{"id":13921,"date":"2021-01-19T22:56:55","date_gmt":"2021-01-19T21:56:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/?p=13921"},"modified":"2022-01-04T13:30:17","modified_gmt":"2022-01-04T12:30:17","slug":"the-most-serious-mistake-students-make-when-learning-mandarin-pronunciation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/the-most-serious-mistake-students-make-when-learning-mandarin-pronunciation\/","title":{"rendered":"The most serious mistake students make when learning Mandarin pronunciation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/man_listening.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-13927\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/man_listening-300x182.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"182\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/man_listening-300x182.png 300w, https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/man_listening-1024x622.png 1024w, https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/man_listening-768x466.png 768w, https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/man_listening.png 1280w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>When we are born, our brains are open to the world of sound and we can perceive differences between sounds we as adults have learnt to ignore. To be able to master our native language as infants, our brains need to be able to sort sounds into categories through a process called categorical perception.<\/p>\n<p>Hearing without filters is great before you know what language you need to learn, but for speech perception, categories are needed.<\/p>\n<p><em>Tune in to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/podcast\/\">the Hacking Chinese Podcast<\/a> to listen to this article:<\/em><br \/>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/anchor.fm\/hackingchinese\/embed\/episodes\/24---The-most-serious-mistake-students-make-when-learning-Mandarin-pronunciation-ep6o4k\" width=\"400px\" height=\"102px\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><br \/>\n<em>Available on <a href=\"https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/hacking-chinese-podcast\/id1536284827\">Apple Podcasts<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/podcasts.google.com\/feed\/aHR0cDovL3d3dy5oYWNraW5nY2hpbmVzZS5jb20vP2ZlZWQ9cnNzMg\">Google Podcast<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/overcast.fm\/itunes1536284827\/hacking-chinese-podcast\">Overcast<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/show\/5iCRv1jg3j3yJZGJlYVYaO\">Spotify<\/a> and many more!<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Speech sounds can usually be arranged along one or more spectra. For example, the difference between Pinyin <i>b<\/i> (IPA: [p]) and <i>p <\/i>(IPA: [[p<sup>h<\/sup>]) is aspiration, which is related to something called voice onset time, referring to how long it takes the voicing to start after the stop is released.<\/p>\n<p>To get an idea of how voice onset time works, try saying\u00a0<em>bin\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0<em>pin\u00a0<\/em>after each other with your fingers on your throat.\u00a0You should be able to feel that the vibration starts earlier for\u00a0<em>bin\u00a0<\/em>than in\u00a0<em>pin<\/em>. This is true in both English and Mandarin.<\/p>\n<h3>Learning to sort sounds into the correct categories<\/h3>\n<p>If the voice onset time is roughly zero, we get an unaspirated stop, such as <i>b <\/i>in Pinyin (IPA: [p]). If the voice onset time is significantly longer, we get something called aspiration, which would be <i>p <\/i>in Pinyin (IPA: [p<sup>h<\/sup>]). Voice onset time can also be negative, meaning that voicing starts <i>before <\/i>the release, such as in a voiced [b], but that&#8217;s not a phoneme in Mandarin.<\/p>\n<p>Depending on what language(s) you spoke as a child, your brain learnt to sort these sounds into the right categories based on voice onset time. As a native speaker of English, if you heard <em>b<\/em><strong><i>\u00a0<\/i><\/strong>repeated with gradually increasing voice onset time, at some point you would start hearing <em>p<\/em> instead.<\/p>\n<p>The point is that line where you starting hearing <em>p <\/em>instead of <em>b <\/em>is different in different languages. Some languages even draw more than one line, meaning that there are three distinguishing sounds along this spectrum. this happens in Korean and Thai, for example.<\/p>\n<h3>Learning to hear new sounds as an adult<\/h3>\n<p>As we sort the world of sound into categories, we gradually lose the ability distinguish sounds that either don\u2019t exist in our native language(s) or that are treated as one and the same sound in our native language(s). After all, it&#8217;s rather pointless to maintain the ability to distinguish sounds that are not used to distinguish words in the language(s) you speak.<\/p>\n<p>An example of this is the English words &#8220;spin&#8221; and &#8220;pin&#8221;, in which the first &#8220;p&#8221; is unaspirated and the second is more aspirated (it has a longer voice onset time). Many native speakers of English perceive these two &#8220;p&#8221; sounds to be the same, but in other languages, they are different sounds.<\/p>\n<p>We can learn to create and modify categories when we learn a second language as adults, too, but it requires much more effort and is rarely completely successful. The processes involved here are very complex and not fully understood.<\/p>\n<h3>How to really learn Mandarin pronunciation<\/h3>\n<p>So, what can we do to make this process easier? The most important thing is to listen to a variety of speakers and pay attention, and do so a lot. Someone first exaggerating a specific distinction (such as that between two tones) and then gradually making it more natural can also help.<\/p>\n<p>Much research has been done into establishing new perceptual categories of speech sounds, some of which I summarised in the article <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/how-to-learn-to-hear-the-sounds-tones-in-mandarin\/\">How to learn to hear the sounds and tones in Mandarin<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"bgbprgAGQk\"><p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/how-to-learn-to-hear-the-sounds-tones-in-mandarin\/\">Learning to hear the sounds and tones in Mandarin<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" style=\"position: absolute; clip: rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);\" title=\"&#8220;Learning to hear the sounds and tones in Mandarin&#8221; &#8212; Hacking Chinese\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/how-to-learn-to-hear-the-sounds-tones-in-mandarin\/embed\/#?secret=kKMsEB6MrB#?secret=bgbprgAGQk\" data-secret=\"bgbprgAGQk\" width=\"500\" height=\"282\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h3>The reason why most students have bad pronunciation<\/h3>\n<p>The main reason students typically don&#8217;t learn to pronounce Mandarin very well is that they rely on reading more than listening. They look at Pinyin and think that they know what the sounds are like, which means they don&#8217;t listen enough and don&#8217;t do so with an open mind (to the extent that this is possible).<\/p>\n<p>To add insult to injury, many students just think they know Pinyin, but actually rely heavily on their native language to guess the pronunciation of certain sounds.<\/p>\n<h3>Priming your brain to hear the wrong sound<\/h3>\n<p>Written letters are treacherous. Most people of course know that the same letter can refer to different sounds in different languages. For example, speakers of English pronounce the capital of France with more aspiration (longer voice onset time) than speakers of French do (voice onset time close to zero), yet the city is spelt \u201cParis\u201d in both languages. Similarly, if you pronounce Mandarin\u00a0<em>p\u012bn\u00a0<\/em>(as in Pinyin) the same as the English word &#8220;pin&#8221;, you probably don&#8217;t aspirate it enough.<\/p>\n<p>The problem here is that if you start your attempt to learn a new sound withe the letter used to write it down, your brain is already primed to hear the sound you\u2019re used to hearing that letter representing.<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s a fascinating example of how your preconceptions can determine what you hear. When you listen to this audio clip that been doing the rounds on social media recently, which word you read (or think about) can determine what you hear:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/qXxV2C1ri2k\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>What do you hear? &#8220;Brainstorm&#8221;? Or &#8220;green needle&#8221;? Can you switch between them? Naturally, this aural illusion might not work if your native language is something other than English and it might not work for all speakers of English either. It works for me, though, and it seems to work for a lot of other people as well! What do you hear? Leave a comment below!<\/p>\n<p>So that\u2019s the problem of reading pronunciation in a nutshell. It\u2019s already hard to perceive some sounds, but if you prime your brain to hear something else, it makes it even harder!<\/p>\n<h3>Learn Mandarin pronunciation by listening, not by reading<\/h3>\n<p>Let\u2019s look at an example from Mandarin. At university, I teach intermediate students that I haven\u2019t had the privilege to teach as beginners. Some of them still pronounce Pinyin <i>sh\u00ec <\/i>close to the English word \u201cshe\u201d. If given to someone who does not speak a word of Mandarin, that is indeed how most people would guess that <i>shi<\/i> is read.<\/p>\n<p>But it\u2019s not, and they aren\u2019t beginners anymore, yet many of them still say something close to English &#8220;she&#8221;. They haven\u2019t realised that there\u2019s something different with this <i>-i<\/i>. They assume it\u2019s the same sound as in <i>n\u01d0 <\/i>\u201cyou\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Now, compare this with an approach based mostly on listening, which is what I prefer. When I teach complete beginners, I try to rely on the spoken language as much as possible and avoid even writing Pinyin in the beginning.<\/p>\n<p>Why? Because they will hear what I write, not what I say. They see <i>-i <\/i>in <i>ni<\/i>, <i>si <\/i>and <i>shi <\/i>and assume they are the same, while they are in fact three completely different sounds. My highlighting that they are different sounds does not always help.<\/p>\n<p>Naturally, focusing only on the spoken language is not very practical in the long run. It\u2019s very hard to create a curriculum without any written content (remember, Pinyin is not allowed either), and it also requires very large amounts of teacher-student interaction, which is either expensive, impractical or both. Most adults also don\u2019t like it when they can\u2019t see things, can\u2019t take notes or can\u2019t look things up on their own.<\/p>\n<h3>Open your ears and open your mind<\/h3>\n<p>What\u2019s the solution? How can you learn to pronounce Mandarin without being distracted by the written versions of sounds? Here are a few practical suggestions:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><strong>Listen as much as you can.<\/strong> Try to pay attention to minute details in how the sounds are pronounced. Do this a lot and with variation. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/how-to-learn-to-hear-the-sounds-tones-in-mandarin\/\">As I have discussed elsewhere<\/a>, the brain needs large amounts of data to begin to form the correct perceptual categories, and not just from one speaker. This is what <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/the-tone-training-course-is-now-open\/\">the tone course I built for a research project with Kevin over at WordSWing<\/a> is for. Spend as much time as you can listening, preferably before you speak. Practising speaking is also necessary, because you need to find the right articulation of these sounds and automate it, but if you aim for the wrong sounds, practising speaking might do more harm than good.<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><strong>Use a transcription system that is meaningless to you.<\/strong> The biggest advantage with Pinyin is that it\u2019s very easy to use (you already know all the letters) and that it\u2019s super fast to write, type and read. But as we have seen, this familiarity means that it\u2019s possible to cheat (indeed, it&#8217;s impossible to <em>not<\/em> cheat), and just assume that the final in <i>shi<\/i> is pronounced the same way as that in <i>si <\/i>and <i>ni<\/i>, or that the initial in\u00a0<em>j\u012b <\/em>is pronounced liket he &#8220;j&#8221; in &#8220;jeep&#8221;, while none of them is. One solution to this problem is to use a system like Zhuyin, which uses symbols that mean nothing to most learners. This forces you to listen, because you really can\u2019t guess how these are pronounced. I wrote more about using Zhuyin and other transcription systems in this article: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/learning-to-pronounce-mandarin-with-pinyin-zhuyin-and-ipa-part-1\/\">Learning to pronounce Mandarin with Pinyin, Zhuyin and IPA: Part 1<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"rcCk1NQkMc\"><p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/learning-to-pronounce-mandarin-with-pinyin-zhuyin-and-ipa-part-1\/\">Learning to pronounce Mandarin with Pinyin, Zhuyin and IPA: Part 1<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" style=\"position: absolute; clip: rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);\" title=\"&#8220;Learning to pronounce Mandarin with Pinyin, Zhuyin and IPA: Part 1&#8221; &#8212; Hacking Chinese\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/learning-to-pronounce-mandarin-with-pinyin-zhuyin-and-ipa-part-1\/embed\/#?secret=HYg9vqJR2T#?secret=rcCk1NQkMc\" data-secret=\"rcCk1NQkMc\" width=\"500\" height=\"282\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><strong>Learn the transcription system you use really well; never guess.<\/strong> I can\u2019t stress this enough. All transcription systems that are widely used can be used to fully represent Mandarin pronunciation, but you have to understand that the written symbols, whether they are letters or other symbols, are only labels. They are used to label a category of sounds, but they don\u2019t describe the sounds in that category. This labelling is rarely fully transparent, meaning that a certain symbol doesn\u2019t always represent the same sound, and that one sound can be written using several symbols (the International Phonetic Alphabet being an exception). One of the questions I answered in this article actually deals with this specific question: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/9-answers-to-questions-about-pinyin-and-pronunciation\/\">9 answers to questions about Pinyin and pronunciation<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"QQDdQWYdpI\"><p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/9-answers-to-questions-about-pinyin-and-pronunciation\/\">9 answers to questions about Pinyin and pronunciation<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" style=\"position: absolute; clip: rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);\" title=\"&#8220;9 answers to questions about Pinyin and pronunciation&#8221; &#8212; Hacking Chinese\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/9-answers-to-questions-about-pinyin-and-pronunciation\/embed\/#?secret=bPjnN4P43F#?secret=QQDdQWYdpI\" data-secret=\"QQDdQWYdpI\" width=\"500\" height=\"282\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><strong>Learn the theory behind the sounds.<\/strong> It\u2019s debatable whether or not explicit knowledge about pronunciation improves one\u2019s pronunciation directly. For example, does knowing the difference in voice onset time for the word Paris make a person better at pronouncing the word the French way? Maybe. But theory doesn\u2019t need to be intentionally applied to be useful, it can also help to direct your attention, which certainly can help to adjust your mental model for what these phonemes are supposed to sound like. For example, just by knowing what voice onset time means, and that there\u2019s a significant difference between English and French, will enable you to focus on the right part of the word. Without that knowledge, you might maybe only hear that it \u201csounds French\u201d, but have no clue what makes it so. If you&#8217;re good at mimicking, you can probably pick this up anyway, but not all people are endowed with great mimicking skills. If I\u2019ve experienced one thing since I started studying phonetics fifteen years ago, it\u2019s that I\u2019m much more conscious about sounds nowadays and pay much more attention to details, including in my native language. Read more about the importance of theory here: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/how-learning-some-basic-theory-can-improve-your-pronunciation\/\">How learning some basic theory can improve your pronunciation<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"m2FGdg1SzP\"><p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/how-learning-some-basic-theory-can-improve-your-pronunciation\/\">How learning some basic theory can improve your Mandarin pronunciation<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" style=\"position: absolute; clip: rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);\" title=\"&#8220;How learning some basic theory can improve your Mandarin pronunciation&#8221; &#8212; Hacking Chinese\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/how-learning-some-basic-theory-can-improve-your-pronunciation\/embed\/#?secret=gljvhKQaAt#?secret=m2FGdg1SzP\" data-secret=\"m2FGdg1SzP\" width=\"500\" height=\"282\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ve been interested in pronunciation for a long time and took almost a full year\u2019s worth of graduate courses in Chinese phonetics when I studied in the master\u2019s programme for teaching Chinese as a second language at \u570b\u7acb\u81fa\u7063\u5e2b\u7bc4\u5927\u5b78.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ve also taught and coached students in this area for years, collecting a large repertoire both common student problems and ways of solving them. Most of the research I\u2019ve conducted myself has also been in this area, most in the area of tone perception.<\/p>\n<h3>Hacking Chinese Pronunciation: Speaking with Confidence<\/h3>\n<p>Now I\u2019ve taken all that knowledge and distilled it into a course aimed at Chinese students on all levels. This means that it gives all the information and materials a beginner needs, but that it also contains the guidance more advanced students need to fix problems with their pronunciation.<\/p>\n<p>You can find out more about the course below. If you found this article interesting, you\u2019re going to love the course! If it&#8217;s not currently open for registration, you can sign up for a waiting list to get notified when it becomes available next time!<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/courses\/mandarin-chinese-pronunciation-course\/\">Hacking Chinese Pronunciation: Speaking with Confidence<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/courses\/mandarin-chinese-pronunciation-course\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-13751 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/pronunciation-mockup-782.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"782\" height=\"547\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/pronunciation-mockup-782.png 782w, https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/pronunciation-mockup-782-300x210.png 300w, https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/pronunciation-mockup-782-768x537.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 782px) 100vw, 782px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Learning to hear and say the sounds of Mandarin can be tricky, but it&#8217;s made much more difficult by the way many students go about it. By focusing on reading over listening, they are making themselves a big disservice!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13927,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4,5,6,7,9,10,15,20,21],"tags":[1078,292,332,423,435,1100,456,1062,611,680],"class_list":["post-13921","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-advanced","category-attitude-and-mentality","category-beginner","category-distinctively-chinese","category-essential-articles","category-immersion-and-integration","category-intermediate","category-listening","category-science-and-research","category-speaking","tag-categorical-perception","tag-ipa","tag-listening","tag-perception","tag-pinyin","tag-podcast-episode","tag-pronunciation","tag-speech-sounds","tag-tones","tag-zhuyin"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>The most serious mistake students make when learning Mandarin pronunciation<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Learning to hear and say the sounds of Mandarin can be tricky, but it&#039;s made much more difficult by the way many students go about it. 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