Why Do Speakers of Chinese Languages Have An Accent In English? | Improve Your Accent
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- Опубліковано 8 чер 2024
- Understand why native speakers of Chinese languages have a Chinese accent when speaking English with the help of Jackie Chan.
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00:00 - Intro
00:34 - Consonants Part 1 (Consonant Clusters)
02:47 - Rhythm
03:31 - Consonants Part 2 (Dark L)
04:30 - The N Sound
05:01 - W vs V
05:26 - Devoicing
06:19 - The D and The Glottal Stop
06:49 - Extra Features
06:58 - N vs L
07:20 - L vs R
07:43 - SH vs S
08:22 - Conclusion
Disclaimers
1. Jackie Chan has been chosen because he exhibits the highlighted accent features to such an extent that it is easier for the viewer to hear. If a speaker with a "less strong" accent were chosen, it would be harder for non-phonetically trained viewers to understand the points in the video.
2. There are many different dialects and languages spoken in China. This means that not all speakers of Chinese languages will share the same accent features (or these features to the same degree) as Jackie Chan. However, I have taught many Chinese-language speakers who do have accents similar to Jackie Chan's (even young people and even people who have lived in England for many years).
3. There isn't just one "Chinese accent" in English, but this video summarises some accent features that many Chinese-language speakers have (either when they started to learn English or even now after speaking English for many years).
4. I have not shown all potential accent features that Chinese-language speakers may have.
5. Some topics have been simplified for a general audience.
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Some people have commented that Jackie Chan is a native Cantonese speaker and he does not exhibit accent features that are representative of Chinese people in general. I would disagree. I have taught many Chinese speakers (native languages/dialects include Mandarin, Cantonese, Wu, Southern Min) and most people show the accent features that I describe in the main section of the video. Also please see the disclaimers in the video description.
I am a mandarin speaker. Jackie Chan's accent is from Cantonese which is quite different from Mandarin.
I don't understand why that is relevant. I speak Mandarin and understand a little Cantonese and still don't get the point.
Mandarin and Cantonese (Sinotibetian- Sinitic) are related in the same way that Spanish and Portuguese(Indo European- Italic- Romance) are. I’ve actually heard from speaks of Portuguese and Spanish that they can communicate at a basic level, however the Portuguese speakers understand the Spanish speakers better than the Spanish speaker understands the Portuguese speaker. I can read Spanish pretty well and i can tell you that Portuguese and Spanish are mutually intelligible in their written forms. Spanish and Portuguese descended from Latin mandarin and Cantonese from Classical Chinese. It would make sense that you’d be able to understand a little. From what I understand Cantonese has six tones as opposed to the 4 tones of mandarin, so Cantonese speakers understand mandarin better than the mandarin speakers understand Cantonese. I looked it up and according to Wikipedia Cantonese and mandarin split around 600 AD.
He's Hongkie it's normal
Mandarin是不是满大人的意思?感觉这个词对中国人有歧视
@@yuewenchang 已经成为专有名词了，没什么歧视。China也是从"秦"的音译。难道也要叫他们改为zhongguo。
Jackie Chan learned English in an older age, he did very well. I can totally understand his English.
I didn't know that.
He's been speaking English all of my life lol 😆 and I'm a 90s kid.
I just took up Mandarin a few months ago. I hope to speak as good as he speaks English.
I think he grows up in Australia
@@jeremyxu6178 No, he grew up in Hong Kong, living at a Peking Opera training facility for ten years (aprx 8-18 years old). His parents moved to Australia during that time and JC moved to live with them for a short while when he was finished with the Opera training.
I am a HongKonger,
to be fair it was good effort from him.
I reckon he started to communicate in English at his late 40s or early 50s.
Especially his lack of education when he was a teenager.
Mandarin speaker --->this = zis, think = sink
Cantonese speaker ---> this = dis, think = fink
er what about someone who speaks both :')
You are absolutely right.
Mandarin: I think-> I sinker
Cantonese: I think-> I fin
So a Mandarin speaker will pronounce th sounds like a French speaker from France, while a Cantonese speaker will do it like one from Quebec.
Too bad. Both are sloppy. Spit pebbles OUT before you try to speak America English.
British talk crappy English so they probably don’t notice. They COINED the phrase “butchered King’s English”.
as a Cantonese speaker trying to get rid of my accent while speaking english is very hard. This helps a lot especially the rhythm part. Thanks:)
Hope your progress is coming along nicely! English is a very hard language in the first place. Good luck!
youre a champing!
每次上堂講英文真係笑死我
Makes me curious how we English-native-speakers sound to Chinese people when we try to pronounce Chinese words!
Hahahahahahha man when I try, they look at me like I called them something derogatory but I've only been learning for two months so I'm still in the toddler phase.
I get No sympathy and no correction when I mess up 🤦🏾♀️😩
😂
There's this white guy, I forget his name, that trolls Chinese people. He's totally fluent in Mandarin and has videos on UA-cam.
Check him out if you haven't.
He inspires me to get going.
I am a Chinese and I can say sometimes the accent seems strange as English speakers always pronounce with more strength in some words haha😉
@@nicoleraheem1195 haha, I feel you. Check out Chris口语老炮马斯瑞 on youtube, he started learning Chinese at 23, but gosh he speaks Chinese just like a native from Beijing, he really inspires me to learn new languages.
I don't know
Their main mistake is making the wrong tones, which distorts the meaning of the words
1:07 For some Chinese people, especially the northerners, instead of deleting the final consonants, they emphasis them, making jump sound like jumper.
i think jumpoo［pu：］ is more similar(/ω＼)
lol
This is more specific to Cantonese speakers. Native Min Chinese speakers have overly nasalised vowels when speaking English.
my parents turn the last consonant into a separate syllable all by itself
@@user-vb8gt5xx8e exactly
the irony is that you make those statements about how Chinese doesn't have consonants at the end of words then pick a speaker from Cantonese, which is the only Chinese language that has ending consonants lol
Yes. But it is also true that we (cantonese speakers, especially Hong Kong cantonese speakers) often skip the last consonants when speaking english. But, aren't there a lot of Mandarin words end with 'ng', which is a consonant?
@@dickiewongtk good point
Actually a lot of Sinitic languages end with consonants, namely Hokken and balamgu
@@dickiewongtk I may be wrong, but final -ng usually represents a nasal sound. Nasals are consonants of sorts but they behave differently
@@dickiewongtk In Mandarin, n and ng are nasals. Not really a consonant. In Shanghai the people have troubles to distinguish n and ng. For example: wan wang!
As a chinese, this video helps me to pronounce “action” correctly🙂👍Thank You
成龙说action不说k这个音是因为成龙说的是美语，美语中很多单词中间的读音就是不发音。这哥们是英国人。
chengzhi sun 即使是美语action这个词也是会发出k的音的。成龙省略k的音是不是受粤语影响我不确定，但中式英语里更常见的情况应该是倾向于在k后面加个元音
@@lirongchan212 普通话母语者是习惯在k后面加个元音
The title would be better if it was “Why Cantonese speakers sound Cantonese”. Please make a video called “Why Mandarin speakers sound Mandarin”, maybe using Jack Ma (but keep in mind he is from Hangzhou so he also has an accent)
I would say this only reflects how Cantonese people would tend to speak in English.
Chinese here! Have been waiting for this for a long time~
You could have made one yourself.
well I am the mainlander and most of us cant pronounce the TH sound and hard to distinguish from N and L。。。
and we still use tones while we speak English which was the biggest problem
Makes it easier to get Chinese people to understand you when you're talking English to them if you know the tones
your tones aren't a problem so don't worry about that. diction is important, not tones.
Kai Geng northerners English was better than southerners
@@liqritrs8391 southerns have difficulty to tell L apart from N, and northerns（I personally think,because Im northern）usually add too many stress in the sentence, and it has always been my biggest problem 😩
lin zhao 嘎哈呀铁子
I want to improve my Chinese pronunciation. I'm watching this so I can get some insights into how to help my Cantonese sound better!
Samesies, sneaking in for that
I am Chinese and Taiwanese, this video is very interesting and good observation.
Many thanks.
6:58 fun fact regarding a Northern Vietnamese accent: most of the ppl living in the North of Vietnam tend to pronounce 'l' and 'n' interchangeably when words begin with these letters, eg. the Viet word for '(to) work': Even if it's actually written 'làm', many ppl say 'nàm'.
So happy to see this video on my youtube feed. Thanks!!!
It was a very good video! So easy to understand, so practical! Thank you so much!!!🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻
This is exactly what I need as someone who immigrated as a teenager and can speak English very fluently but unfprtunately still with accent! Keep it up!
OMG I genuinely love this so much!! I'm obsessed with accents and this is so flippin' interesting!!!
This video is quite interesting as well as educational. However, I have to point out that actually Chinglish accent is much more complex than shown on the video because we have quite a lot accents in China, thus different people living in different areas can speak quite different Chinese. Maybe more locals should be used as examples instead of only one.
Very good! I learnt so much! Thanks!
well... analyze Jackie's accent is a little bit controversial. not only his mother tongue is Cantonese, not Mandarin, but also those missing letter you pronounced is not that common in chinese speaking. i think the most difficult part to chinese speakers is double vowels
Agree! Sometimes I don’t open my mouth completely when pronouncing double vowels
Thanks so much for the video! I was expecting a lesson based on the mainstream Chinese (Mandarin) which may not be a good reference to me. Surprisingly Jackie Chan is the model who shares the same mother tongue as me. Love from Cantonese speaker :)
Haha great vid! Love how you consistently used Jackie Chan through to demonstrate the problems
Thanks for your sharing! I learned a lot that I've never noticed before!
You are such an expert. Really appreciate your break down explanation for the accent.I am from China and surely will keep an eye on these problems in the future when I speak English.
This is super useful for me. Thank you!
ahhh makes sense. i never thought about it that way. my parents do the same thing and when i try to teach them how to properly pronounce a word, they really struggle
u r really so experienced! thanks for your video,I found many problems I haven't noticed before, thank you soooo much!!! 💛
This is very helpful, thank you
jackie chan speaks with a very thick cantonese accent,
Polish speakers next, please! Your videos are amazingly educational.
I think another fascinating concept about this is how different the English language can be pronounced yet still be understandable.
This is such a helpful video. Chinese audien(ce) here, love your video, so much detail and information that we can never notice ourselves.
Such a helpful video it is. That we have never be noticed by ourselves before. Sorry, I have changed you sentence
the nicest most imformative way...of explaining something we all laugh about.
Excellent, excellent video. Thank you!
Great analysis!
Great finding 👏🏽👏🏽
very very instructive！I can not thank you enough！surely we are not sensitive to the sentence stress. hope you can teach us Chinese more on that.
You're brilliant! Thank you.
Very accurate observations. Thank you for your work.
You're really good. thanks for improving my accent!
As a Chinese, I have to say your analysis is really to the point.
Chinese here. I think most of these problems can be avoided early on with careful teaching, but indeed there are dialects that don't really distinguish between n and l, and v isn't used in Chinese so even when speaking Chinese some people use w and v interchangeably. I wasn't sure how 'roll' and 'table' sounded different when pronounced by Jackie, but I could see the addition of vowel turning 'old' into 'owe'.
Just perfect! I love your channel!=)
nice video! I can learn so much!
Thank god the best channel uploaded
Very cool video I learned something today. Mission accomplished
I speak Mandarin and your video is super helpful.
thank you for your special info about the Chinese accent because I find difficulty with this accent..
This is what i mean when i say.. I miss some pleasant voices in youtube. This is it. Clear and precise and intelligent sounding. Most youtubers tend to give me a headache. This guy wouldn't. I can tell.. 😊
You are awesome dude. I was looking like a video like this
Thank you so much for the incredible job you do! :)
Could you do one on Russian/Finnish speakers?
Great video!
One feature of the Chinese accent that I wish you had mentioned is that the initial _d_ in English as in _dog_ is partially voiced but Mandarin and Cantonese native speakers tend to pronounce it as unvoiced. It’s a noticeable but hard-to-describe difference.
It was an interesting, informative video!
Interesting! Would be nice if you could give a clearly demonstration comparing Jack Chen’s pronunciation and the correct pronunciation for those words.
I like this video because it reminds me of the little things I tend to forget and it's very clear. thank you. i like the other video about UK accents too.
4:19 this is such a good example of how if you can't pronounce properly people won't understand you.
btw i work at a pharmacy and many Chinese customers look at my asian face assuming i'm Chinese and just speak Chinese to me straight away without asking politely 'can you speak Chinese'? so even if i know how to speak it depends on my mood whether or not to say yes. Some would then try to speak english but i'm really having trouble to understand because of the accent.
You should do one of those with Portuguese speakers (PT and BR, among some smaller countries)
These characteristics not only apply to Chinese ppl, but also to Vietnamese (or also Thai speakers, I think). My parents come from Vietnam, and when they speak German, it's just almost the same. Every word that ends with certain consonants (esp. '-s') is left out, since it is difficult for them to pronounce a 's' sound at the end (as in "audience") 😄. The same goes for 'r' sound, pretty hard as well.. and so on.
I like your video and I really enjoyed it. Good job...
you are perfect right and very clear
0:15 I like that you mentioned the variety of Chinese languages and dialects.
Good video. Surprisingly none of the mistakes I expected showed up in this video. Common mistakes like "thank" is pronounced as "sank", vowels are put behind the consonants such as "Swift" is pronounced as "Si-we-fu-te" (because in Chinese language, consonants are always companied by vowels)
Hello everybody. 7:59, I understand why he said "Engliss", because of the word "so", ha said "English so fast", normally, he pronounce "sh" correctly. In fact, in interview, sometimes Jackie Chan don't pronounce some words clearly, but in movies, he does his best.
I am learning Mandarin Chinese and I am always watching Videos about The Chinese Language. I stumbled into this Cute and Sweet Video. Thank You for The Video, the audience should remember the Native American Saying “Good Humor-Good Medicine”..lol..
Thanks a lot!
You should do a comparison between Jackie, a cantonese speaker vs Jet Li, a northern mandarin speaker.
Very insightful! Would like a similar video on insight into the Indian accent!
Try making a video like this with Brazilian Portuguese speakers as well. I attended an event yesterday, and the Brazilians were speaking with a very strong accent, that I enjoy, but I think it may hinder the ability to speak fast. Great channel, by the way. Cheers
Your first point is half valid. Yes, we Chinese people don’t like consonants at the end of the word, but we don’t just delete it, instead, we add a vowel like sound to it, kinda like what the Italians do. I have no idea why Jackie Chan delete it, maybe it’s a Cantonese thing, and he’s representative of Hong Kong accent at best, definitely not how the majority of Chinese people in mainland China speak.
Jackie Chan betrayed Hong Kong , so I blame mainland China for any of his faults...
Interesting video
Why do Dutch people sound Dutch?
I'd love to see a video on that, as I'd love to improve my accent. Your videos are extremely useful
what I noticed with dutch speakers is they are not that good at pronouncing aspirated consonants e.g. top becomes dop, cave becomes gave
if you look up final devoicing, coda devoicing or consonant final devoicing you can find exercises that will benefit a Dutch accent in English
You are using the right Chinese map, thank you.
I'm going to china to teach.
This shud help me to understand them well. Thanq.
Hi, i m vietnamese and realize that i have some pronunciation mistakes like the chinese such as omitting the end consonants or distinguising difficultly "l, n, s" . Thanks for your video, it helps me a lot to consider which mistakes i need to improve.
Thank you for the video! It it so interesting and funny :)
Maybe you can do another one about slavic accents: russian, ukrainian etc?
Thanks very much for making this awesome video. I really enjoy watching it. One can only improve when he knows what his problems are. Jacky's accent is Cantonese accent. Chinese from southern provinces especially Guangdong province and Hong Kong speak in the same accent. People from northern China have a different accent. We do have a problem to differentiate "W" and "V"; "th" and "f" "s"; "ae" and "e" and the "L" sound could be the most difficult one, let alone the Dark L sound you mentioned in the video. I didn't get the "n" sound become "ng" sound at 4:34 either. What does it mean? Thanks again
I love your vids!
I enjoy watching your video.
It’s really good idea for making video
Nice to meet you.
everyone keeps pointing out that the guy mistook jackie's canto accent for a chinese one, but regardless this is very helpful and true information.
your channel is awesome
Your videos are quiet fun to watch but your video quantity is very limited, I've seen all the videos and waiting eagerly for your next upload...
I like your speech and your speaking fastness.
Hello everyone. I think that Jackie Chan used to pronounce the word “action” with the “k”, but when he is speaking too fast, he says “ashon”.
I found this very interesting and also notice that some part in Nigeria particularly the "OYO" have some of these accent in common with the Chinese for instance the "English" is been pronounced "Englis.
i'm a simple human, i see jackie, i smash thumbs up *-*
damn, i hope he will live till 200 years and i won't have to handle his death
Cool stuff. Would you say, there is a difference between Cantonese and manadarin English accents?
Amazing video!! Please make one about Polish accent :)
thank you
I'm of American-born Chinese, speaking clearly with an American accent, and I do understand Chinese accent growing up.
Jackie Chan is favourite actor and too many people like him, that makes his accent tolerable though not unnnoticed.
Can you do a video for Germans, Georgians, Russians etc?
Very good. I was always wondering about "magnet", they say magne
It's a very interesting video, is good to know about it, it's a new knowledge, but... it's no problem at all, we all have accents even in our country in different regions. even native English speakers, Americans, British, Africans and us foreigners too, the accent makes us unique, it's beautiful and what matters is the "communication" to be understood and understand people speaking. A lot people are afraid to talk cause of their accents and that's sad, and the judgement is ridiculous, learning another language is already hard, but we learn to be able to communicate. If you know another language that's what matters.
very interesting
Please do Vietnamese accent. Your videos are absolutely helpful
Hello everyone. 7:57, he said the word "don't" , it sounds like "tong".
Oh yeahh..