Very helpful video, thanks! I think the "r" consonant, like in 人, is deceptively difficult to get 100% right for westerners. They just default to the "r" in "road", but to my ear it's not similar to that at all. The vibration should be way in front of the mouth, basically in the teeth.
Thank you so much, Paul, and GOOD POINT!! You're absolutely right. I didn't get to wrap up everything into this one video, but am so happy that you brought it up - the "r" sound in Chinese and English are indeed different in terms of the position of your tongue (don't make it towards the back of your mouth) and the shape of your lips (don't round them up too much)!
There are basically two* ways to make the R sound in English, those are the pirate R [ɻ] with a really curled back tongue, and the most used one, the alveolar R [ɹ]. The two main differences between the Chinese and the English R are: in English there's a coarticulation with a W sound (narrow transcription would be [ɹʷ]), that is to say that the R is pronounced with rounded lips -- there's no such a thing in Chinese; and the second is related to manner and placement of articulation, that means that the Chinese one may be produced either as the pirate R or as a voiced retroflex fricative [ʐ] that resembles the French J [ʒ] or the letter S in "pleasure", but with the tongue a little bit more curled back in the exactly same position for the pirate R. To sum up: the English R is made with rounded lips and the tip of the tongue pointing to the alveolar ridge where its manner of articulation is approximant. In the other hand, the pirate/Chinese R (when realized as so) is exactly the same thing, but with the tip of the tongue a little bit more curled back and the manner of articulation can be both a fricative or an approximant depending on the speaker, but I have the feeling that in connected speech it tends to be more like the pirate R and when pronouncing carefully it tends to resemble more the French J. I hope this helps! Have a listen in the letters (ɹ, ɻ, ʐ, ʒ) I put beside the explanations so you guys can hear the difference between them: www.internationalphoneticassociation.org/IPAcharts/inter_chart_2018/IPA_2018.html *There are actually three: in some Scottish accents they roll the R and it sounds the same as the double R in the Spanish word "carro"!
For me, the 'r' sond of the chinese language it's a combination of the 'r' sond of the English, and the 'L' sond, in the beginning you put your tongue like you were pronunciating a 'r' and final you pronouns a 'L'
"In a lot of dialect areas, mostly in south China, most people don't really distinguish zi ci si and zhi chi shi." Hallelujah! It's time to switch from Mandarin to one of those dialect.
Your explanation of the zh, ch, sh is the best. I've seen so many other places where they have these ridiculous illustrations to curly your tongue back in an impossible position that quite frankly makes the sounds come out sounding silly. So, I naturally changed it to the way you're showing it in order to reproduce the sound. Glad you confirmed this position for me.
Thank you so much for leaving a comment and letting me know that my content is helpful for Chinese learners like you! Really appreciate it! And it's exactly what this channel needs so much to be recommended to a larger audience! 😊
Ojalá hubiera más ejemplos así, ya que la mayoría de los ejemplos que da son para angloparlantes y el problema es que los errores que se hacen al aprender otro idioma son altamente dependientes de la lengua nativa. Y aunque a nosotros se nos impone aprender inglés, no pronunciamos como nativos, sino una aproximación (que es lo que crea «el acento»), por lo que se crea un sesgo perceptivo en el mensaje comparativo chino-inglés para los no-nativos de inglés.
You provided an interesting insight about what is ‘learning a language’. I completed Duolingo three times but could not speak the simplest Mandarin phrase confidently. Thankfully, I was conscious that I was not ‘learning the language’. I started to learn to speak Mandarin in August 2021 and over the last 9 months I now feel, and can confidently say ‘I am learning the language’.
I started learning a tiny amount of Mandarin Chinese before concluding that it was impossible for me to pronounce or distinguish these consonants. Thank you so much for breaking these down in such detail! I am once again hopeful that it might be possible for me one day. 😂
Suggestion To find reference grammars, books and online, of Chinese and English to compare forms like word phrase clause order, and contents, like word meanings in.4 possible relations between the 2 1) ID 2) similar 3) opposite, 4) different To find websites, videos, boo on historical.development of Chinese through present. Hope that these.help. Zhu. ni. Hao yunqi!!! Jia, you!!#
2:142:543:27 voiced in english but not in chinese 4:48 tissues to test aspiration 6:09 z c s flat tongued sounds 7:10 zh ch sh curled tongue sounds tongue goes UP 8:44 j q x tongue goes DOWN neither pinyin X nor SH correspond to English Sh, in English Sh the tongue is flat. You MUST raise your tongue up for pinyin SH and likewise push it down for X. These are not existing sounds in English. You can test your voice on these with google's speech recognition function. For once it's not google, it's you and when I say you I mean me. I hope you are feeling better Fan 老师. You're a wonderful person! Thank you for helping us speak better!
You're the best !! I'm speech-therapist and you're the first who "speaks my language" to explain how these sounds are produced, i. e. REALLY spotted the mechanism and not only give your feeling. I can link it to phonetics and it finally make sense ! Thank you so much !
Rita Laoshi i admire your work! I came to China alone at 16 and studied Chinese from Intermediate level in Beiyu 北语, so I never got the chance to differentiate and break down the pronunciation TTTT i just had to learn it by listening to my chinese yuban语伴 ， by copying what they were saying and the sounds they were making. Now i live in Hong Kong and all my HK friends are always baffled when I open my mouth and speak a mouthful of Mandarin without any foreigner accent QwQ so whenever my friends ask me about tips to learn perfect mandarin I always send them your videos since no one else but you has always the best Chinese learning tips , Rita laoshi 万岁万万岁！！！爱你！！！！！！！
There isn't another youtuber out there like this for mandarin, there are some good ones but no one who goes into this sort of thing or teaches as in depth, good job
One of the better videos I've seen on pronouncing these consonants. Distinguishing and pronouncing these consonants has been my biggest challenge in learning Mandarin, along with tones. 👍
Wonder why I have not seen this before?! Very well explained! This has been a great help towards improving my pronunciation! Thank you for posting this!!!
This was so helpful! Please do more pronunciation videos focusing on your mouth shape if possible, they were awesome as a demonstration! The pace of reading the example sentences was also a sweet spot for a newbie learner like myself. Thank you so much!!
Too bad you didn't dedicate a whole section for French speakers Haha You're poviding such quality material to help beginners, I am so thankful to you !!!
My huge pleasure!! Really appreciate your words😊😊 I'll def make a video fro French speakers in particular when I get to learn French language better so I can help you guys more😄
Hi very interesting video, Must watch it again. I am french , I am learning chinese now, through English. Though It would be nice to have some tips for french speakers
This video is incredible. You've done a masterful job breaking down these sounds and how to use your mouth/vocal chords, especially in terms non-native speakers can understand. Liked & subscribed.
This is one of the best videos on youtube for pronouncing these sounds, because of the close attention to tongue and mouth position, the close-up video showing your mouth, the repetition, the example sentences, and especially the slowed-down repetitions, also with funny clips from people speaking poorly. For a future video, I think it would be interesting for you to compare poor pronunciation (with an English accent) with the correct pronunciation, alternating back and forth, because I think this would help people correct common pronunciation problems even better.
@@RitaChinese thanks for the reply! I look forward to watching more of your videos, you’re one of my favourites! Right now I’m working on pronouncing the Mandarin compared to English b, d, and g (also t, p, k) - there are videos explaining the difference (aspiration and unvoiced etc.) but I would love to see you demonstrate the difference for us on one of your videos!
谢谢你😊 So happy to know you liked it! I just started making YT videos couple of months ago and was too busy to make more in a regular basis. I wish the same hahah! Will def try to do more💪💪
Such precious tips.. the second one was especially helpful, I always noticed the consonant pronunciation problem but had no idea how to solve it until now thanks and keep it up! 👍 ps. I loved your imitation of the American accent hahaha
Hahahah great!! So happy to hear that you found my content is helpful😊😊 Really appreciate your feedback so I'll have more motivation to make more videos👍👍
I'm Italian and my vocal cords vibrate every single time,fun fact is if I repeat after you,i got those sounds right and no vibrations. Seems impossible to apply all that when talking but I'll work on it, thanks for your useful tips😁
Holy shit. The energy alone she exuded made me sub to the channel ...am a Nigerian that has decided to learn mandarin...really tough 4 me to make some of the sounds ...hope ur video helps
In my hungarian languege there are no aspirated consonants. Instead of them there are... I dont know the proper english words for them. Distinguished by using vocal cords or not. Eg. in case of B-P, G-K, and D-t pairs. Our "R" is similar to japanese one. When it comes to chinese Ji,Qi Xi, we absolutely do not have even similar consonants. So we and our laoshi coudnt decide that which is more difficult: chinese pkonetics for us or hungarian for her. Not even mentioned wowels.... 😆
Thank you, it was really helpful to see the tongue placement on c/z/s. I think I was trying for too high. I always really struggle with z/c (c is my arch nemesis), but zh/ch/sh and j/q/x I can do. Well, as long as I don't have to Transition between them with any speed. 😒
??? Question: Do you really not touch the top of your mouth at all when making the sharp sounds (ji qi xi)? I can kind of manage with xi, but not with ji and qi. ???? Also, are the sharp sound initials aspirated or not? Or does it not matter either way, because aspirating them wouldn't differentiate them from other sounds? Anyway, great lesson! I practiced a few of the phrases you used a bunch of times, seems really helpful: ASPIRATION b d g z zh (NO ASPIRATION) p t k c f 大哥準備在這這兒。 > hold a tissue in front of your mouth and try to prevent it from vibrating through aspiration. 開關！他們在大門等他。 > hold a tissue in front of your mouth and try to only allow it to vibrate on the Ts and K, not on the Ds and G FLAT TONGUE SOUNDS (zi ci si) > maintain a flat tongue, have the tip of the tongue reach your teeth when the air comes out, keep upper and lower teeth together 給這個詞典公司點讚！focus on upper case vowels: gongSI CIdian dianZAN! CURLED TONGUE SOUNDS (zhi chi shi) > raise tip of the tongue to the bumpy ridge between front teeth and hard palate 我不知道這個商場十點四十關門 focus on wo bu ZHIdao ZHEge SHANGCHANG SHIdian siSHI guanmen for the curled tongue. SHARP SOUNDS (ji qi xi) > push tip of tongue against root of bottom teeth and flatten tongue by grinning and making EEE sound, then use front tongue of the tongue to go up, make narrow space between tongue and roof of your mouth 西遊記裡沒有經濟奇蹟 XIyou JIli mei you JINGJI4 QI2JI4 .
Tomorrow I have to announce 400 Chinese names (out of 1200 student names total) at a university convocation ceremony. Graduates' families will be there. I know I'll amke many mistakes but I have to try to get close to correct pronunciation.
Im really waiting for the next video please upload videos more frequent pleasssseeee i know im just a person that you dont know for demand it but i really want to learn actually
I’m Thai and I face this problem, cannot separate j z zh / q c ch / x s sh sound 😭 Anyway, thank you teacher you are so cute and excellent in English. I will keep trying.
@@RitaChinese I'd love to learn more about 北京话。Also, what are the differences between 东北话 and 北京话？ I'm fascinated by those kinds of things. Are you planning to make more videos about it? I've already seen your first one! 我想要多学点儿北京话。比如说，北京话跟东北话有什么不同？对这样的话题很感兴趣。您打算做关于这些的视频吗？我已经看过你关于北京话的第一部！
4:28 As a German who learns spanish, it was so hard to get rid of the aspiration of these consonants. Not saying P(h)ablo or T(h)echo was so difficult until I got taught how to do it...same for vibrants of b, d and g...language learning is so much fun, isnt it?
I'm not a beginner beginner anymore, just a beginner %-) (I'm studying for hsk 4) but this still helps to refresh and to keep practising. Pronounciation was and is my nemesis. I pay a lot of attention to it from the beginning and still I'm not that far (I had pronounciation issues in my mothertongue too ;) I got it right eventually, so with mandarin chinese it will also be ok eventually... it's sometimes frustrating that it takes so much more time then for certain others. my tongue constantly gets into a knot trying to switch consonants and paying attention to the right tone at the same time). I had already found these tips sprinkled around the internet, but it's nice to find them all together here. This is gold for a beginner.
I don't know anything about Chinese but the characters seem familiar. I would guess that is Simplified Chinese? For someone who knows Japanese I'm not sure if I should learn Traditional or Simplified. Apparently Simplified is in mainland China and Traditional in Hong Kong (?) but I don't live or plan to live anywhere in China so it doesn't really affect me, I just like 漢字
traditional chinese=japanese kanji pre-1946. modern japanese kanji is pretty in the middle with simplfied and traditional though, so maybe it depends on your kanji knowledge. i would guess that if your kanji knowledge is a bit worse than average, learn simplfied. if its better than average, learn traditional. also fyi someone who learns simplified can read traditional (with some difficulty) and someone who learns traditional can read simplfied (also with arguably a bit more difficulty). but if you’re exposed enough to the other there wont be as much difficulty.
As a native norwegian, I think the consonants are quite easy to distinguish. My pronunciation is not perfect, but I know how they are supposed to sound. I actually think the vowel sounds like in 四 Sì and 女 nǚ are much harder because they feel so weird to pronounce.
Hi Rita! Absolutely loved the video, super super helpful! I have question though - I've heard it recommended by some people to delay speaking for a bit while focussing on heaps of listening input as a way to improve pronunciation and avoid drilling bad habits right in the beginning. (For context, I can't afford a teacher currently, and really don't want to pick up bad habits). What are your thoughts on this?
Hey, Rita, thanks for the video! Can you please elaborate a little more on j q x in the following context: I've come across many videos where native Chinese speakers teach these sound differently. Specifically, they tell us learners to produce them roughly around zh ch sh area, the hard palate, and it's actually a quote from the book 现代汉语。The sound feels the same, and people claim that it's just the way we (Chinese people) talk anyways, like it's a key feature of modern standard 普通话。 I feel a little confused 🌝
Oh, actually even HSK textbooks from 北京语言大学出版社 teach coronals (that's the fancy name for j q x) like that. So I was just wondering what's going on. Is it like okay to use either way?🌝
You asked such a great question, Laurent! And it's def been causing a lot of confusions for Chinese learners, I can imagine. I read the 现代汉语 books in college, but back then I didn't really pay so much attention on the pronunciation part. But I just bought it on Amazon to review a bit, and to see how the j/q/x sounds are described in the must-read book for Chinese students. Tbh I won't be surprised if they taught the tongue position is same as zh/ch/sh, and it would make so much sense of why so many Chinese learners have the problems of pronouncing the sounds. I'm afraid that quite a lot of the textbooks and teachers didn't teach the sounds correctly over past...decades. I'll definitely elaborate these two groups of sounds in my next Chinese analysis video! Thank you for your question!
You're right in pointing out that much of Chinese is said at the front of the mouth - this aspect makes it difficult for me to pronounce many of the sounds you covered in this video. (I speak from the back of the mouth like a typical English-speaking New Zealander) The z, c, s sounds in particular are hard to say. Btw, will you do the Chinese r sound in a video? That one is nigh on impossible for me to do!
It's a great start knowing that what the correct is like! So you will get to practice to the right direction! And good catch! "R" sound is a big one in a lot of languages (like in Spanish, sigh)! Will talk about it when I get a chance! Stay tuned😊🙌
That prop you use is brilliant. You are literally the ONLY foreign language teacher I have ever seen who uses that. And! It's a joke just waiting to happen! "Where did I get it? Oh, it's actually a sex toy."
Im the 300 suscriber and i will try to get another 50 to this amazing channel i want to learn chinese and this seems a really good channel to do it and by the way I also know spanish so if this channel starts to put in spanish im prepared lets start!
Gracias! I’ve been trying to learn Spanish so that maybe one day I’ll be able to teach in Spanish haha. Thank you so much for following and getting more learners here😄🙌
I already speak English French Arabic Kabyle And I started to learn 中文 It's really hard when you try to learn alone because you don't have someone with whom you can speak Personally I have a problem with tones
I know it takes time!! Better get a tutor to help you adjust the pronunciation if you can. Your tongue position is different when pronouncing x and s. Similarly with c and q! 加油💪
Not sure whether I could do much of it now since my tongue muscle in my throat deep down is still torn and one part of my brain is not working or missing, since I am going through a blocked mental mind condition.
I am indian, a hindi speaker. We are neighbours but our languages are very different... Tibetan language is similar to indian languages but Chinese words are not similar to indian words... Very difficult
Very helpful video, thanks! I think the "r" consonant, like in 人, is deceptively difficult to get 100% right for westerners. They just default to the "r" in "road", but to my ear it's not similar to that at all. The vibration should be way in front of the mouth, basically in the teeth.
Thank you so much, Paul, and GOOD POINT!! You're absolutely right. I didn't get to wrap up everything into this one video, but am so happy that you brought it up - the "r" sound in Chinese and English are indeed different in terms of the position of your tongue (don't make it towards the back of your mouth) and the shape of your lips (don't round them up too much)!
The r in chinese is more like the betacism version of “sh”. I hope that helps with your pronunciation
There are basically two* ways to make the R sound in English, those are the pirate R [ɻ] with a really curled back tongue, and the most used one, the alveolar R [ɹ]. The two main differences between the Chinese and the English R are: in English there's a coarticulation with a W sound (narrow transcription would be [ɹʷ]), that is to say that the R is pronounced with rounded lips -- there's no such a thing in Chinese; and the second is related to manner and placement of articulation, that means that the Chinese one may be produced either as the pirate R or as a voiced retroflex fricative [ʐ] that resembles the French J [ʒ] or the letter S in "pleasure", but with the tongue a little bit more curled back in the exactly same position for the pirate R.
To sum up: the English R is made with rounded lips and the tip of the tongue pointing to the alveolar ridge where its manner of articulation is approximant. In the other hand, the pirate/Chinese R (when realized as so) is exactly the same thing, but with the tip of the tongue a little bit more curled back and the manner of articulation can be both a fricative or an approximant depending on the speaker, but I have the feeling that in connected speech it tends to be more like the pirate R and when pronouncing carefully it tends to resemble more the French J. I hope this helps!
Have a listen in the letters (ɹ, ɻ, ʐ, ʒ) I put beside the explanations so you guys can hear the difference between them:
www.internationalphoneticassociation.org/IPAcharts/inter_chart_2018/IPA_2018.html
*There are actually three: in some Scottish accents they roll the R and it sounds the same as the double R in the Spanish word "carro"!
I couldn't really tell the difference 😂😂😭😭😭😭😭
For me, the 'r' sond of the chinese language it's a combination of the 'r' sond of the English, and the 'L' sond, in the beginning you put your tongue like you were pronunciating a 'r' and final you pronouns a 'L'
"In a lot of dialect areas, mostly in south China, most people don't really distinguish zi ci si and zhi chi shi." Hallelujah! It's time to switch from Mandarin to one of those dialect.
LOL OMG, I feel called with this comment. I couldn't distinguish those sounds even if my life depended on it, guess it's time to switch dialect
@@loren8215
chi (tongue at top of mouth)
shi (tongue in middle of mouth)
zhi (tongue at bottom of mouth)
Try it. It works for me.
@@loren8215Cheers 🥂 I can't distinguish those sounds either. It's been two weeks of exercising and I'm about to give up 😂
Your explanation of the zh, ch, sh is the best. I've seen so many other places where they have these ridiculous illustrations to curly your tongue back in an impossible position that quite frankly makes the sounds come out sounding silly. So, I naturally changed it to the way you're showing it in order to reproduce the sound. Glad you confirmed this position for me.
Glad you have figured it out yourself👍👍
>when you didn't know you were pronouncing it wrong
wow, thanks. very helpful.
As a new-ish learner of Mandarin, I find your videos so helpful and entertaining. I'm amazed you don't have a much larger following.
Thank you so much for leaving a comment and letting me know that my content is helpful for Chinese learners like you! Really appreciate it! And it's exactly what this channel needs so much to be recommended to a larger audience! 😊
I'm a native Spanish speaker, thank you so much for including those tips for us!! you nailed it❤️
My great pleasure! So happy that you find my content useful😄❤ More to come!!
Ojalá hubiera más ejemplos así, ya que la mayoría de los ejemplos que da son para angloparlantes y el problema es que los errores que se hacen al aprender otro idioma son altamente dependientes de la lengua nativa. Y aunque a nosotros se nos impone aprender inglés, no pronunciamos como nativos, sino una aproximación (que es lo que crea «el acento»), por lo que se crea un sesgo perceptivo en el mensaje comparativo chino-inglés para los no-nativos de inglés.
@@jorgealatorre5847 Unas
sugestions
1) Vease los sitios đe editors como
super si!!!
你就是最好的，没有争论的余地，这是一个裁决。Im still a beginner so I used google translate so if its mistranslated its not my fault😂. You are great
You provided an interesting insight about what is ‘learning a language’. I completed Duolingo three times but could not speak the simplest Mandarin phrase confidently. Thankfully, I was conscious that I was not ‘learning the language’. I started to learn to speak Mandarin in August 2021 and over the last 9 months I now feel, and can confidently say ‘I am learning the language’.
I started learning a tiny amount of Mandarin Chinese before concluding that it was impossible for me to pronounce or distinguish these consonants. Thank you so much for breaking these down in such detail! I am once again hopeful that it might be possible for me one day. 😂
It is definitely POSSIBLE! Have faith and keep it up💪😄
Thank you for your work! Faith makes great!🇨🇳
Suggestion
To find reference grammars, books and online, of Chinese and English
to compare forms like word phrase
clause order, and contents, like
word meanings in.4 possible relations between the 2
1) ID
2) similar
3) opposite,
4) different
To find websites, videos, boo
on historical.development of Chinese through present.
Hope that these.help.
Zhu. ni. Hao yunqi!!! Jia, you!!#
2:14 2:54 3:27 voiced in english but not in chinese
4:48 tissues to test aspiration
6:09 z c s flat tongued sounds
7:10 zh ch sh curled tongue sounds tongue goes UP
8:44 j q x tongue goes DOWN
neither pinyin X nor SH correspond to English Sh, in English Sh the tongue is flat. You MUST raise your tongue up for pinyin SH and likewise push it down for X. These are not existing sounds in English. You can test your voice on these with google's speech recognition function. For once it's not google, it's you and when I say you I mean me.
I hope you are feeling better Fan 老师. You're a wonderful person! Thank you for helping us speak better!
Wow good summary! Thanks!
You're the best !! I'm speech-therapist and you're the first who "speaks my language" to explain how these sounds are produced, i. e. REALLY spotted the mechanism and not only give your feeling. I can link it to phonetics and it finally make sense ! Thank you so much !
Haha glad to hear that!! My pleasure😊
@@RitaChineseRemember, with fan laoshi, Chinese makes perfect sense 😊
Rita Laoshi i admire your work! I came to China alone at 16 and studied Chinese from Intermediate level in Beiyu 北语, so I never got the chance to differentiate and break down the pronunciation TTTT i just had to learn it by listening to my chinese yuban语伴 ， by copying what they were saying and the sounds they were making. Now i live in Hong Kong and all my HK friends are always baffled when I open my mouth and speak a mouthful of Mandarin without any foreigner accent QwQ so whenever my friends ask me about tips to learn perfect mandarin I always send them your videos since no one else but you has always the best Chinese learning tips , Rita laoshi 万岁万万岁！！！爱你！！！！！！！
There isn't another youtuber out there like this for mandarin, there are some good ones but no one who goes into this sort of thing or teaches as in depth, good job
One of the better videos I've seen on pronouncing these consonants. Distinguishing and pronouncing these consonants has been my biggest challenge in learning Mandarin, along with tones. 👍
You sound like a native speaker! Amazing!
Wonder why I have not seen this before?! Very well explained! This has been a great help towards improving my pronunciation! Thank you for posting this!!!
This was so helpful! Please do more pronunciation videos focusing on your mouth shape if possible, they were awesome as a demonstration! The pace of reading the example sentences was also a sweet spot for a newbie learner like myself. Thank you so much!!
I’m so happy that you liked my video and really enjoyed the details that I made for the videos! Will def make more content for new learners😊🙌💪 加油！
Too bad you didn't dedicate a whole section for French speakers Haha You're poviding such quality material to help beginners, I am so thankful to you !!!
My huge pleasure!! Really appreciate your words😊😊 I'll def make a video fro French speakers in particular when I get to learn French language better so I can help you guys more😄
@@RitaChinese Awesome video Rita! I have been learning Chinese from French as well and would love a video catered for us.
Hi very interesting video, Must watch it again. I am french , I am learning chinese now, through English. Though It would be nice to have some tips for french speakers
I’m a Spanish speaker and exactly that was my problem when I started learning Chinese, the pronunciation of “B and P” that’s a good point!
一年多完了但是因为你的视频特别好用我给你点赞。谢谢fan老师
❤One of the best Chinese pronunciation explanatory videos.👍
My Chinese pronunciation was already hard enough before she decided to throw in the tongue twister at the end! 😝
Fo Shizza my Wizard!
Whoops😆
This video is incredible. You've done a masterful job breaking down these sounds and how to use your mouth/vocal chords, especially in terms non-native speakers can understand. Liked & subscribed.
😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊
🎉🎉🎉😂🎉😂🎉😂
This video is quite excellent, very educational!
Brilliant insight into how to voice the sounds! Great! Thank you!
This is one of the best videos on youtube for pronouncing these sounds, because of the close attention to tongue and mouth position, the close-up video showing your mouth, the repetition, the example sentences, and especially the slowed-down repetitions, also with funny clips from people speaking poorly. For a future video, I think it would be interesting for you to compare poor pronunciation (with an English accent) with the correct pronunciation, alternating back and forth, because I think this would help people correct common pronunciation problems even better.
@@Vancouverite39 glad you find my videos helpful! And thanks for your suggestions😊 I’ll definitely make more videos talking about pronunciation!
@@RitaChinese thanks for the reply! I look forward to watching more of your videos, you’re one of my favourites! Right now I’m working on pronouncing the Mandarin compared to English b, d, and g (also t, p, k) - there are videos explaining the difference (aspiration and unvoiced etc.) but I would love to see you demonstrate the difference for us on one of your videos!
In Russian, we have a lot of similar sounds, very easy to differentiate.
终于找到了这个视频。 十分感谢老师🥺🥺 您解释得很清楚。 辛苦了，老师💛💛
哈哈哈，我需要remember this one: 石狮寺前有四十四个石狮子，寺前树上结了四十四个涩柿子，四十四个石狮寺不吃四十四个涩柿子，四十四个涩柿子倒吃四十四个石狮子。
I think this was really helpful, but I gotta practice more :)
Thank you a lot you did a good job I hope I can learn more from you can you make more Chinese videos
I wish you had more subs, this is such great quality for educational videos. 谢谢范老师
谢谢你😊 So happy to know you liked it! I just started making YT videos couple of months ago and was too busy to make more in a regular basis. I wish the same hahah! Will def try to do more💪💪
Such precious tips.. the second one was especially helpful, I always noticed the consonant pronunciation problem but had no idea how to solve it until now
thanks and keep it up! 👍
ps. I loved your imitation of the American accent hahaha
Hahahah great!! So happy to hear that you found my content is helpful😊😊 Really appreciate your feedback so I'll have more motivation to make more videos👍👍
I'm Italian and my vocal cords vibrate every single time,fun fact is if I repeat after you,i got those sounds right and no vibrations. Seems impossible to apply all that when talking but I'll work on it, thanks for your useful tips😁
That sounds like a good start!! Keep it up💪😄
Thank you, Ritaa! It was really useful.
Holy shit. The energy alone she exuded made me sub to the channel ...am a Nigerian that has decided to learn mandarin...really tough 4 me to make some of the sounds ...hope ur video helps
You’re both hilarious and a great teacher!
In my hungarian languege there are no aspirated consonants. Instead of them there are... I dont know the proper english words for them. Distinguished by using vocal cords or not. Eg. in case of B-P, G-K, and D-t pairs. Our "R" is similar to japanese one. When it comes to chinese Ji,Qi Xi, we absolutely do not have even similar consonants. So we and our laoshi coudnt decide that which is more difficult: chinese pkonetics for us or hungarian for her. Not even mentioned wowels.... 😆
AHHHHH ty so much - i love chinese, but pronunciation is probably my biggest weakness - thanks for the tips!!!!! :)
Thank you, it was really helpful to see the tongue placement on c/z/s. I think I was trying for too high. I always really struggle with z/c (c is my arch nemesis), but zh/ch/sh and j/q/x I can do. Well, as long as I don't have to Transition between them with any speed. 😒
Glad you find the video helpful! Keep it up😄💪
??? Question: Do you really not touch the top of your mouth at all when making the sharp sounds (ji qi xi)? I can kind of manage with xi, but not with ji and qi.
???? Also, are the sharp sound initials aspirated or not? Or does it not matter either way, because aspirating them wouldn't differentiate them from other sounds?
Anyway, great lesson! I practiced a few of the phrases you used a bunch of times, seems really helpful:
ASPIRATION b d g z zh (NO ASPIRATION) p t k c f
大哥準備在這這兒。 > hold a tissue in front of your mouth and try to prevent it from vibrating through aspiration.
開關！他們在大門等他。 > hold a tissue in front of your mouth and try to only allow it to vibrate on the Ts and K, not on the Ds and G
FLAT TONGUE SOUNDS (zi ci si) > maintain a flat tongue, have the tip of the tongue reach your teeth when the air comes out, keep upper and lower teeth together
給這個詞典公司點讚！focus on upper case vowels: gongSI CIdian dianZAN!
CURLED TONGUE SOUNDS (zhi chi shi) > raise tip of the tongue to the bumpy ridge between front teeth and hard palate
我不知道這個商場十點四十關門 focus on wo bu ZHIdao ZHEge SHANGCHANG SHIdian siSHI guanmen for the curled tongue.
SHARP SOUNDS (ji qi xi) > push tip of tongue against root of bottom teeth and flatten tongue by grinning and making EEE sound, then use front tongue of the tongue to go up, make narrow space between tongue and roof of your mouth
西遊記裡沒有經濟奇蹟 XIyou JIli mei you JINGJI4 QI2JI4
.
The back of you tongue touches the roof of your mouth! And q is more aspirated than j! Good questions👍
Thank you very much. Very helpful
Thank you much after four years i just realize I don’t know the difference between “ch” and “q” lol
Haha better late than never😆👏💪 It just takes time to practice and internalize them!
Tomorrow I have to announce 400 Chinese names (out of 1200 student names total) at a university convocation ceremony. Graduates' families will be there. I know I'll amke many mistakes but I have to try to get close to correct pronunciation.
Great video! Very useful tips. You remembered Spanish speakers. ❤
4:29 leaving this for when I come back, this is a tip for spanish speakers
This is exactly what i needed, i am still struggling to hear a difference between Ci / Si and Qi / Xi. But maybe more listening will help.
Thanks for the great and informative video! I always confuse between chu & qu, How can I distinguish between the two?
I love the brave lessons you have been putting out beautiful!
I am new to chinese too. Ive been learning for 2 weeks now and Do u have any update about the pronunciation vdo? Thanks you 😊
谢谢你！
Thank you!
Your English accented Chinese still sounded good.
Im really waiting for the next video please upload videos more frequent pleasssseeee i know im just a person that you dont know for demand it but i really want to learn actually
Thank you so much!! Appreciate your support! Will do😄😄
it's great so i practice my english while i learn chinese ❤️Greetings from Mexico ❤️❤️
I love how Mandarin sounds, but as a native English speaker the J, Q, and X all sound the same to me lol. It'll be a while til I learn the difference.
It just takes time to train your ears and your voice, but it's definitely doable!
The best teacher I ever knew 4 Chinese
Thank you so much ❤
I’m Thai and I face this problem, cannot separate j z zh / q c ch / x s sh sound 😭
Anyway, thank you teacher you are so cute and excellent in English. I will keep trying.
they all sound pretty similar! 😩
谢谢您，我很爱学习汉语，我是俄罗斯人。您是好老师。=）
太好了！谢谢你告诉我，我很开心看到喜欢学中文的朋友也喜欢我的视频😄🙌❤️ 我们都加油💪💪
Just what I was looking for!
Im a beginner and doing a self study in mandarin so i hope this could help me a lot
I am in love
Wow,thats a real Great vidéo,Thank you,Rita
You’re very welcome! Glad you find it helpful, Claude!
This video was incredibly helpful! But I'm getting confused about the "s" and "x" sounds 😭
Very clear explanation! Thank you!
Your American-Chinese accent was spot-on! hhh
Hahah thanks!! Heard enough to imitate a bit I guess😆🙌
@@RitaChinese I'd love to learn more about 北京话。Also, what are the differences between 东北话 and 北京话？ I'm fascinated by those kinds of things. Are you planning to make more videos about it? I've already seen your first one!
我想要多学点儿北京话。比如说，北京话跟东北话有什么不同？对这样的话题很感兴趣。您打算做关于这些的视频吗？我已经看过你关于北京话的第一部！
@@totallyfake2852 哈哈谢谢你提出这个话题！等我时间多一点的时候去研究一下东北话的特点，然后可以做个视频给大家看！目前我能想到的声调和声母都有明显的不同，当然方言的话有一些日常用的词也会不一样！应该挺有意思的😁😀
@@RitaChinese 你太棒了！
你好 👋I love ur teaching method 😍
你好！谢谢😊❤️ Glad you like it! New videos are coming🙌 Keep it up!
This is a wonderfully helpful video - I've just rewatched it for reference to remind myself. Thank you!
Awesome!! Glad you fin dit helpful!
Really good! It's very concrete and technical! Very useful. I really love your videos!
Great!! 太开心了😊😆🙌
I am crying ✨ but my tongue in flat now 😃👍 A good start LOL
OMG you're good! Thanks.
4:28 As a German who learns spanish, it was so hard to get rid of the aspiration of these consonants. Not saying P(h)ablo or T(h)echo was so difficult until I got taught how to do it...same for vibrants of b, d and g...language learning is so much fun, isnt it?
I'm not a beginner beginner anymore, just a beginner %-) (I'm studying for hsk 4) but this still helps to refresh and to keep practising. Pronounciation was and is my nemesis. I pay a lot of attention to it from the beginning and still I'm not that far (I had pronounciation issues in my mothertongue too ;) I got it right eventually, so with mandarin chinese it will also be ok eventually... it's sometimes frustrating that it takes so much more time then for certain others. my tongue constantly gets into a knot trying to switch consonants and paying attention to the right tone at the same time).
I had already found these tips sprinkled around the internet, but it's nice to find them all together here. This is gold for a beginner.
Thank you for sharing your experience!! I'm so happy that you find my video helpful😊 Keep it up💪🙌 加油加油！
Thank you!
The "b" should sound like P (for example in Pay) or like B (for example in Bay)?
发音位置的问题确实是非常重要的。孩子学英语的时候我总是告诉他发音部位要低，他就是低不下去。
确实是，也得继续增加输入、多听多模仿！
@@RitaChinese 你们俩要是得空生个娃，那还不得至少三种母语啊，精通联合国五常的所有语言。想想都觉得厉害。
Please add more English subtitle?? Alot of people like me appropriate that !?
I don't know anything about Chinese but the characters seem familiar. I would guess that is Simplified Chinese? For someone who knows Japanese I'm not sure if I should learn Traditional or Simplified. Apparently Simplified is in mainland China and Traditional in Hong Kong (?) but I don't live or plan to live anywhere in China so it doesn't really affect me, I just like 漢字
traditional chinese=japanese kanji pre-1946. modern japanese kanji is pretty in the middle with simplfied and traditional though, so maybe it depends on your kanji knowledge. i would guess that if your kanji knowledge is a bit worse than average, learn simplfied. if its better than average, learn traditional.
also fyi someone who learns simplified can read traditional (with some difficulty) and someone who learns traditional can read simplfied (also with arguably a bit more difficulty). but if you’re exposed enough to the other there wont be as much difficulty.
As a native norwegian, I think the consonants are quite easy to distinguish. My pronunciation is not perfect, but I know how they are supposed to sound. I actually think the vowel sounds like in 四 Sì and 女 nǚ are much harder because they feel so weird to pronounce.
Good one
Hi Rita! Absolutely loved the video, super super helpful! I have question though - I've heard it recommended by some people to delay speaking for a bit while focussing on heaps of listening input as a way to improve pronunciation and avoid drilling bad habits right in the beginning. (For context, I can't afford a teacher currently, and really don't want to pick up bad habits). What are your thoughts on this?
Hi 👋😊
I don't hear the difference between "q and ch", can you compare this in a video please
Incredibly helpful drills!
Hey, Rita, thanks for the video! Can you please elaborate a little more on j q x in the following context: I've come across many videos where native Chinese speakers teach these sound differently. Specifically, they tell us learners to produce them roughly around zh ch sh area, the hard palate, and it's actually a quote from the book 现代汉语。The sound feels the same, and people claim that it's just the way we (Chinese people) talk anyways, like it's a key feature of modern standard 普通话。 I feel a little confused 🌝
Oh, actually even HSK textbooks from 北京语言大学出版社 teach coronals (that's the fancy name for j q x) like that. So I was just wondering what's going on. Is it like okay to use either way?🌝
You asked such a great question, Laurent! And it's def been causing a lot of confusions for Chinese learners, I can imagine. I read the 现代汉语 books in college, but back then I didn't really pay so much attention on the pronunciation part. But I just bought it on Amazon to review a bit, and to see how the j/q/x sounds are described in the must-read book for Chinese students. Tbh I won't be surprised if they taught the tongue position is same as zh/ch/sh, and it would make so much sense of why so many Chinese learners have the problems of pronouncing the sounds. I'm afraid that quite a lot of the textbooks and teachers didn't teach the sounds correctly over past...decades. I'll definitely elaborate these two groups of sounds in my next Chinese analysis video! Thank you for your question!
Hello Ms, how to pronounce initial d and b in Chinese clearly? Is it similar d in do and b in boy in English? Thanks
You're right in pointing out that much of Chinese is said at the front of the mouth - this aspect makes it difficult for me to pronounce many of the sounds you covered in this video. (I speak from the back of the mouth like a typical English-speaking New Zealander) The z, c, s sounds in particular are hard to say. Btw, will you do the Chinese r sound in a video? That one is nigh on impossible for me to do!
It's a great start knowing that what the correct is like! So you will get to practice to the right direction! And good catch! "R" sound is a big one in a lot of languages (like in Spanish, sigh)! Will talk about it when I get a chance! Stay tuned😊🙌
@@RitaChinese Spanish r is hard for English speakers, too. My wife can do them though (probably because she's Filipino).
@@peterbayne7227 Ah interesting! haha I'm still struggling with it unfortunately😄
after watching this instantly my chinese is 100 percent so native. i even fooled the aunties. thank you 阿姨 for teaching me.
Hahah my pleasure!
That prop you use is brilliant.
You are literally the ONLY foreign language teacher I have ever seen who uses that.
And! It's a joke just waiting to happen!
"Where did I get it? Oh, it's actually a sex toy."
hahah really? I know an (Chinese) English teacher friend uses it as well!
对学习汉语发音非常有帮助 谢谢
太好了！非常开心😆
Im the 300 suscriber and i will try to get another 50 to this amazing channel i want to learn chinese and this seems a really good channel to do it and by the way I also know spanish so if this channel starts to put in spanish im prepared lets start!
Gracias! I’ve been trying to learn Spanish so that maybe one day I’ll be able to teach in Spanish haha. Thank you so much for following and getting more learners here😄🙌
I already speak English French Arabic Kabyle
And I started to learn 中文
It's really hard when you try to learn alone because you don't have someone with whom you can speak
Personally I have a problem with tones
I loved your channel!!!
Yayyy so happy that you liked it😊❤️🙌
X & s . C & Q too much similarity Rita so difficult !!!!
I know it takes time!! Better get a tutor to help you adjust the pronunciation if you can. Your tongue position is different when pronouncing x and s. Similarly with c and q! 加油💪
@@RitaChinese y know i look your explanations 🤣. Thanks for your work Rita :) Chris can promote your channel !! Hey Chris move your ass for !!!
Not sure whether I could do much of it now since my tongue muscle in my throat deep down is still torn and one part of my brain is not working or missing, since I am going through a blocked mental mind condition.
Dang this is hard but most helpful video I found so far
It'd gonna be getting so much easier if you practice it over and over in the right way😆🙌 Glad you find it helpful!
I am indian, a hindi speaker. We are neighbours but our languages are very different... Tibetan language is similar to indian languages but Chinese words are not similar to indian words... Very difficult
This is so helpful!!! 谢谢你！
哇哇 您好 我现在才发现您是马老师的老婆 很荣幸我能跟你学习汉语 嘻嘻
很荣幸你关注和喜欢我的内容呀😄
Hi老师， 为什么 中国人制造汉语拼音的时候，这个 Q, 不是用 ch。比如 [求] 是 qiu, 而不是 Chiu. 因为其实 q 跟 k 在其他语言是同一个音的。一般会把 qiu 念成 kiu。我学过台湾的汉语拼音，他们没有用 q, 比如姓邱 拼音是Chiu. 姓钱 拼音是 chian. 在中国是 Qian, 我没有学汉语拼音之前，我会把qian念 kian
这个问题问得很好！汉语拼音其实也只是代表真正“中文声音”的一套系统，肯定会跟别的系统有所不同。特别是中文里本来有“ch”的发音，就更需要别的符号来代表“q”这个完全不同的声音。台湾从前用“ch”表示“q”的方法显然从语言学的角度不够科学--因为会让学习者把不同的声音混在一起。很多没学过中文的朋友会认为“q“的发音是“k”，这很正常。学过汉语拼音、了解了中文的发音是怎么样的就好，特别是跟“ch”的区别哈哈。
The "c" sounds are still killing me, gonna take a while to learn this language 😅