4 ms·

Wikipedia says Mandarin has all of /t͡s/ ⟨z⟩, /ʈ͡ʂ/ ⟨zh⟩, /t͡ɕ/ ⟨j⟩, /t͡sʰ/ ⟨c⟩, /ʈ͡ʂʰ/ ⟨ch⟩, /t͡ɕʰ/ ⟨q⟩, /s/ ⟨s⟩, /ʂ/ ⟨sh⟩, and /ɕ/ ⟨x⟩, all contrastive. The f

by schoen 9y ago

Wikipedia says Mandarin has all of /t͡s/ ⟨z⟩, /ʈ͡ʂ/ ⟨zh⟩, /t͡ɕ/ ⟨j⟩, /t͡sʰ/ ⟨c⟩, /ʈ͡ʂʰ/ ⟨ch⟩, /t͡ɕʰ/ ⟨q⟩, /s/ ⟨s⟩, /ʂ/ ⟨sh⟩, and /ɕ/ ⟨x⟩, all contrastive. The fricative and affricate sounds in English that are kinda close to these are only /t͡ʃ/, /ʃ/, /s/, /t͡s/, /ʒ/, and /dʒ/. I think these contrasts represent a very underacknowledged difficulty for English speakers learning Mandarin, because we're used to thinking of tones as the only hard thing. I'm still struggling to properly pronounce a friend's name that I think begins with /ʈ͡ʂʰ/. Maybe Polish speakers can deal with this easily!

yorwba 9y ago
My pronunciation of these consonants was improved a lot by reading the respective Wikipedia articles and imitating the described tongue position. That got me interested in the rest of the IPA, and for a while I spent idle time making strange sounds with my mouth. Retroflex consonants are still awkward, but at least I can produce them reliably. What's really hard for me are uvulars, they feel a bit like choking every time.
- schoen 9y ago
  I spent a long time learning to say [k'], and when I succeeded I had shirts made for myself and a friend who was practicing with me. They say: "I pronounced the velar ejective consonant [k'] and all I got was this [t']-shirt."
magic_beans 9y ago
Everyone in this thread was a Linguistics major then?
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- schoen 9y ago
  I was a dropout, but I wish I had been a linguistics major! There was a post on Language Hat or Language Log where a professor recounted meeting a student who had linguistics "as a hobby", which was astonishing to the professor -- and the student explained that this was possible nowadays because of Wikipedia. (To which I could add, for some people because of the conlang community, or because of linguistics blogs!) Anyway, Wikipedia's coverage of linguistics topics is generally really excellent and detailed (maybe strongest in phonology, perhaps because of a few super-obsessed editors).

by schoen 9y ago

yorwba 9y ago

My pronunciation of these consonants was improved a lot by reading the respective Wikipedia articles and imitating the described tongue position. That got me interested in the rest of the IPA, and for a while I spent idle time making strange sounds with my mouth. Retroflex consonants are still awkward, but at least I can produce them reliably. What's really hard for me are uvulars, they feel a bit like choking every time.

schoen 9y ago
I spent a long time learning to say [k'], and when I succeeded I had shirts made for myself and a friend who was practicing with me. They say: "I pronounced the velar ejective consonant [k'] and all I got was this [t']-shirt."

magic_beans 9y ago

Everyone in this thread was a Linguistics major then?

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
schoen 9y ago
I was a dropout, but I wish I had been a linguistics major! There was a post on Language Hat or Language Log where a professor recounted meeting a student who had linguistics "as a hobby", which was astonishing to the professor -- and the student explained that this was possible nowadays because of Wikipedia. (To which I could add, for some people because of the conlang community, or because of linguistics blogs!) Anyway, Wikipedia's coverage of linguistics topics is generally really excellent and detailed (maybe strongest in phonology, perhaps because of a few super-obsessed editors).