PHONETICS

CHINESE PHONETICS
(Pinyin Introduction)

Pinyin (拼音) is the phonetic transcription system of Mandarin that uses the Latin alphabet as its basis. It helps us, Westerners, to “interpret” the correct pronunciation of the characters, since the characters have no information about how they are pronounced. But pronouncing the characters correctly requires at least two important skills: on the one hand, listening and differentiating their sound frequencies, and on the other hand, being able to reproduce them with all their nuances. Mandarin has a musicality given by the tones and a timbre that requires making sounds with the mouth, which we Westerners find more difficult than other languages. Pinyin was created by the Chinese intellectual Zhou Youguang (周有光), called “the father of Pinyin”, as part of a program initiated in the 1950s by the Chinese government to make Mandarin the national language of China, which consisted of simplifying the character strokes and devising a new phonetic alphabet. In 1979, the I.S.O. (International Standards Organization) adopted Pinyin as the standard romanization system for Chinese.

Mandarin Chinese is a syllabic language composed of syllables made up of consonants and vowels, and each syllable has one of the four tones of Mandarin Chinese.

The syllable in Chinese has the following structure:

PHONETICS I
(Simple consonants)

In Mandarin Chinese there are several consonants or ¨声母 shengmu¨ which we have divided by difficulty of pronunciation, to facilitate the learning of the language.

Below is the first set of consonants whose sound matches the sound in Spanish.

PHONETICS II
(Middle consonants)

In Mandarin, some of the consonants we use are pronounced differently.

Below are the consonants B, P, D, T, G, K and H.

B is pronounced as a light ¨p¨.

nariz

P is pronounced as a sudden or explosive ¨p¨, emitting a lot of air through the mouth.

cerveza

D is pronounced as a light ¨t¨.

metro

T is pronounced as a sudden or explosive ¨t¨, emitting a lot of air through the mouth.

sol

G is pronounced as a ¨q¨.

perro

K is pronounced as a sudden or explosive ¨k¨, emitting a lot of air through the mouth.

cafe

H is pronounced as a ¨j¨ in Spanish.

flor

PHONETICS III
(Complex consonants I)

Mandarin language has phonetics that are the same, as there is also phonetics that do not exist in Spanish, and it is here that we must spend more time to pronounce correctly. When learning these consonants, you will notice that some of them do not expel air through the mouth, while others have sustained air and others have an explosive air expulsion.

The following are the consonants Z, C, S and R

Z is pronounced as a bee buzz and in doing so, no air is expelled from the mouth.

futbol

C is pronounced as a sudden or explosive ¨ts¨, emitting a lot of air through the mouth.

verdura

S is pronounced as a sharp ¨s¨, continuously releasing air through the mouth.

tres

R is pronounced as ¨r¨ in English, without the vibrato of the tongue.

carne

PHONETICS III
(Complex consonants II)

Continuing with the pronunciation of the consonants, in this section we will see the pronunciation of the consonants Zh, Ch and Sh which we must bring the attention to the area of the molars, putting them together and lightly sticking the tongue on the palate. On the other hand, the shape of the mouth remains as a rectangle allowing a better pronunciation of the consonants.

Zh is pronounced as an electric buzz and no air is expelled through the mouth. Check this by putting your hand in front of your mouth.

mesa

Ch is pronounced as a ¨Ch¨, but as a sudden or explosive sound, emitting a lot of air through the mouth.

Sh is pronounced as a sharp ¨Sh¨ as when we shush someone by making the gesture “Shhh”, releasing the air through the mouth, in a sustained way.

arbol

PHONETICS III
(Complex consonants III)

Based on the experience of many Chinese language teachers, these are without a doubt the consonants that are most difficult for Spanish speakers to pronounce. We are talking about Q, J and X. These consonants sound very different from Spanish. The shape of the mouth is as if we were smiling, allowing us to make a sound closer to the one that corresponds.

J is pronounced by pressing the tongue and the palate, and when doing so, no or almost no air is expelled through the mouth, having a sound similar to Jeep in English, being different from the Y.

gallina

Q is pronounced as a ¨Ch¨, expelling a lot of air through the mouth, in an explosive way, keeping the mouth in a smiling position.

automovil

X, is pronounced as a sharp ¨Sh¨ as when we say chip, releasing air through the mouth in a sustained way, but compressing more the tongue with the palate, keeping the mouth in a smiling position.

nieve

TONES
(Accents in the Chinese language)

Mandarin is a tonal language and all syllables when pronounced can have 4 tones. In addition to the four tones, there is also a neutral tone. Below is the tonal scale of Chinese in the following charts.

TONES II
(Location of the tones)

It is important that at the beginning of learning the Chinese language we learn the Chinese phonetics ¨Pinyin¨, but we often do not know where to put the accent. Therefore, we have prepared this post to identify the various locations given to the tones.

First case:

When there is a strong vowel plus other weak vowels, the accent is placed on the strong vowel.

Examples:

Second case:

When there are several strong vowels, the accent is placed over the first strong vowel.

Examples:

Third case:

When there are several weak vowels, the accent is placed over the last weak vowel.

Examples:

FINAL SOUNDS
(Differences between how it is written and how it sounds)

Some final sounds in the Chinese language have differences with what is written. For that reason, we often mispronounce. Here we will present the differences between what is written and how it is pronounced.

Final sound ¨ian¨ sounds the same as “ien” in Spanish.

Practice: