wo3 zai4 xue2 xi2 pu3tong1hua4
Feb. 26th, 2009 08:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
guslJust for the heck of it / because I'm so high on myself, I decided to show up at Level II Mandarin (which one typically qualifies for after 6 90-minute lessons). I found it much more interesting than Level I, and more interactive (only 7 students besides me; rather than 27). It's a kind of firehose that I'm ok with: unlike science classes, I let it slide when I don't understand. I'm quite willing to let my brain get soaked with the new language, without trying too hard / getting caught up when I don't understand what is said. In fact, I've been setting my radio to a Chinese station, despite understanding absolutely nothing.
... and surprisingly the teacher invited me to stay at Level II!! ...as long as I study a bit. She didn't have anything to say about my tones, only smiles and thumbs-up. But this may not mean much.
What I've learned so far, about the phonetics of Mandarin:
* Pinyin does not map very directly to IPA:
"i" can sound like [ɘ] (perhaps in similar contexts as Germanic languages schwa-ize their "e"s) "ni" is [ni], but "shi" is [ʃɘ] or even [ʃɘɹ].
"en" sounds like [ʌ~] (similar to some French sounds)
"z" is [ts]
"r" can be similar to a Czech "ř" but apparently it can disappear into the vowel too (as in Germanic languages)
* I find Wade-Giles much more intuitive, but I think the web disagrees with me (just Google for "zai jian"(Pinyin) vs "tsai chien"(WG) ).
* Mandarin apparently has no voiced consonants other than the nasal ones, although Pinyin might make you think otherwise. (Pinyin uses voiceless consonants to indicate aspiration),
* The realization of the tones is dependent on surrounding tones (any phoneticist would say duh!), but I'm still figuring out how, though mostly unconsciously.
UPDATE:
I understand it when they say Jianada!
... and surprisingly the teacher invited me to stay at Level II!! ...as long as I study a bit. She didn't have anything to say about my tones, only smiles and thumbs-up. But this may not mean much.
What I've learned so far, about the phonetics of Mandarin:
* Pinyin does not map very directly to IPA:
"i" can sound like [ɘ] (perhaps in similar contexts as Germanic languages schwa-ize their "e"s) "ni" is [ni], but "shi" is [ʃɘ] or even [ʃɘɹ].
"en" sounds like [ʌ~] (similar to some French sounds)
"z" is [ts]
"r" can be similar to a Czech "ř" but apparently it can disappear into the vowel too (as in Germanic languages)
* I find Wade-Giles much more intuitive, but I think the web disagrees with me (just Google for "zai jian"(Pinyin) vs "tsai chien"(WG) ).
* Mandarin apparently has no voiced consonants other than the nasal ones, although Pinyin might make you think otherwise. (Pinyin uses voiceless consonants to indicate aspiration),
* The realization of the tones is dependent on surrounding tones (any phoneticist would say duh!), but I'm still figuring out how, though mostly unconsciously.
UPDATE:
I understand it when they say Jianada!
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Date: 2009-02-27 02:34 pm (UTC)Pinyin is absolutely megafail and I hate hate hate it. You don't assign wildly different sounds to existing letters for no damn reason. But standards are standards, even if they suck. Bleh.
Also, shè (which is like the one Mandarin word I know) is obvs actually "shü".
pinyin "i"
Date: 2009-02-28 04:08 am (UTC)The "i" after {"sh", "ch", "zh", "r"} is a syllabic retroflex approximate (a bit like the Czech "ř" when there isn't a vowel around), and the "i" after {"s", "z", "c"} is like a syllabic /z/.
The vowel in 是 may sound like "ü" because retroflection has acoustic properties similar to rounding. (The same reason why many people think "Goethe" is pronounced with an "r" in it.)
Pronunciation of the "n" after "e" and "a" depends on where they're from and how fast they're speaking. It is pretty changeable.