Learn more about the perfect pronunciation of Chinese consonants
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| Hi everyone. |
| Welcome to The Ultimate Chinese Pronunciation Guide. |
| In this lesson, you'll learn 5 Chinese consonants. |
| z, c, zh, ch, yu- |
| These consonant sounds do not appear in English, so they'll likely be new to you. |
| Be sure to practice them because these are the unique sounds that learners often get wrong! |
| Are you ready? Then let's get started! |
| The first consonant is... |
| z |
| 早餐 zǎocān |
| 自己 zìjǐ "oneself" |
| 走吧 zǒu ba "Let's go." |
| This consonant sound is like a combination of a T and an S sound. |
| It starts off as a t sound, but ends with an s sound. |
| Here's a great tip. You can produce this sound by saying the word 'pizza'. |
| So one useful trick is to bounce off of the ending when trying to pronounce this consonant sound. |
| Additionally, this is an unaspirated sound, so don't blow out a puff of air. Otherwise, you'd be making another sound! |
| t͡s, t͡s (slowly) |
| t͡s, t͡s (slowly) |
| The next consonant is... |
| c |
| 菜 cài "dish/vegetable" |
| 餐馆 cānguǎn "restaurant" |
| 厕所 cèsuǒ "bathroom" |
| This sound is identical to the previous one, however the difference is that it's the aspirated counterpart. Meaning, you want to release a burst of air. |
| Here's a great tip. You can produce this sound by saying the word 'cats'. |
| Listen to how Yinru says it to hear the difference. |
| t͡sʰ, t͡sʰ (slowly) |
| t͡sʰ, t͡sʰ (slowly) |
| The next consonant is... |
| zh |
| 中文 Zhōngwén |
| 重要 zhòngyào "important" |
| 作者 zuózhě "author" |
| (Voiceless retroflex affricate) Do you remember the overexaggerated SH-sound from the last lesson? |
| Well this is a combination of a T-sound and an overexaggerated Sh-sound. Be careful though, because you still want to roll your tongue upwards into the R position. |
| Make sure your tongue is curled upwards so that it touches just behind the gumridge, and then release quickly. |
| This sound is unaspirated, so you don't want to blow out a puff of air. |
| ʈ͡ʂ, ʈ͡ʂ, (slowly) |
| ʈ͡ʂ, ʈ͡ʂ, (slowly) |
| The next consonant is... |
| ch |
| 出发 chūfā "to depart" |
| 长城 Chángchéng "the Great Wall" |
| 好吃 hǎochī "yum" |
| This sound is identical to the previous one, however the difference is that it's the aspirated counterpart. Meaning, you want to release a burst of air. |
| Listen to how Yinru pronounces it. |
| ʈ͡ʂʰ, ʈ͡ʂʰ (slowly) |
| ʈ͡ʂʰ, ʈ͡ʂʰ (slowly) |
| And lastly, the final sound occurs when Y and U are paired together. |
| yu- |
| 月 yuè |
| 远 yuǎn (far) |
| 云 yún (cloud) |
| This is like a y sound but with rounded lips. |
| Try saying the English word 'you' while rounding your lips. |
| If that doesn't work, try rounding your lips first, and then saying 'you'. |
| ɥ, ɥ (slowly) |
| ɥ, ɥ (slowly) |
| Well done! You just learned another 5 Chinese consonants. |
| z, c, zh, ch, yu- |
| You've now learnt all of the sounds that could possibly be pronounced in Chinese! |
| In the next lesson, you'll learn how to produce all the tones in Chinese! |
| Which sound was the most difficult to learn? Please comment and share your thoughts. |
| See you in the next Ultimate Chinese Pronunciation Guide lesson! |
Comments
HideWhich sound was the most difficult to learn? Please comment and share your thoughts.
Hello Stephen,
Thank you for your comment and feedback, I'll pass it to the team for our future development.
If you have any questions, please let us know.
Ngai
Team ChineseClass101.com
unfortunately I found this disappointing as it was just like so many other pronunciation lessons where there is no real depth in the anatomy of the mouth. For English speakers this is so important as we have to get the muscles working different.
as an example. Z. you cannot understand what happens with the tongue in this video. It is showing as touching the back of the top teeth but you then have to drop the tongue after building pressure. This is not explained so how are you supposed to know ? This lack of clarity is a big error. I dont know why Phonetics are not taken seriously enough in Mandarin..Maybe because it is really really boring and tedious to practice but should surely be done correctly for quite some time before progressing to syllables let alone words..
你好 robert groulx！
不用谢。(Bú yòng xiè.) = No need for thanks. You're welcome. 😇
谢谢 (Xièxie) for studying with us, it's great to have you here!
Let us know if you have any questions.
Kind regards,
雷文特 (Levente)
Team ChineseClass101.com
thank you for the lesson transcript
favorite word is 重要
robert
Hello Denisse,
Thank you for posting.
Unlike Korean characters, which have its own sound, Chinese characters are used to deliver meanings, not sounds. Therefore, we cannot match each Korean character with Chinese character, although we can do that between Korean and English characters.
We would like to ask you to check out our introduction video lesson to learn more how Chinese characters work.
https://www.chineseclass101.com/lesson/absolute-beginner-questions-answered-by-yinru-2-what-are-chinese-characters/
By the way, knowing more about Chinese will help you learn Korean much faster and I believe you made the right decision for studying both at the same time.
Let us know if you have any further questions.
Cheers,
Lena
Team ChineseClass101.com
Hi, Denisse,
Thank you for your message.
We'll be back to you later.
Cho
Team ChineseClass101.com
Sorry if my question is a bit bothersome
But I'm learning Korean (same Premium account 101 ;) )
So, I wonder which of the consonants in Korean might have the same (or a bit like) to the Chinese ones :)
ㄱ ㄴ ㄷ ㄹ ㅁ ㅂ ㅅ ㅇ ㅈ ㅊ ㅋ ㅌ ㅍ ㅎ
ㄲ ㄸ ㅃ ㅆ ㅉ
Hi, Tara,
Thank you for your posting.
Yes, I know lots of people think it difficult to prounouce z,c,s and zh, ch, sh.
You can try z as " ズ ", c as "ツ", s as "ス".
Cho
Team ChineseClass101.com
The most difficult new consonant for me wasnt learning any single one, but rather getting the difference between z and zh and between c and ch..i find if i don'r make a point of paying attention and making sure i include a little of the t sound in the former, then my z and zh are nearly indistinguishable