0:01

This is the You Can Learn Chinese

0:03

podcast. For everyone who's trying to

0:05

learn Chinese or reaching for the

0:07

next level, you came to the

0:10

right place. I am your host,

0:12

Jared Turner. And putting Study says

0:14

at the end of a claim

0:16

adds to its credibility. Study says.

0:18

My co-host is John Pazzen who

0:20

posed the question, if money doesn't

0:23

grow on trees, why do banks

0:25

have branches? Let's get to it. Hey

0:28

guys, this is Jared Turner joining

0:30

you here from Utah in the

0:32

United States. Hi everybody, my name

0:34

is John Pazden, I am in

0:36

Shanghai, I'm actually in a different

0:38

apartment now, just moved. But I'm in

0:41

Shanghai, how's it going? You moved real

0:43

far, John, real far. Yeah, like 500

0:45

meters away or something. Yeah, I don't even

0:47

know that. It's less, you moved across

0:49

the street. It's not really across the

0:52

street, like across the alleyway. Whatever,

0:54

anyway, the kids are getting older so we

0:56

need a slightly larger place. But I'm still

0:58

here in Shanghai. Oh John, before we jump

1:00

in, I want to mention something real quick.

1:02

If you or someone you know has a

1:04

great story about learning Chinese, whether it's

1:07

a unique journey and interesting story or

1:09

just some hard-earned lesson, we'd love to hear

1:11

it. We've got a new guest application

1:13

on our website and we're looking for

1:15

passionate Chinese learners to share their experiences

1:18

on the podcast. You can find the link

1:20

in the show notes. All right back to it. Today

1:22

we want to talk about accents

1:24

in Chinese, whether you're a beginning

1:26

learner and you're trying to figure

1:29

out how to sound somewhat sane

1:31

in Chinese, or whether you've been

1:33

studying for a while and you

1:35

realize that your accent just isn't

1:37

quite right. We have some tips for

1:39

you today. You know, John, this was

1:42

something that I think I was

1:44

oblivious to in my younger years. It

1:46

wasn't until my family we were a

1:48

host for a number of foreign exchange

1:50

students that I started realizing, oh yeah,

1:53

if I try to speak another language,

1:55

I'm going to have an accent in

1:57

that language. Mind-blowing. Yes, right.

1:59

And you know, an accent isn't a

2:02

terrible thing. It's okay to have a

2:04

little bit of an accent. You want

2:06

to be easily understood, obviously, but a

2:08

lot of us, we just want to,

2:10

we want to do our best. So

2:12

we don't want to have a really

2:14

heavy accent that's going to cause miscommunication.

2:16

You know, and I think this is

2:18

an important thing just to hit up

2:21

first, John, is that at least here

2:23

in America, it seems that a lot of

2:25

people are very concerned about

2:27

accents. an accent. But I think China

2:29

perceives that aspect quite differently than we

2:31

might in the West. What do you

2:34

mean? Well, as in China, it's common

2:36

to have an accent, if you

2:38

will, right? Well, you mean in

2:40

Chinese is just your local Chinese

2:42

accent? Exactly. But I mean, the

2:44

typical foreigner accent does not sound

2:46

like any kind of Chinese accent,

2:48

right? That's true. That's true. Granted.

2:50

But in general, China is very

2:52

diverse. There's a lot of regional

2:54

dialects and languages even, which produce

2:56

quite a large variance in accents

2:59

in the country, much more than

3:01

I would say different accents we

3:03

have in, at least in the

3:05

United States. Actually, I remember a

3:07

long time ago I wrote a

3:09

blog post about how once your

3:11

Chinese starts getting better. then people

3:13

might say your accent sounds like

3:15

a Xinjiang accent and then they're

3:17

like if it gets even better

3:19

they might say it sounds kind

3:21

of like a Hong Kong accent.

3:23

So there's like different like somewhat

3:25

nonstandard accents which kind of you

3:27

know are on this path towards

3:29

a more standard Mandarin more more

3:31

you know Beijing-centric fluent Mandarin.

3:33

Yeah I think that's right but I think

3:35

overall it's just pointing out that in

3:38

China, this seems to be overall much

3:40

more accepting of having an accent and

3:42

speaking quote unquote flawless or flew into

3:44

or just you know native sounding Chinese.

3:47

I mean it's an awesome thing. It's

3:49

a super cool thing if you can

3:51

pull it off, but it's not perhaps

3:53

seen as valuable as it might be

3:56

seen in the West. Yeah, and actually

3:58

on this note, it also like... mention

4:00

that one thing that I see quite

4:02

a bit even now you know after

4:05

living in China for all these years

4:07

is that Chinese people sometimes think it's

4:09

cute to like mimic a foreign accent

4:11

and like talk to a foreigner with

4:14

like foreign sounding Chinese and like as

4:16

an American you might think that is

4:18

so racist like I can't imagine American

4:21

doing that to you know a Mexican

4:23

or Chinese person or something like that

4:25

would be so horrible. But in China,

4:27

like, there's not nearly as much cultural

4:30

sensitivity to that kind of thing. There's

4:32

not nearly as much exposure to foreigners.

4:34

And that's going to happen and try

4:37

not to get too upset about it.

4:39

Yeah, what do they say? Because, you

4:41

know, I'm not sure I've really picked

4:43

that up. Like, if someone's like teasing

4:46

or mocking or something and in English.

4:48

speaker like what are they going to

4:50

say like in Chinese here right in

4:52

America this like the oh ching-jong-chang right

4:55

and I do find that a little

4:57

offensive when people say that but what

4:59

do they say there well when they

5:02

see you instead of saying nie how

5:04

the black oh knee how you know

5:06

they'll do these like bad tones and

5:08

I usually just ignore it because I'm

5:11

talking them for a reason so I

5:13

just talk about whatever it is I

5:15

want to talk to talk to them

5:18

about and usually they drop it because

5:20

I'm actually communicating with them but if

5:22

you If you focus on it, it

5:24

becomes like an awkward conversation, not very

5:27

productive. And I think overall, though, I'm

5:29

kind of happy, at least it seems

5:31

like how things are changing here in

5:33

the states, the new generation is no

5:36

longer using like the Qingtong Chang, they're

5:38

actually using a Chinese word. What do

5:40

you mean? What's, you want, being chilling?

5:43

You've not heard that? No, well, I

5:45

mean, I have heard these words, but

5:47

what do you mean? What's that from?

5:49

He's like speaking Chinese. He's like, oh,

5:52

bingilling. Oh, she want bingilling. So it

5:54

spawned all these like, you know, videos

5:56

using his voice over, you know, and

5:58

just people saying, bingilling. So it's like,

6:01

seriously. Nowadays, it's like I've ran in

6:03

just random people and like they know

6:05

how to say being cheating. Okay. Well,

6:08

yeah, there are actually lots of random

6:10

clips of Johnson to speak. But anyway,

6:12

the point is, you want to work

6:14

on your pronunciation. Don't worry too much

6:17

if people tease you about it because

6:19

it's more socially acceptable here. But let's

6:21

jump into the tips, shall we? Yeah,

6:24

let's do it. Okay, so first of

6:26

all, if you're a beginner, or even

6:28

if you're a beginner, And I hope

6:30

I don't sound like a broken record

6:33

because we've talked about this before, but

6:35

you really have to master pinion early.

6:37

And when I say master pinion early,

6:39

I mean, like really understand what sounds

6:42

the letters make. Because I think a

6:44

lot of people have this mental block.

6:46

They think the letters are basically the

6:49

same as an English. And they don't

6:51

realize that they have to learn. what

6:53

Chinese sounds match these familiar letters because

6:55

the sounds are not actually familiar, just

6:58

the letters are, right? And so like

7:00

the letter I, like in Pinyin, like

7:02

it's not Pinyin, right? If you pronounce

7:05

it the English way, you're pronouncing it

7:07

wrong. You have to say Pinyin. And

7:09

then that letter I, in different syllables,

7:11

actually makes different sounds. It's not a

7:14

totally consistent vowel sound. Within Pinyin, you

7:16

have to learn the system. And that

7:18

takes time. But if you can do

7:20

that and you can map the real

7:23

sounds of Mandarin to the familiar letters

7:25

which are making unfamiliar sounds, then that

7:27

is going to help your pronunciation so

7:30

much. I was guilty of this. I'm

7:32

sure most of us were when we

7:34

started learning ping. And thankfully, John, when

7:36

I first came to Shanghai, I was

7:39

staying with a friend for a few

7:41

months, and he's Chinese was good. He's

7:43

tiny, good. And he helped me out

7:46

with a lot of these things. Like

7:48

I would try to say, you know,

7:50

I look at the ping-in and I

7:52

would say it incorrectly. He's like, oh

7:55

no, no, it's this one. And you're

7:57

right, it just took a while to

7:59

get familiar with those pronunciations and how

8:01

those words, it's not normal as we

8:04

would speak in Chinese. It's not the

8:06

normal way we would say it in

8:08

English. Yeah, and there's lots of crazy

8:11

things. Like, I think one thing that

8:13

trips a lot of people up is

8:15

the you with the um lot. And

8:17

the fact that the you with the

8:20

um lot by itself is actually the

8:22

exact same sound. Okay, it broke like

8:24

the you with the you with the

8:27

two dots over the top. But the

8:29

u with the umla by itself, that

8:31

sound, is exactly the same as the

8:33

y u syllable, even though it's two

8:36

letters. Like those are the same sound.

8:38

Yeah. And then like the syllable x

8:40

u, that u is not uu, it's

8:42

uu, the u with the umla. Like

8:45

you have to learn all this stuff.

8:47

And yeah, again, it takes time, but

8:49

it's not intuitive, I would say. And

8:52

I think the worst is when you're

8:54

typing, you know, you try to do

8:56

the U with the um-lot, then you're

8:58

like, like, it's like L-U with the

9:01

um-lot thing. It's V. You type your

9:03

opinion that you use the V-ins for

9:05

that you at the um-lot. So maybe

9:08

pro-tip, someone out there is like, oh

9:10

my gosh, I've been trying to do

9:12

that forever. Sometimes you can do a

9:14

W, like U, U, but yeah. A

9:17

U, U works too, I didn't even

9:19

know that. Sometimes, sometimes for some input

9:21

methods. But yeah, sometimes you see Chinese

9:23

people writing a V in their opinion

9:26

because they're used to typing it. And

9:28

just to explain a little bit more

9:30

about this particular sound, it's not the

9:33

only one that's tricky, but this particular

9:35

vowel sound. The way you make it

9:37

is you make an E sound, you

9:39

know, like the letter E. E, E,

9:42

E, E, and then you round your

9:44

lips while keeping your tongue and exactly

9:46

that same tense position. So if you

9:48

do it slowly, you might be more

9:51

aware of whether or not your tongue

9:53

is moving or not, because your tongue

9:55

might try to move out of the

9:58

way because it's used to the patterns

10:00

of English. But if you do it

10:02

slowly and you go eee-ee-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e- You know,

10:04

you roll, you slowly round your lips.

10:07

That makes the you with the umlet

10:09

sound. And that takes practice. Okay, I'm

10:11

going to try it, John. So, ee,

10:14

ee, ee, ee, there we go. Ee,

10:16

ee, ee, ee, ee. There we go.

10:18

Ee, ee, ee, ee, ee. No, e,

10:20

e, ee, ee. Yeah, e, e, e,

10:23

e, e, ee, ee, ee, ee, ee,

10:25

ee, ee, ee, ee, ee, ee, ee,

10:27

ee, ee, ee, ee, ee, ee, ee,

10:29

ee, ee, ee, ee, ee, ee, ee,

10:32

ee, ee, ee, ee, ee, ee, ee,

10:34

ee, ee, ee, ee And John, I

10:36

believe that is the same or similar

10:39

sound as in French as, you know,

10:41

du, like en d'itouil, so number two.

10:43

Oh is it? Yeah, I know that

10:45

that sound exists in French, but I

10:48

don't really know French, so I don't

10:50

know like which words or whatever it

10:52

is. Yeah, D-E-U-X-D, I believe it's, I

10:55

mean, who knows, let me need to

10:57

get, you know, someone who knows, a

10:59

little more French, French, I guess, but...

11:01

All right, so if you're French, this

11:04

should be easier for you. But if

11:06

you're a native English speaker and you

11:08

don't have some kind of bilingual advantage,

11:10

you're going to need to take some

11:13

time to master this sound. And this

11:15

is something that I have worked on

11:17

a lot over the years with lots

11:20

of different clients. And we have resources

11:22

online and the Chinese pronunciation wiki when

11:24

we have different recordings and videos and

11:26

stuff like that to help people like

11:29

really get comfortable with these sounds. And

11:31

it's important to do it. John, one

11:33

sound that I had a lot of

11:36

trouble with when I was learning. I

11:38

feel like sometimes I still have our

11:40

time with this, is the R. It's

11:42

not R. It's not like an R

11:45

that you know most likely. Yeah, Jongo

11:47

R. I feel like every language has

11:49

a different R. Like the American R

11:51

is quite different from, you know, the

11:54

Spanish R, the Russian R, the Japanese

11:56

R, and the Mandarin R is quite

11:58

different too. Yeah, the English R is

12:01

very hard. or like a bunch of

12:03

pirates over here or something. But the

12:05

R is very different. It's weird. I

12:07

think John with something that also threw

12:10

me off was like, when you just

12:12

say the R, you're trying to just

12:14

get that R sound. Right? Versus when

12:17

they say it fast, you know, it's

12:19

kind of different. Yeah, and that's something

12:21

that's going to take practice to get

12:23

to that point. But actually that shh

12:26

sound like in the word measure, that

12:28

buzzy, shh, sound, that's the closest sound

12:30

we have in English to the Chinese

12:32

R. And we don't think of that

12:35

as an R. But the Chinese R

12:37

is sometimes buzzy like that z. So

12:39

when you hear someone say the word

12:42

for person, zen, sometimes they say it

12:44

kind of buzzy like zen, and then

12:46

sometimes they say it less buzzy like

12:48

zen, and you'll hear both, and they're

12:51

both, and they're both correct, and they're

12:53

both normal, but it's the buzzy one

12:55

because it's so similar to like the

12:58

shh sound that is kind of your

13:00

way in to learning how to make

13:02

a sound that's like what native speaker

13:04

say. You know, John, I wish I

13:07

would have asked you that. years ago

13:09

measure I didn't know that I did

13:11

not know that yeah my R had

13:13

improved lots between now and from between

13:16

when I started now but that's a

13:18

great tip well I was saying just

13:20

like Wren you know the American are

13:23

for years because everyone understands it I'm

13:25

sure it sounded like an American accent

13:27

or some foreign accent to the Chinese

13:29

ears but It wasn't creating any problems

13:32

with communication. However, when I would try

13:34

to say like Japan, you know, I'd

13:36

be like, Rubbin, you know, and you

13:38

have to go, you know, button, and

13:41

like that, like to say that correctly,

13:43

you really have to learn the R,

13:45

that RI, and there was no way

13:48

around it. So, you know, when I

13:50

discover these pronunciation blocks, I just have

13:52

to. keep banging my head against that

13:54

wall until I figure out how to

13:57

flip over it. Okay John why we're

13:59

on the subject of R there's a

14:01

slight pet peeve of mine and It's

14:04

the shur. Woshur may go run. Okay,

14:06

no, that's real bad, but this is

14:08

washur, that people saying, shur-ur-ur, throwing that

14:10

R on the end of shi. Why

14:13

is that a pet peeve? Because let

14:15

me tell you, that sounds a lot

14:17

better than saying she. Was she. Yes,

14:19

it does. But come on, that one's

14:22

an easy to fix. Was she. Cee,

14:25

see. I mean that's more like the

14:27

Cee, see, people say Cee, see, see,

14:29

see, see, see, see, see, I've heard

14:31

that before. So, come on. So you're

14:33

saying they pronounce like the word sure,

14:36

S-U-R-E? A little bit like that. They'll

14:38

put S-S-H-I, they'll put an R on

14:40

the end of it. Sure. Now I

14:42

do know, like, like, like an R

14:44

on the R on the R on

14:47

the end, sure. Yeah, I guess part

14:49

of my pet peeve is that I

14:51

think that's a real common American accent

14:53

thing. English speakers are much more likely

14:55

to throw that hard R on the

14:57

end of shit. But you know, that's

15:00

also one of those things where it's

15:02

not going to cause communication errors. So

15:04

if you just use that for a

15:06

while and then come back and work

15:08

on it and try to make it

15:11

more natural, you'll be okay. But another

15:13

area that I find that people really

15:15

have trouble is the S. are not

15:17

too bad, they're very similar to S-H

15:19

and C-H and J in English, but

15:22

then you have the X, Q, and

15:24

J pinion letters representing these Chinese sounds,

15:26

and these do not exist in English.

15:28

And if you think that they're basically

15:30

the same, they're not, they're not at

15:33

all. Like you have to learn a

15:35

new tongue position to make these totally

15:37

different sounds. Are we talking like chu-u,

15:39

like that's a... sound that does not

15:41

exist in English and you have to

15:44

learn the tongue position in order to

15:46

make it sound really good and you

15:48

can't hear the difference because it's a

15:50

sound that's totally unfamiliar. when you're new

15:52

to Chinese. Yeah, it reminds me when

15:54

I had first come to China, there

15:57

were a few of us guys staying

15:59

together in an apartment and back then

16:01

you could call to the front desk

16:03

and get a taxi. And we had

16:05

one of this Italian guy who was

16:08

with us and he couldn't, no, none

16:10

of us really spoke any Chinese. And

16:12

my buddy who spoke Chinese, he says,

16:14

hey, just pick up the phone and

16:16

just say, two, two, two. and the

16:19

Balan there on the other is like,

16:21

well, hold a, hold a, a few

16:23

minutes later, our taxi pulled up in

16:25

front of our building. So, wow, that

16:27

is an accommodating Chinese person, because that's

16:30

a pretty low effort. But these sounds,

16:32

though, I think in my mind, John,

16:34

you know, something you just said there

16:36

is your tongue position, right? That is.

16:38

critical, right? And I found there's so

16:41

many things, there's like so many sounds

16:43

that even if they sound very similar,

16:45

you know, to English, there's the slight

16:47

little difference in there. It has to

16:49

do with like the position of your

16:52

tongue when you're saying it in Chinese

16:54

because it's just a little different and

16:56

that's a subtle difference between the two.

16:58

And they sound similar to us because

17:00

we don't have one of them. And

17:02

our brain is just like, well, that's

17:05

just like that and it can't make

17:07

the distinction. And it can't make the

17:09

distinction. These are what I call the

17:11

tough sounds, like they really need extra

17:13

attention. And if you're studying Chinese and

17:16

you haven't given these sounds extra attention,

17:18

check out the Chinese Pronunciation wiki or,

17:20

you know, work with your teacher. Like

17:22

these sounds really need extra attention if

17:24

you want to sound even remotely like

17:27

a native and if you want to

17:29

reduce your accent a bit. Well, John,

17:31

maybe you could give us an example

17:33

of maybe just one of these sounds

17:35

and an accompanying word. It might help

17:38

a few of us on our way.

17:40

All right so just now we mentioned

17:42

the word chew cue you fourth tone

17:44

right chew and this cue is one

17:46

of those difficult sounds it's a unique

17:49

But the thing is, because of the

17:51

way your tongue is, it sounds maybe

17:53

like CH, where the tip of your

17:55

tongue goes up, but the tip of

17:57

your tongue is actually going down and

17:59

the middle is going up. And I

18:02

don't know if this is making sense

18:04

to you, but I just feel like

18:06

it doesn't work too well, just explaining

18:08

it in an audio medium. You really

18:10

have to see. Like I find the

18:13

tongue. diagram like you look at it

18:15

and you're just like what is going

18:17

on but then when you finally do

18:19

get it you look at the diagram

18:21

you're like oh yeah that is happening

18:24

and I don't know I always found

18:26

that kind of tongue diagram visualization kind

18:28

of useful it is because I remember

18:30

to get this sound John I actually

18:32

had to sit with a native speaker

18:35

and they were trying to like open

18:37

their mouth as wide as wide as

18:39

they could and still pronounce the sound

18:41

because I could see their tongue was

18:43

not, I'm like, wait, wait, wait a

18:46

second, your tongue's not in the same

18:48

place, I would think it is, and

18:50

like, say it again, let her open

18:52

a little wider. And I finally realize

18:54

that, yeah, it's like, the tip of

18:56

the tongue, what I do, John, is

18:59

I plant it behind my bottom teeth.

19:01

Yeah, yeah. And then the middle of

19:03

my tongue makes contact with a roof

19:05

of my mouth. Yeah, that's right. And

19:07

that's the, gee, right. But I feel

19:10

like, if you're thinking, if you're thinking,

19:12

like, like, I would say most Chinese

19:14

teachers, they can't really explain this or

19:16

even demonstrate, or I don't know. They're

19:18

just like, look at me, do this,

19:21

and then you can't really tell what

19:23

their tongue is doing, right? And so

19:25

I feel like you really have to

19:27

look at diagrams and understand that it's

19:29

really different from CH, but kind of

19:32

similar. And I think, John, for me,

19:34

something has always really helped, and I

19:36

found it has helped a lot of

19:38

people, too, when working through some pronunciation

19:40

issues, is contrasting the incorrect and correct

19:43

way. It's kind of like, you're saying,

19:45

chu, it's chu. True, you know, like

19:47

that, but also making sure they can

19:49

understand the difference in, you know, tongue

19:51

position, your mouth, all those types of

19:53

things. And if you can't even hear

19:56

the difference between the correct and the

19:58

incorrect way, then it's going to be

20:00

hard to fix that. So first, I've

20:02

been able, I think, to understand that

20:04

the difference and hear the difference between

20:07

the correct and incorrect way, that might

20:09

be a big deal. Well, you're probably

20:11

not going to be able to hear

20:13

the difference in the beginning. That's just

20:15

the nature of the game. But over

20:18

time, your teacher's like, it's not this,

20:20

it's this. Like, over time, it's not

20:22

this, it's this. Like, over time, you

20:24

probably, in the very beginning. Okay, and

20:26

I also want to say a few

20:29

things about tones. I mean, we all

20:31

know that tones are difficult, tones take

20:33

practice. I hope you know that tones

20:35

are like a long-term thing. You're not

20:37

just going to put in two solid

20:40

weeks of hard work and master tones.

20:42

It takes longer than that. But it's

20:44

also good to know that there are

20:46

certain things that happen that are natural,

20:48

and they're confusing when they're happening, but

20:51

a lot of us go through it.

20:53

So an example of that would be

20:55

the tone swap error. I remember I

20:57

was living in China for, I think

20:59

about a year and a half, and

21:01

I thought my tones were pretty good.

21:04

And people would ask me where I

21:06

was from, and you know, so I'd

21:08

tell them the USA. So the word

21:10

for the USA is Meigua, but for

21:12

a long time I was actually saying

21:15

Meigua. So instead of saying third tone,

21:17

second tone, I was actually saying second

21:19

tone, third tone. So I was saying

21:21

Meigua, when I should be saying. Meigua,

21:23

Meigua, third tone, second tone. And I

21:26

thought I was saying it right, but

21:28

I was saying it wrong. And I

21:30

could handle third and second tones by

21:32

themselves, but something about putting them together,

21:34

even though it was a very familiar

21:37

word. to me and I knew what

21:39

the tones were supposed to be, I

21:41

was just getting it wrong for quite

21:43

a while. Now I believe this was

21:45

the subject of your master's thesis, yes?

21:48

Yeah, actually it was this experience which

21:50

inspired me to study like the tone

21:52

pairs that give foreigners trouble and like

21:54

relative difficulty. Yeah, I remember reading that

21:56

and it was very insightful for me.

21:58

And as I paid attention, like this

22:01

meghua... is like one of the most

22:03

common errors for new speakers. But yeah,

22:05

mastering those tone pairs and taking some

22:07

of your advice. So I found, I

22:09

think your blog, John, early on when

22:12

I'd moved to China. And that was

22:14

really helpful in practicing these pairs together

22:16

and getting some of those down really

22:18

made a big difference for me. Yeah,

22:20

so the concept there is tone pairs.

22:23

So you learn the four main tones

22:25

and the neutral tone. in isolation, but

22:27

then you have to do combos of

22:29

all of them, every possible combination, and

22:31

get good at those in order to

22:34

really master tones and get comfortable with

22:36

saying all kinds of different words and

22:38

saying them pretty much correctly. So it's

22:40

like a video game. You know, you

22:42

playing a character, you might know how

22:45

to swing a sword and throw the

22:47

punch and a kick or something, but

22:49

putting those all together in a combo

22:51

could be a little bit of a

22:53

different deal. Well actually this is one

22:55

of the things that I learned in

22:58

my master's thesis experiment was that familiarity

23:00

with certain tone pairs did not guarantee

23:02

correctness with like different words of the

23:04

same tone pair. So for example in

23:06

my experiment we had French people and

23:09

Americans and some of the Americans would

23:11

say may go correctly three two but

23:13

when they tried to say France Fagua,

23:15

they would say Fagua, like they'd do

23:17

the tone pair swap. And then the

23:20

French would do the opposite. They'd say

23:22

Fagua correctly, but when they tried to

23:24

say America, they'd say, Maygua. instead of

23:26

me, make, or, and so, you know,

23:28

the more familiar words, they were more

23:31

likely to get the tone pair right.

23:33

And so the big takeaway from that,

23:35

for me, was that you really got

23:37

to practice these tone pairs on lots

23:39

of different words to get really familiar

23:42

with them. And, you know, that's what

23:44

kids do too. So it shouldn't be

23:46

that shocking that it takes practice, but

23:48

to me, it was just continually having

23:50

these new lessons and humility. really got

23:52

to spend time working on the pronunciation.

23:55

But it is fun too, right? That's

23:57

right. And you know, I got to

23:59

put a word in there for anyone

24:01

who's listening to this out there, and

24:03

they're kind of like, John, Jared, I

24:06

can't even hear the difference between these

24:08

correct and incorrect numbers you're saying, or

24:10

these pronunciation, all sounds the same to

24:12

me. It's okay. What that tells us,

24:14

it doesn't tell us that, you know,

24:17

your... dumb or slow or can't learn

24:19

the language, no, all it says is

24:21

that you probably haven't had enough exposure

24:23

to the language and practice. And as

24:25

you get a lot more exposure and

24:28

you get more familiarity with the language,

24:30

these things come out, you'll at least

24:32

be able to even if you aren't

24:34

able to reproduce the sounds properly, you'll

24:36

definitely be able to start realizing, oh,

24:39

maybe I didn't quite say it right.

24:41

Yeah, you really got a... hear it

24:43

a lot and you got to practice.

24:45

And I'd also like to give a

24:47

tip, which helps a lot of people,

24:50

I think, focus on useful words and

24:52

the tone pairs and the sounds that

24:54

you need to focus on. Don't focus

24:56

on nonsense syllables. Like I know some

24:58

people who do like nonsense syllable tone

25:00

practice and because you need to get

25:03

familiar with the tunnel patterns of words

25:05

that you know, Like why are you

25:07

wasting time on nonsense words? Like you

25:09

can find the tonal patterns in useful

25:11

words that you want to learn, like

25:14

focus on those. So like when we

25:16

do our tone pair drills for all...

25:18

at learning. We find all those really

25:20

useful words and you just work on

25:22

those. Don't do nonsense syllables, please. You

25:25

know, and John, you've been in China

25:27

now for how long? Is it 20

25:29

years? 25? 25? This year. 25? Yeah,

25:31

it's 20, 25, man. Oh man, it's

25:33

crazy, crazy, crazy talk. Okay, after 25

25:36

years in China, how close to a

25:38

native do you think you sound? So

25:40

for a lot of... phone conversations, you

25:42

know, to me this is the test.

25:44

Can you call someone on the phone

25:47

and you talk to them for a

25:49

couple minutes and then you see them

25:51

later and they're like, what, you're a

25:53

foreigner? So like, I can do that

25:55

pretty regularly. So my accent is pretty

25:57

good. But if the conversation is long

26:00

enough when we start getting into like.

26:02

complicated things with like, you know, more

26:04

obscure vocabulary. I'm sure my accent's gonna

26:06

creep in more. I might make little

26:08

slip-ups with tones. You know, I'm not

26:11

perfect. My accent is quite good, especially

26:13

for everyday stuff, though. Thanks, John, for

26:15

pointing that out, because I think even

26:17

after, you know, a full lifetime in

26:19

China, maybe you sound like a native

26:22

in all situations, but you don't necessarily

26:24

have to spend 25 years in China

26:26

to be understood. and to still have

26:28

good Chinese that people can understand. Yeah,

26:30

so really what you want is you

26:33

want to be able to communicate with

26:35

people. You don't want people like looking

26:37

all nervous and embarrassed and like not

26:39

being willing to talk to you because

26:41

they can't understand you, right? So you

26:44

want to make sure that your pronunciation

26:46

is clear. It doesn't need to sound

26:48

just like a native speaker. I think

26:50

most of us don't have native as

26:52

a goal, but to have clear pronunciation,

26:54

that is an achievable goal. You know,

26:57

you're not going to have perfect tones

26:59

all the time, you're going to still

27:01

make mistakes, but you can have clear

27:03

pronunciation for most of your communications, and

27:05

that's something that you want to strive

27:08

for. So like my tutor, when sometimes

27:10

we're talking to her and she's like,

27:12

oh yeah, I understand. saying I'm like

27:14

no no no I don't want you

27:16

to just understand what I'm saying I

27:19

want to make sure I am saying

27:21

it right but at the end of

27:23

the day that is the point though

27:25

right John is do they know what

27:27

you mean are you effectively communicating in

27:30

Chinese and that's the point yeah and

27:32

I think there are times when it's

27:34

okay if they just understand what you

27:36

mean even though you did not communicate

27:38

it very well. But there are other

27:41

times when I hope we can all

27:43

ask our teachers to really strive for

27:45

getting it as perfect as we can,

27:47

because you have to do those kinds

27:49

of practices in order to really make

27:51

improvements. If everything is just like, oh

27:54

yeah, I get what you mean, and

27:56

you never really work on greater clarity

27:58

than how you ever gonna improve, right?

28:00

Yeah, absolutely. Well John, I think, thanks

28:02

so much for sharing a lot of

28:05

this wisdom, you know, with us, of

28:07

pronunciation, but there are a lot more

28:09

resources out there and you've created some.

28:11

Where can people go to find that?

28:13

So we have this totally free resource

28:16

called the Chinese Pronunciation wiki, and a

28:18

lot of this stuff is on there.

28:20

We also have some pronunciation packs, which

28:22

you can download for a small fee.

28:24

And I also have some blog posts

28:27

that I'd like to share, like that

28:29

two, three, tone swap, error. 3223, that

28:31

one, and we can put links to

28:33

those in the show notes. Well, definitely,

28:35

we'll put that out there so that

28:38

you too can speak Chinese. You can

28:40

learn Chinese, including the pronunciation. And, John,

28:42

I understand you can also learn Japanese

28:44

and Spanish and Italian and Shanghainese. Whatever

28:46

else you decide to learn, right? Well,

28:49

yeah, putting the time in the effort,

28:51

it's fun, I like it. But obviously

28:53

not French. You have been listening to

28:55

the You Can Learn Chinese podcast. My

28:57

name is Jared Turner, co-founder of the

28:59

Manor Companion Reader series. My co-host is

29:02

John Passen, co-founder of Manor Co-founder Series.

29:04

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29:06

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