Chinese >
In many cases, Chinese is a totally alien language compared to English. Some of the sounds are similar, but the tongue is in a different position.
The most unfortunate problem is that pinyin wasn’t designed to solve pronunciation but was created to provide jobs to linguists. There’s only a confusing match between phonetically-written English and pinyin, and a beginner will be easily overwhelmed.
So I’m going to do the work to describe, as best I can, various pinyin pronunciation items. I’m also going to develop a better way to phonetically write Chinese so my pronunciation learning curve isn’t so steep. I think I’ll look into the International Phonetic Alphabet as well.
Learning by ear is, of course, perfectly reasonable. I would recommend it. However, thinking long-term.. separately memorizing the pronunciation of every individual word is pretty ridiculous. Keep in mind that Chinese people don’t have a consistent language, and I wouldn’t bet there’s a lot of consistency on pronunciation. Learning things “properly” with a universally-applicable skill would be best in the long-run.
Things to understand ∞
TODO
The basic alphabet ∞
TODO
Note that combinations of letters make things more complex.
| a | As a in father. |
| b | As p in spy. |
| c | |
| d | |
| e | |
| f | |
| g | As k in sky but with less aspiration. |
| h | |
| i | As i in machine. |
| j | As j, with the tongue tip forward where the teeth meet. Distinguish from q which has more breath. |
| k | |
| l | |
| m | |
| n | (As n in English) |
| o | |
| p | |
| q | As j, with the tongue forward where the teeth meet and more breath. Distinguish from j which has less breath. |
| r | Tongue flat against the roof of the mouth, but back. Almost like j+r together. TODO – are the teeth together? |
| s | |
| t | |
| u | |
| v | |
| w | |
| x | As x, with the tongue tip against the lower teeth, like a lisped ‘s’. |
| y | |
| z |
Combinations of letters ∞
TODO
- iu – like “Yo!”
-
sh – shred, tongue very far back.
Multiple-word words ∞
When a word is formed by more than one character, there are special pronunciation rules.
TODO
Media ∞
-
Mandarin Chinese English Accent 中国式英语
Stuff I’ve bumped into. Not reviewed yet..
TODO – write about initials and the other parts of words.
added some old links