70. 5 Common Pronunciation Mistakes Chinese Speakers Make

Hey, welcome to the Influency Podcast. I'm Hadar, and this is episode number 70. And today we're gonna talk about common pronunciation challenges Mandarin Chinese speakers face.

Hello.

Hello. Thank you so much for tuning in for another episode. And today I will be doing my.

Favorite thing, the whole world.

Well, probably after lying in bed on a Saturday afternoon reading a book, and probably after spending time with my girls.

But okay, one of my favorite things.

To do, which is to compare the phonology of two languages. What is phonology? Phonology is basically how we perceive the sounds or how they're categorized in our brain.

Now, if you go to Wikipedia, you're.

Gonna probably get something a little different, a different definition, but this is how I explain it in a simple way. There is phonetics, which is what our mouth produces, the sounds that the mouth produces, and the acoustics of the sounds. But there is phonology, which is how those sounds are organized in the brain and categorized and how we use them to produce words and utterances and sentences. So when we talk about pronunciation and pronunciation challenges, there is, yes, first the phonetics, like what we need to do with the mouth, right? Is the tongue too far back or too forward? Do we round our lips or not? And all of that. But there is also how we hear the sounds. Well, not really hear, but how we perceive them. Because sometimes what the brain perceives is not what the ear hears. So that's what we're talking about, what we're really talking about when we come to analyze someone's pronunciation or accent. Okay, so today I did that with Chinese, Mandarin Chinese. And what I usually do when I talk about these challenges is compare the two languages. I look at the syllable structure, and I look at the sounds that exist in. In this case, Mandarin Chinese. And I see, are there any sounds that are missing that English has? Because then I know there's going to be a challenge. Is there some sort of pronunciation restriction that happens in Chinese? So, yes, like, usually at the end of syllables, you can't have too many consonants or sometimes any consonants. And if that's the case, then when these speakers come across a word that has a lot of consonants at the end or consonants that are not allowed.

In Chinese, there's going to be a problem.

And, you know, sometimes learners just try to repeat the proper pronunciation again and again and again, and they don't understand what the problem is and why what comes out of their mouth does not correspond with how the word should sound. And they don't understand that there are some These subconscious processes that prevent them from pronouncing the word the way they want to pronounce it. And honestly, sometimes simply by understanding it and becoming aware of these differences or restrictions, then it really simplifies everything and, and gives them the ability to work on it from a more powerful and knowledgeable place. And that's what I have for you today. So even if you're not a Mandarin Chinese speaker, then this is extremely valuable for you to see how I compare these two languages because you can do that for your native language as well. I've done it also with Russian, Brazilian, Portuguese, Korean and Spanish. So I'm going to link to all of those below if you are a speaker of one of those languages. But today we are in Mandarin Chinese. So let's get started with understanding the main challenges that Mandarin Chinese speakers face and how to overcome them.

Foreign. Hey, it's Hadar. Thank you so much for joining me. Today we are going to talk about the most common pronunciation challenges Mandarin Chinese speakers face. Most of the challenges that we're going to talk about in this episode are going to be relevant for most Mandarin Chinese speakers, but also some of them are going to be relevant for speakers of other languages spoken in China. What we're going to do in this episode is we're going to talk about the challenge, talk about why it is so challenging by trying to understand the two different languages, Mandarin Chinese and English. Finally, I'm going to give you actionable tips and exercises that are going to help you overcome these challenges and speak with clarity and confidence. Now, if you'd like to take what you learned here and put it into practice, I have prepared for you an American pronunciation guide for for Mandarin Chinese speakers, it is completely free. And it's where I outline all those challenges and include drills and exercises for you to practice on your own. So click on the link in the description to download it for free. Let's begin with challenge number one. The first challenge is the pronunciation of consonant clusters. A consonant cluster is a sequence of several consonants, more than one consonant, one after another, without any intervening vowels. We can have clusters at the beginning of words, like in the word strange, S, T, er that's a sequence of three consonants, texts. And sometimes we have clusters in the middle, like accent, accent. Now, while in American English, we're allowed to have syllables, which is the smallest unit in a word with up to four consonants at the end and three at the beginning. In Mandarin Chinese, that is not the case. At the beginning of words, you can only have up to two consonants. And only if the second consonant is like a Y sound, sound, or w. And at the end of the word. Not only that, you can only have up to one consonant, definitely not two, three, or four, like in English. Also, usually the consonant at the end is either m or m, n or ng. And here lies the problem. When Mandarin Chinese speakers speak English, they need to use structures and sequences that they say simply don't have in their native language. As a result, what they might be doing is to either drop consonants so it fits the structure of Mandarin Chinese. So a word like texts might sound like tex, or accent may sound like ascent, and street might sound like treat. So that's one way for Mandarin Chinese speakers to handle that challenge. Another way is just to start adding vowels in between breaking syllables into more than one. For example, the word ask may turn into ask, adding another vowel that doesn't originally exist, ultimately sounding unclear and unintelligible. Now, the good news is that even though that might be challenging to pronounce all consonants in a sequence, the pronunciation of every single consonant is a little less challenging. That might be even easy for you, because some of them exist in Mandarin Chinese. So the problem starts with putting them all together in a sequence. Yet it is not physically impossible. So it's all a matter of perception how you perceive the word and being aware of the fact that you need to pronounce all consonants. And if you drop the consonants, it may affect your clarity big time, because dropping consonants really changes the meaning of the word or changes the word completely. And if you add vowels, that can also interfere with your clarity. So knowing that you can pronounce them and it's just a matter of putting it together may make it a little easier. And again, I've prepared for you a workbook with lists of words for you to practice so it's easier and accessible. And what I want you to do is to just pronounce those consonants at the beginning, with middle or, and really slowly. So ideally, you want to break it down first. For example, if we take the word accent, we first need to understand the transition K s, that is the cluster k s, and say it back and forth so you understand what your mouth is actually doing. K S, K S, K s, and then put it within the context of.

The word.

Accent, and then gradually start saying it a little faster and a little faster. Same thing with the word text. So in the word text, breaking it down into consonants, we have te, K s, T s. Think about what your tongue is doing for every single consonant. K s, T text and Then try to connect it. And then you go a little faster and a little faster. Text, text. Until you start pronouncing it clearly and effortlessly. And then you take that word and you want to put it in context. Have you read the text? Have you read the text? Have you read the text? And a good way for you to practice would be to record yourself and to make sure that you're not dropping any consonants or not adding any vowels. Let's move on to the next challenge. The next challenge is the pronunciation of diphthongs. Diphthongs are changing vowels within the same syllable. It's where your tongue moves from one position to. To another within the same syllable. For example, the word day, A light, I. Focus, O. Here you can hear the transition from. Mandarin Chinese. Speakers tend to just drag the first sound without shifting to the next sound sound. And then a word like pain may sound like pen. A word like night may sound like nut, and then the word boat may sound like bought. So the transition is really important for clarity. When it comes to diphthongs, there are two types. One, diphthongs that end with an e sound and diphthongs that end with an ooh. I lied. So I want you to imagine as if you're adding a J sound at the end. And do not finish the sound until you hit the I sound.

Lie.

Ee, ee. Eat. Do. Oo, oo, unt. Now, ow. Oo, oo, oo. Boy, I. And then day, E, E. Date. Okay, so visualize that extra Y sound or w sound, like a y and w coming in between the vowel and the next consonant to make sure that you're actually pronouncing the full diphthongs. And of course, it's going to be a little longer, so make sure you stretch the vowel and double it up, because a diphthong is. Is a double vowel. Another challenge is the pronunciation of the dark l. In American English, there are two types of the light L, L, as in listen, where the tip of the tongue touches the upper palate, and the dark L that appears after a vowel and before a consonant or at the end of the word. And that's where the tongue pulls back. The root of the tongue kind of like spreads, and the tip of the tongue may or may not touch the upper palate. Well, help. Milk. In Mandarin Chinese, there is the l sound. I call it the ultralight l, where the tip of the tongue touches the upper palate. However, it never appears at the end of words. But not only that, because the quality of the dark L of American English, well, is different than what they perceive to be an L sound. It doesn't have that light la la la quality of the L that exists in Chinese. So they analyze it not as an L, but as an U sound. So it ends up being something closer to a W sound. And then the word goal may sound like go, and the word ball may sound like bo, and the word people may sound like people. So the L becomes an U sound. Sometimes it doesn't affect clarity so much, and sometimes it does very much. So even though you may learn that you don't have to bring the tip of the tongue to touch the upper palate for the dark L, for Mandarin Chinese speakers, I highly recommend to focus on bringing the tip of the tongue to touch the upper palate for the L at the end of words. So practice lists of words that end with l and make sure that the tip of the tongue touches the upper palate and hold out the sound. You can even keep your lips rounded just a bit. And then make sure that you feel that there is a difference between that sound, people, and the sound that you're used to making people where the tongue doesn't touch and anything. Now, while it may sound closer to a very, very light L, that is okay. The most important thing is that it's going to be associated more like an L sound rather than like a vowel or an U sound, because then the word goal may be perceived as go. It may sound like an o as in go sound. Okay? So we want to make sure that you are clear, even if it's not 100% accurate according to American pronunciation. Remember, accuracy is not as important as clarity. Clarity is always far more important. And for you to be clear pronouncing words that end with an L, you need to bring the tip of the tongue to touch the upper palate, to feel it touching and to hold it out a little bit. You can keep the tension that is already there when you pronounce the dark l, because you turn it into an U sound, and that tension is good enough. When you combine those two things, it ends up sounding like a dark L. Boom. The next challenge is prosody. Prosody is intonation rhythm. Stress is how you put it all together, and all of that good stuff. American English or British English, prosody is very different than the prosody of Mandarin Chinese. In American English, content words, nouns, verbs, adjectives are usually longer, higher in pitch and stressed, whereas function words, all the, on, in, at, could, would, should, m, is, are, are totally reduced to A very short vowel sound, the schwa, and are put together and barely pronounced. They're kind of like you mumble through those words. So there is a strong hierarchy between more important words that are longer, louder, higher in pitch, and less important words. And even within that sentence, there is a clear distinction between the key words, usually one or two in a sentence that help us deliver a clear message. In Mandarin Chinese, that is not the case. There isn't a clear distinction between content words and function words. As a result, Mandarin Chinese speakers may put the same emphasis on every single word in the sentence. And because English speakers are used to hearing hearing the language through the filter of prosody, meaning they know how to focus on the words that matter. Because they hear that they're longer all of a sudden. If they don't hear that, it's harder for them to understand what the other person is saying or where the focus of the sentence is. So you could be pronouncing everything clearly, but if you don't put the focus on the right words and you don't use the elements of stress that that negative speakers expect to hear, there may be a miscommunication. So a way to overcome this challenge is to make sure that you raise the pitch and hold out words that are more important, all the content words, the words that deliver the message, versus reducing the words that matter a little less, putting less emphasis there and not stressing them exactly the same as content words. Also, you might want to pay attention that the pitch goes up significantly only for key words in a sentence. Usually it's like one significant word in a sentence, unlike Mandarin Chinese, where the pitch tends to go up almost on every other word. That's also because Mandarin Chinese is a tonal language, and tone plays a significant part in Mandarin Chinese, not so much in English. So raising the pitch or changing the tone in English words may sound like you're stressing the word, even though that word might not be that important. And then as a result, it might be a little less clear for the listener. So understanding that there is this hierarchy can truly help you manage this challenge. And again, more tips and tricks on how to overcome it you can find in the workbook that I've prepared for you. Lastly, we're going to talk about words ending with N, like sin and win. In Mandarin Chinese, the N sound does exist, even at the end of words. However, there is this thing that happens in Mandarin Chinese where speakers tend to drop the N and instead just make the vowel right before it a little nasal. This happens in Mandarin Chinese, and it's totally fine. And everyone speaks like that, so there is no confusion. However, when Mandarin Chinese speakers speak English and come across words that end with an N, they subconsciously tend to do that too. So instead of saying win, they may say something like making the sound nasal and even putting a little bit of an ng sound at the end. The problem is that there is a word with ng that sounds like that, and that is the word wing, wing, win. The tip of the tongue touches the upper palate for the N, wing. The substitution of those two sounds, even if it's done subconsciously, may cause lack of clarity because basically what happens is that you're changing the word from win to wing sin, sing. So to overcome this, you want to understand first of all the different pronunciation of the two. So, as we said, for the N, the tip of the tongue goes up. For the ng, the back of the tongue goes up in the back, and the air comes out through the nose. In both cases, the air comes out through the nose. Win, wing, sin, sing, ron. Wrong. Okay, so you first want to drill words that end with an N just to train your tongue to touch the upper palate. Again, it's not physically challenging. It's just all here. If there is a challenge, it's here. So you want to practice bringing the tip of the tongue up to touch the upper palate. Just like with the L, make sure that the tongue touches the upper palate. You can even use a mirror, drill words that end with an N at the end and then compare it with words that have ng, which is the easier pronunciation for Mandarin speakers. So then you compare minimal pairs. Win, wing, sin, sing, ron, wrong. So on and so forth. Okay, that's it. If you are a Mandarin Chinese speaker, then be sure to first share it with your friends. And let me know in the comments below which one of the five challenges that I talked about is the most challenging one for you. Also, be sure to download the free American pronunciation guide for Mandarin Chinese speakers that I've prepared for you so you can practice it and overcome those challenges easily and effortlessly. Thank you so much for watching. Have a beautiful, beautiful week and I will see you next week in the next video.

Bye.