|
Here's all you need to know to start speaking mandarin with confidence:
Tones
Tones can be quite daunting if you don't already speak a tonal language. Still, the concept is quite easy: the way you pronounce a syllable (or a word) changes its meaning. The trick is getting the tones right.
Mandarin is quite simple, in the sense that there are just four possibilities. Mind you, the tones change quite a bit from place to place (the tones in Xian have little in common with the ones in Beijing), and you won't be completely misunderstood if you make a small mistake - as long as you distinguish the four tones properly.- Flāt: Just keep your pronunciation steady. Don't fall, don't rise, don't anything. Just keep the damn thing steady. Pretend to be a singer sustaining a note in a Bas-like diva manner if you must, but don't change your pitch.
Ríse: Let your pitch rise as if you were making a question. Except the "question intonation" is just inside the syllable. Start low, go upwards. That's pretty much it.
Bŏunce: This is by far the most fun tone in Beijing Mandarin. Start high, get low, and then bounce back up.
Fàll: Start with a really high pitch and then go down. It's just like saying "Fuck" when you stub your toe, except you can hold the sound a bit longer.
There's actually a fifth possibility, called the "neutral" tone, but you don't need to care about it. Just pay attention to how people make yes-no questions with "ma" and imitate them.
Consonants:
All right, this is the really tricky part. There are many consonants in Mandarin that should be familiar to you - however, some of them should sound really alien as well.
The main distinction between French/English consonants and their Mandarin counterparts is that voicing is important in these European languages, whereas aspiration plays a bigger role in Mandarin. I'm going to call these consonants "blow" and "no". The difference between them is clear: when you say the "blow" consonants with a sheet of paper in front of your mouth, the paper should move; when you say the "no" consonants, they don't. This is what we call aspiration, but I just thought you'd have more fun knowing that Chinese girls like to blow.
Here's the very first difference you need to master: say "pin", "spin" and "bin". The "p" in "pin" is a blow consonant, while the "p" in "spin" isn't. This is the difference between Chinese /p/ and /b/ (I'm using these slashes to represent the different sounds, as opposed to the letters).
Now, since you're learning pinyin, I'm going to sort the difficult consonants between "blow" and "no" and explain how they're to be pronounced (I'm not going to bother you with the consonants you do already know):
| Blow | No | What the hell is going on? | | p /pʰ/ | b /p/ | pin and spin. Simple as that. You can pronounce "b" as an actual /b/ if you want, they won't even notice. | | t /tʰ/ | d /t> | teen and steam. You can say dean for the latter as well. No probs. | | k /kʰ/ | g /k/ | kin and skin. Say gain if you want to keep the "g" as an actual "g" in your head. | | q /tɕʰ/ | j /tɕ/ | This is where your headache begins. This sounds a lot like "ch", except it's pronounced a tad bit more forward in the mouth. You can say "ch" for all they care, as long as you remember to make the aspiration with the letter "q". "j" can sound just like the first letter of your name. | | ch /ʈʂʰ/ | zh /ʈʂ/ | This is a bit trickier. It still sounds like a "ch", except you have to curl up your tongue as if you were trying to pronounce the letter "r" at the same time. You're Canadian though, so it's probably just like saying "church" really really quick  | | c /tsʰ/ | z /ts/ | The "z" sounds like the z in "pizza". The "c" is its aspirated version. Not much of a challenge. | | Voiced | Voiceless | Now let's go to a distinction you're already used to! | | r /ʐ/ | sh /ʂ/ | Say "z" and "s" with your tongue curled way way on the back of your mouth, as if you're saying "pleasure" and "sure" in a somewhat retarded manner (that's closest you've got in the English language). |
I guess that's all you need to build up some more confidence in the language. Try to listen to it as much as you can, and get used to pinyin tables. Try to make small associations ("j" with "Jay", "z" with pizza", and "q" with "chiqachiqa-wow-wow!") to help you master the most bizarre letters/digraphs. You can copy and paste the bits between // on Wikipedia and you should find more examples (although not always in Chinese).
Are the vowels okay? The same vowel can sound very different depending on the context, mind you.
___________________
Indiana Clones Upcoming Sets
[ I May Upload Something Someday ]
|
