I couldn’t pronounce “c” and “z” until I learned linguistics. Then, I realized that English had both of these sounds, not at the beginning of a word, but at the end. For example, “states” or “its” end with the pinyin “c.” To say “cai”, the Chinese word for “vegetable,” I just said “i–ts” + “ai” = “cai.” The same can be done with “z.” It occurs in English also, “reads.”
Mandarin Click by Click
James Steed's Free Mandarin Chinese Lesson Online
Hi James
Thanks for pointing me in the direction of this post.
To be honest I do think I have the concept right. My teacher was a Mandarin speaker from Taiwan and by listening to her audio samples I discovered that the word ‘cai’ was indeed adding a ‘t’ + ‘s’ and then the rest ‘ai’ to get the correct pronunciation.
However, I have had issues with this in mainland China and also here in NZ where they seem to drop the s totally and say it more like ‘tai’. What I think should be happening is to pronounce the ‘t’ and ‘s’ but relax my jaw and soften the sound – drop my jaw literally when I say it to get the desired effect. :)
That would work. It would sound less choppy that way. I have made conscious decisions to say things less choppy. For example, when I first learned the word ‘xian1 sheng1,” I hated saying it because it sounded choppy to me. I solved that one by saying it the Taiwanese Mandarin way, “xian1 seng1.” “s” and “sh” are in free variation in Taiwanese. That was okay, but then the people on the mainland said I sounded Taiwanese. On the mainland I also realized, due to language change, many of the tones in bi-syllabic words had been dropped or converted to the neutral tone. They now pronounce it “Xian1 shen.” That solved choppiness equally well. The only problem is that many people on the mainland, having dropped the tones in the second syllable in addition to having more back vowels, “sound” either like they are rude or they are talking to themselves. They aren’t, of course. To English speakers, it sounds like grumbling. It isn’t. It’s hard to stop instant almost hard-wired emotional reactions to their responses.
One has to be careful using mainland or Taiwanese Mandarin or any one as a model. They all have accents. Many of the Taiwanese drop exchange the “ch” and “sh” sound for “ts” and “s,” while the southerners in mainland China take the final “n” in a work and nasalize the final vowel. So the word for three “san” sounds like “sa” spoken by someone with a sinus cold. In Shandong, “de” is more often pronounced “di.” Therefore, like English, there are many varieties of Chinese. Even the Beijingers have their Beijingisms, like “shi” becoming “shar” as in “Jin1 tian mei2 shar4.” Who do you follow? You would be hard-pressed to find someone to claimed the speak the prescriptive “standard English.” In China, they have decided to create a “standard Chinese” ( putonghua),” most closely associated with “Dongbeihua.” However, we must be reminded that Shandong is also in Dongbei and if you go to the one of the earliest posts on this blog, you can hear Eric Shepherd’s Shandong fast storytelling. People would claim that his storytelling is not standard Mandarin. Of course, not. Dr. Shepherd has purposely chosen to speak the way because that tradition of story-telling came from that province.
On the one hand, I say “Go for it.” Do what you want. I got ride of all my Beijingisms in 1977 because everyone in Taiwan wanted me to speak so that they could hear. I got tired of entertaining everyone. On the other hand, I had to record Click by Click three times to get the pronunciation “acceptable” to most Chinese teachers around the world. The first time the sound quality was poor, the second time was Taiwanese Mandarin patterns, and the third time I got a team including a good consultant to help me with the text and a couple of Beijinger to act out the dialogs and run the practices. They made very good models. There was one day that the male Beijinger couldn’t make it and he was replaced by a southern China speaker who spoke what was supposed to have been “good standard Chinese.” As soon as I heard the nasalized “sa” for “san.” I knew I was in trouble again. So, when I got back to Taiwan, I had to re-record lesson 1 and a couple other small places. It was a big headache. The costs of “getting it right” were astronomical. However, that was done in order to gain acceptance by a wide hard-to-please opinionated audience.
Hi James
Quite an eye opener to read your reply. You have so much knowledge to share :)
Thanks for your confirmation on my interpretation of the ‘c’ sound.
During the first few months in China I was told that my Mandarin sounded very standard. At the time I wasn’t quite sure whether that was a compliment or a bad thing. At the time I wondered whether the person had meant that my Chinese sounded like the Taiwanese accent. I didn’t ask so not quite sure what I was to make of that feedback. I am still not sure :) but I’m hoping in retrospect that it meant I was doing an ok job.
A native speaker told me that pronunciation is not all that important because people all over China pronounce words differently because of the different regional differences – something I already know. According to this native speaker it is ok to just get your pronunciation only approximately right because people will be able to tell from context what you’re trying to say.
This likely applies to native speakers but to me hearing anything but standard pronunciation throws me off the tracks completely. E.g. ‘shuo’ being pronounced as ‘suo’. Malaysian Chinese as well as some mainland Chinese sometimes do this. Clearly a big difference therefore can’t quite understand why the pronunciation is so different for this sound.
Mandarin is difficult but it surely keeps the brain working, doesn’t it? :)