be pronounced "shen+me" in very slow, deliberate speech, but in normal speech, n is assimilated by m to make it smoother, easier to pronounce, and therefore you will hear "shemme". With "shemme", it's also possible to hear as / pronounce as "sheme"

The same can be said of "zenme".

[semantic nuance]

Hi,

You don't write phonetic sign 'shenme' but you have to pronounce it as 'shenme' in bopomo.

Hope it helps!

[trevelyan]

什么 sounds a lot different than 舌么. Is this a southern or Taiwanese accent thing?

[goldie]

trevelyan, in taiwan 什么 sounds the same as 舌么 if it's said in standard mandarin, but i guess the taiwanese way of saying the former is more like 'xia mi', so if you had a taiwanese accent, it could effect your mandarin.

[ala]

什 was pronounced dzep (Japanese z) in ancient Chinese, which makes sense since 十 (10) was pronounced zep (English z) in ancient Chinese. Same rime.

So the 什么 being pronounced "sheme" and not "shenme" makes a lot of sense if you just look at the characters, it's impossible for dzep to go to "shen". The problem is that that n in Pinyin is supposed to be assimilated with the subsequent m, so "shemme" and also the character 什 was just a rough phonetic substitute for the sound. Kind of like in Japanese where shinbun becomes shimbun.

[semantic nuance]

In Taiwan, we do say 'shenme' instead of 'she-me', goldie. I said earlier that the phonetic for 什麼 is she2me5, but in reality we pronounce it as shen2me5. It's a transformation from the sound. In japanese, I remember some katakana will change its sound when some other katakana goes after it.

[mantis]

I encountered this problem when I study English. My teacher keeped asking me to be nasal enugh. However it is hard for a native Mandarin speaker.

Although "n" in either Mandarin or English is thought to be pronounced as [n] in International Phonetic Alphabet(narrow transcription), there is some difference.

When "n" is behind a vowel(-n), it is pronounced quite differently in Mandarin and English. A native Mandarin speaker just "pretends" to pronounce -n in Pinyin an or en. Your tip of tongue should touch your lower teeth back all the time, but never touch your Alveolar ridge. Thus, an and en are almost sound like monophthongs. That's why a lot of English speakers miss "n"when they listen to a native Mandarin speaker speaking, while native Mandarin speakers always think native English speakers are too nasal.

I think it is necessary to point out to a learner each and every time he or she occurs with mistake. I am seeking someone who can write in pinyin or Chinese characters to be my pen pal. You can help me with my English composition, and I can help you with your Chinese in return. Would you please help me find my mistakes in my post? I will appreciate it very much. si1xi2tian1wen2@yahoo.com.cn There are so many subtleties in a foreign language. It is necessary to have native speaker to help you.

[zhwj]

Even when the -n is assimilated, there are going to be differences in syllable break and vowel quality between 什么 and 舌么, because shen is not just she with an added -n.

Check this: PPT lecture notes from Guangxi Normal University.

It's hard to tell in your own speech, since when you pay attention, you usually enunciate more precisely and avoid a situation that would run syllables together. Assimilation is one of those things that native speakers aren't usually aware of but that second language learners study to make their pronunciation sound connected and natural.

Sometimes native speakers are hostile to the suggestion - when I was teaching the English assimilation patterns, I had a student who told me after class that "When you speak English, you try to make things easy. When we Chinese speak putonghua, we try to be correct."