Comments on: How to find out how good your Chinese pronunciation really is

By: Chinese pronunciation challenge, October 2023 | Hacking Chinese | Hacking Chinese

Wed, 04 Oct 2023 16:43:55 +0000

[…] How to find out how good your Chinese pronunciation really is […]

By: Rayna

Rayna — Mon, 08 Jul 2019 16:13:51 +0000

In reply to Jon Strauss. As an absolute beginner in studying Mandarin, this was a very helpful comment to add to this wonderful article. I want to thank both you and Olle Linge for sharing this valuable info.

By: Olle Linge

Olle Linge — Sun, 01 Jun 2014 23:10:31 +0000

In reply to Eric M. I'm sure it will help, thanks Eric!

By: Olle Linge

Olle Linge — Sun, 01 Jun 2014 23:06:02 +0000

In reply to Hugh Grigg. Thanks for alerting me about the comment subscription problem, I'll see what I can do to fix it!

By: Jon Strauss

Jon Strauss — Mon, 26 May 2014 11:40:06 +0000

I had a casual tutor/friend do me a great service years ago by pointing out that I had certain consistent pronunciation errors that I would commit again and again related to where in a sentence I would scramble a tone.

Specifically, one example was that I would often start a sentence by giving the first character in a sentence the first tone arbitrarily.

Other common sentence level error patterns might occur on the last character in a sentence, or always giving the first tone to a syllable where you may be pausing and thinking what to say next.

Identifying tone error patterns like these with a native speaker’s help can be very useful, and let you know what you may need to consciously compensate for.

By: Eric M

Eric M — Mon, 26 May 2014 01:12:34 +0000

Hey Olle,
First I would like to express my gratitude for your blog. I really appreciate your content and advice that you give here. I’ve been reading your blog for about a year and a half now. I have been struggling learning Mandarin for 3 years. Reading your blog inspiring and encouraging when I feel bleak about my progress. You gave me the strength to ace my HSK 3. Now I’m struggling onward to HSK 4-5.

I was impressed with the article you wrote about recording your voice and I wanted to try using Audacity software myself. However, when I first tried installing the open source Audacity on OS X Mavericks, I ran into a few technicalities due to third party Mac apps requiring to be sandboxed. (whatever that means)

I eventually found a work around and was able to install it on my MacBook. Although I realize it is a powerful piece of software, when I opened it I felt intimidated by how technical it was to use.

So I wanted to share some useful tools I found for recording my pronunciation with the rest of your unsavy Unix users who use Macintosh computers. (tongue in cheek) 🙂

I found a free Mac app in the app store called Hapix Player https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/hapix-player/id526211149?mt=12

I think it does the same basic things that you showed on your post about recording yourself.

There is also the anytune apps available for iOS and Mac http://www.anytune.us/anytune-product-feature-overview/
they cost more money but are more robust with features and there is a free version on iOS.

I really hope this information helps your other red fruit readers to record their voices to help improve thier Mandarin speaking.

Eric Ma

By: Hugh Grigg

Hugh Grigg — Sat, 24 May 2014 02:07:54 +0000

Totally agreed on the point about recording yourself to identify mistakes. It’s painful but effective. Your voice sounds different in your head to how it does to other people (that’s why hearing yourself speaking your native language recorded is often unpleasant), and it’s easy to think that your foreign language pronunciation is better than it is because of this. When I’ve recorded my Chinese and played it back it’s always been a cruel but kind reminder of where I need to improve.

(By the way Olle, whenever I comment on Hacking Chinese, the ‘Post Comment’ button is on top of the ‘Notify me of follow-up comments’ checkbox, so I can’t subscribe to replies! This is on Chrome 34, Ubuntu).

By: Scott Burgan

Scott Burgan — Fri, 23 May 2014 12:42:26 +0000

I find that not only is pronunciation not tested properly, but its rarely taught properly either. A lot of foreigners have poor pronunciation in Chinese because no one has ever explained to them properly what the difference in tongue placement is between sh and x, ch and q, and zh and j. Some teachers might demonstrate a couple of times and then just give up when some people can’t pronounce words properly, thinking Chinese pronunciation is difficult for foreigners.

Someone who is going to be a language teacher should at least have some basic knowledge of phonology. It doesn’t really take long to learn. We are expected to know about the grammar of our own language as teachers, why not phonology?