Chinese pronunciation for English speakers: the sounds that trip you up (video)
Most Mandarin sounds exist in English; a handful don't. Hear zh, ch, sh, r, j, q, x, ü and e against their near-twins, and learn where your tongue goes.
Chapters
- 0:00Start
- 0:22The short answer
- 0:44Which sounds are new?
- 1:53The eight trouble sounds
- 2:13Hear the difference in pairs
- 2:52Pinyin spelling traps
- 3:15zh, ch, sh, r vs j, q, x
- 4:37The vowels ü, e and i
- 5:26Endings: n, ng and erhua
- 6:05What to do next
Transcript
Start
English has one S H sound, as in ship. Mandarin has two: a curled one in 是, to be, and a flat one in 西, west. Swap them, and you've said a different word. From SayMei Guides, by Mei Lin: Chinese pronunciation for English speakers. The sounds that trip you up.
The short answer
The short answer: most Mandarin sounds already exist in English. The trouble comes from a handful: the curled Z H, C H, S H and R, the flat J, Q and X, and three vowels. Together, they turn up in nearly two syllables in five. So learn to hear each one against its English near-twin, then copy it.
Which sounds are new?
So which sounds are new? Start with the syllables. A Mandarin syllable starts with at most one consonant, and ends in a vowel, N or N G. English lets up to four consonants end one, as in strengths. And most of the pieces are familiar. Eight consonants work just as they do in English. Seven need only a small change, like an extra puff of air. The real work sits in two rows of the chart, plus three vowels. And you can't learn around them. We counted every syllable in 33.5 million words of film and TV subtitles. Nearly two in five had a sound English lacks. The single word 是, to be, makes up 2% of all the syllables said on screen. Z H, C H, S H or R start 16.7% of all syllables, and J, Q or X start 12.3%. And 儿化, the Beijing R? Just 0.2%. So start with the tongue sounds: together, they begin almost three syllables in ten.
The eight trouble sounds
Each tricky sound has an English near-miss. That's what your mouth reaches for, and it's what an accent is made of. Here are the eight, with a fix for each. Notice that two rows share one near-miss: English J, C H and S H stand in for two different sets of Mandarin sounds.
Hear the difference in pairs
Train your ear before your mouth. In a 1997 study, Japanese adults trained only to hear English R and L also said them better. A review of 32 such studies found the training works, and the gains last. It uses pairs that differ in one sound, like 少, few, and 小, small. Our sound lab has eight pairs like that. Listen to both words, then test your ear: the lab plays one, and you pick. Record yourself, and compare with the model. It plays a single voice, so also listen for each pair in songs, shows and conversations.
Pinyin spelling traps
Why does pinyin fool English eyes? It was adopted in 1958 to write Mandarin, and it gave several Latin letters sounds that English spells another way. That's why 七, seven, spelled Q I, looks like 'kee', when it's closer to 'chee'. Here are the ten that trip readers up most. Learn them, and most of the rest says what it looks like.
zh, ch, sh, r vs j, q, x
Now, where does your tongue go? For Z H, C H, S H and R, lift the tip to just behind the bony ridge above your top teeth. They're often called retroflex: curled back. But a classic study of Beijing speakers found only a slight curl. The tip rises, and the underside stays out of it. R uses the same position. Hold the S H sound, switch on your voice, and you get a buzz close to the middle sound of measure: that's the R in 人, person. Still sounding English? Check your lips. English S H usually pushes them forward, and Mandarin S H doesn't need to. J, Q and X go the other way: tip down behind your bottom teeth, the middle of your tongue up, and a smile. Here's a shortcut to X. Say the Y sound of yes, and hold it. Whisper it, and that's close to X. Start it with a light T, and you get J. Release it with a strong puff, and you get Q. You can hear it in the pitch of the hiss. In our pinyin chart's recordings, S sits at about 10 to 11 kilohertz, X at about 7, and S H at about 5 to 6. So if your X sounds like English S H, brighten the hiss: tip down, middle up, lips spread.
The vowels ü, e and i
English ears tend to hear U with two dots as the vowel in food. To make it, say the vowel in see, freeze your tongue, and round your lips. That's 绿, green. Pinyin hides it, too. After J, Q, X and Y, the dots are dropped, so 去, to go, and 雨, rain, both have it. Mandarin E is its mirror image. Say oh, keep your tongue still, and spread your lips: that's 喝, to drink. And the letter I hides one more vowel. After Z, C, S, Z H, C H, S H or R, it's the consonant's own tongue position, held and voiced. So 是, to be, isn't the English word 'she'.
Endings: n, ng and erhua
Apart from the R of 儿化, only N and N G can end a Mandarin syllable, and swapping them changes the word: 饭, meal, isn't 放, to put. A quarter of all syllables in our count end in one of the two. So finish each on purpose: the tongue tip up for N, the back of the tongue up for N G. And what about 儿化? It adds an R sound to the end of a syllable, and Beijing speech is full of it. But in our count, it turned up in about one syllable in 600, and it's very rare in Taiwan. So learn to recognise it now. Using it can wait until the other sounds feel solid.
What to do next
So, what next? Run the ear test on one pair a day, until you rarely miss. Fix the tongue sounds first. Keep the spelling traps handy. Record yourself, and compare with the model. And practise in real phrases, because a sound you can say alone can still slip in fast speech. Ready to say them out loud? You can talk with Mei Lin for free: your first lesson is 10 minutes, with no account and no card. The sound lab and every source are on the page at saymei dot app.