i) pronouns like 我， 你

ii) grammatical particles like 了，过， 吗 and

iii) words with classical Chinese origins like 马 and 笔.

Because words not characters are the basic units of spoken communication it’s important to learn to pronounce words. That means working on the pronunciation of words, specifically 2-character words. This means that getting a grip on tone pairs is vitally important for your Chinese pronunciation.

What’s a tone pair? It’s a fancy way of talking about the combination of two tones in a two character word. 今天 jīntiān for example would be a 1-1 tone pair because it is two first tones. 你好 nǐhǎo is a 3-3 tone pair because it is two third tones. 北京 běijīng is 3-1, a third tone followed by a first tone. You get the picture.

The cool thing is that there are only 20 of these tone pair combinations. Learn these 20 combinations and get used to the sound of them and you have a framework from which to hang the majority of Chinese words from. Very powerful.

This is a chart of all the tone pair combinations possible with two characters.

You can find a lot more about tone pairs in this blog article . There’s also a larger downloadable version of this chart and bunch of other resources there.

How to practice tone pairs? The blog post linked above has a lot of ideas but here’s a summary:

1. With a native speaker on iTalki or another conversation exchange service.
2. Check out the Sensible Chinese Pronunciation Package which has a whole book + audio package dedicated to Tone Pair Drills.
3. Use the Tone Pair Drills built into WaiChinese to practice directly with a teacher ($2.5 for the first month).

The main thing is that you get native Chinese feedback, without which it’s very hard to improve. That’s the topic of the next section.

The post Chinese Pronunciation: Practicing Tones in Isolation appeared first on Sensible Chinese.

The complexity arises because the third tone is almost always altered by the tones used around it. As a result it causes the most difficulty for people learning Chinese.

This is the best way I’ve found to help people learn the 3^rd tone fast by being able to compare their pitch graph with that of their native speaking teacher.

The other thing you need to practice are the third tone tone-change. When a 3rd tone is followed by a second 3^rd tone the first 3^rd tone becomes a 2^nd tone. Try saying that ten times fast! Here’s an example that is much easier.

你好 nǐhǎo is actually pronounced ní hǎo.

I’ve written more detailed articles on the 3rd tone (and tones in general) here:

Getting Started with the Chinese Tones

The Best Method for Learning Tones: Tone Pair Drills

Because of tone change rules you should always practice Chinese pronunciation and tones in the context of WORDS not isolated character sounds. That’s the next topic I want to look at in this series.

The post Chinese Pronunciation: The 3rd tone is NOT Falling Rising appeared first on Sensible Chinese.

Instead it’s somewhere between the English “r” and “l” sound so takes a little bit of practice to locate the correct sound.

To find the Chinese “r” say the English word measure. The middle –s- of measure has a very similar buzz to the Mandarin “r” sounds.

Say “measure” and hold the vibration at the centre of the word. Can you feel the buzz? That is the Chinese “r” sound. Alternatively use the word “Asia” and feel the buzz on the “s”.

You can hear recordings on the Chinese R as well as get more detailed instructions here in our Sensible Pinyin course.

Using the English r- sound is often acceptable and you will be understood. However, if you want your pronunciation to be authentic make sure you find the sweet spot between “r” and “l” where the Chinese “r” actually resides.

The real test of whether you’ve got the initial –r correct is the word 日 rì, which sounds totally off when said with the English r- sound. Practice this with a native speaker as the ultimate test of r- mastery!

The post Chinese Pronunciation: The slippery Chinese –r sound appeared first on Sensible Chinese.

This state of affairs is not helped by the fact that these initials are not the same pronunciation as their English counterparts – these are much more “foreign” sounding sounds so often trip people up.

Therefore it is super important to learn these sounds relative to other Chinese sounds and stop referring back to English “sounds-like” comparisons. This allows us to learn one Chinese pronunciation and then modify it slightly into another Chinese pronunciation which is far more efficient than going back to English every time and trying to find equivalents.

Here’s the key:

Zh = J

Ch = Q

Sh = X

But with the tip of the tongue curled back in a higher, curled position against the hard palate. As you make the sounds the curl is released to “throw forward” the sound. The hard palate is the solid part at the roof of your mouth – try to push your tongue up into your head and you’ll be pushing against the hard palate.

So Zh is simply the Chinese J but with the tongue curled back in a higher position against the hard palate.

Ch is the Chinese Q but with the tongue curled back in a higher position against the hard palate.

Sh is the  Chinese X  but with the tongue curled back in a higher position against the hard palate.

This sounds very, very simple but is a major cause of pronunciation difficulties in Chinese. At WaiChinese we’ve collected a lot of data about what people’s exact pronunciation difficulties are. We know what problems come up for most beginner students and this is one of the most common by far.

It’s important to learn Zh, Ch and Sh relative to their back of mouth counterparts J, Q, X rather than based on their English “equivalents” which don’t exist.

The closest English equivalents for Zh, Ch, Sh are dj- , tch- and shh- which aren’t very helpful! There are greater details about how to pronounce Zh, Ch, Sh here and J, Q, X here.

The distinction between Zh/J, Ch/Q and Sh/X can trouble a lot of learners. For this reason I focused on these sounds in my Pronunciation Package. It’s available in the Sensible Chinese Language Pack.

The post Chinese Pronunciation – Zh/J, Ch/Q, Sh/X and why we learn these incorrectly appeared first on Sensible Chinese.

Boy oh boy this one is a doozy. That said, if you nail the difference between the u and ü sounds in Chinese then a whole bunch of other sounds (Zh, Ch, Sh and J, X, Q in particular) fall into place. So getting this one right is very important.

Just be glad you aren’t Korean. U and Ü are incredibly difficult for Korean speakers to get a grip on. If you are Korean – sorry! If it’s any consolation your food is AMAZING.

I’ve got a whole blog article about the difference between U and Ü available here so this will be a shortened version. If it’s still not clear I recommend checking the article, listening to the recordings and doing the quizzes.

To make the ü sound start with the “ee” in the English bee but round your lips into the “oo” of the English too . The result is the Chinese ü. It’s also the French –u in tu. Unlike the Chinese u, ü requires you to tightly curl your lips into a circle. Getting the lips rounded properly is the key to producing the correct ü sound.

This is important because it determines which sounds ü can be used with. There are only 6 initials that can be used with ü and those are : n, l, j, q, x, y.

The reason these initials can be used with ü is because they are made at the front of the mouth. Their back of the mouth equivalents zh, ch, sh cannot physically be pronounced alongside ü.

This becomes super important when distinguishing sounds like 出/去 (chu and qu). In this case the “chu” sound must be the normal –u whilst the qu must be the –ü.

Because it must be the ü and never the u when combined with j, q, x the ü is written as u. Gah!

Understanding the distinction between back of mouth (zh, ch, sh) and front of mouth (j, q, x) sounds unlocks the most difficult Chinese pronunciation. It’s not a distinction that is talked about enough so take the time to understand it. Again, if you need some more details check the blog article about the distinction here.

There are a bunch of exercises on that page that ask you to listen and distinguish the sound. If you can do this reliably enough understanding why there is this distinction doesn’t matter too much. But if you keep getting confused then understanding the why can help to untangle the confusion.

That’s all right? Sorry, not quite…

Unfortunately there is one more twist in the distinction of u and ü. The initials n- and l- can be pronounced with both u and ü . Confounding!

To make the distinction of these two easier the ü is actually written with the dots (umlauts) when it appears in nü and lü. See the table on the next page for a summary of the usage. Print it out and stick it up and if you get confused use it as a handy reference.

The post Chinese Pronunciation: The difference between U and Ü appeared first on Sensible Chinese.

However, the fact that pinyin looks like English causes confusion. Furthermore, the fact that some of the letters carry the same sound as English whilst others do not adds more complexity.

For example the pinyin b- is basically the same as the English b- sound. The pinyin c- though sounds nothing like our letter “c” and instead would be more closely approximated as a hissed “ts” sound. There’s no real consistency so the best approach to take is to assume that pinyin is nothing like English and try to break all associations with the English alphabet.

Otherwise you’ll end up with a large number of underlying mispronunciations like the very common mistakes of 很 hěn sounding like the English “hen” (as in female chicken hen).

To break associations use native recordings whenever reading a word in pinyin. Try to never read pinyin without also hearing it being said. Electronic dictionaries like Pleco have natural voice recordings (don’t use computer voices unless you want to sound like an answering machine!).

If you are still at an early stage take a decent amount of time to work on pinyin. It’s generally rushed through in the first chapter of a textbook and its intricacies never really explained. Having a firm grasp on the system and the subtle differences between j and ch, u and ü etc.

Get into good habits early by using a pinyin course that has a lot of native recordings and that carefully explains how to explain the different sounds. I’ve prepared a course over at Sensible Chinese that carefully goes through pinyin and makes sure you have a thorough. It’s totally free and available here: Sensible Chinese Pinyin Course.

If possible sit down with a native speaker (or find a free language exchange partner or paid teacher on iTalki) and have them run through the pinyin system with you.

Here is a pinyin chart (basically a chart than contains every combination of Pinyin sounds possible) that you can use for this practice. The basic process is to listen to them, repeat what they said and receive correction until you get it right. This is the basic feedback loop of all language learning. Getting as many corrections as possible is the only way you are going to successfully learn a language so make sure you find a language partner or someone you can work with for all of the advice in this book.

In fact I’m so militant on the idea of feedback and working with a native speaker that I’ve written another short free eBook that’s available here: Speak Chinese Today.

The post Chinese Pronunciation : Pinyin is Not English appeared first on Sensible Chinese.