Mandarin is generally considered to be one of the most difficult languages to learn for English speakers due to its writing system and its pronunciation. Many English speakers struggle with its tones and with sounds that exist in Mandarin but not English.
However, being difficult doesn't mean it is impossible. The key is to be aware of these challenges and then to practice until you overcome them. English speakers can speak amazing Mandarin — just like Kevin Rudd, former prime minister of Australia.
In this post, we'll introduce the sounds you should pay attention to when learning Mandarin:
- Some sounds that both English and Mandarin share
- Sounds that both English and Mandarin have, but that differ slightly
- Sounds that exist in Mandarin but not in English
- Sounds that exist in English but not in Mandarin
Now warm up your tongue, get it all loosened up, and prepare for some pronunciation practice.
But first:
The IPA — Blueprints To Learning New Sounds
Before we start, you'll want to be familiar with the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). The IPA is a universal system of symbols used to represent sounds across all languages. It mostly consists of letters, but includes some odd symbols here and there, such as /æ/, /dʒ/, and /ŋ/. (Note: IPA symbols are placed within brackets /.../ to differentiate them from normal letters.)
You can think of the IPA as being a way to “write down” the specific sounds present in a particular word, not just the letters used to spell it. This is advantageous because a language's letters are often inconsistently connected to its sounds: gh sounds one way in rough and another in through.
The IPA eliminates this issue entirely.
Just as sheet music guides a musician to play certain notes, the IPA tells you exactly which sounds to make to accurately pronounce a word. It’s like having sheet music that guides your pronunciation.
How to learn the IPA
The bad news is that a handful of the IPA symbols will be unfamiliar to you.
The good news is that you're already finished wth the hard part: you can make English's sounds perfectly fine, you just don't know what their names are. To begin confidently using the IPA, all you need to do is take a moment to reflect on what you're doing when you make these sounds and attach a name to them.
So, to learn the IPA:
- Watch these three videos:place of articulation, manner of articulation, voicing
- Look at an IPA chart for English (or your native language)
- Open up the Wikipedia page for each symbol — here's the one for /b/ (to find it, I searched for wikipedia ipa /b/)
- Note the name: voiced bilabial plosive
- Say the sound very slowly
- Try to pinpoint the feeling of the sound:
- Place your fingers on your throat; do you feel it vibrating?
- Bilabial = two lips; at what point do your lips connect?
- Plosive = air explodes out; does this sound involve an "explosion" of air? - If you're curious or feeling stuck, check out the features section for a bit more detail
- Repeat with the other sounds
Note that the first few sounds you learn will be the hardest. If you can get through a few sounds, you'll quickly start noticing overlap. All of our sounds are simply different combinations of the same few basic parts.
How The IPA Helps You
Where the IPA really shines is for figuring out sounds you don't know in a foreign language. Most "new" sounds aren't actually entirely new; they're simply a new combination of sound components that you're already familiar with.
For example, if you've learned Pinyin, you'll know that it has two u sounds: u and ü. Many learners are scared by this sound at first. We don't have it in English! But if you look up the IPA of these sounds, you'll notice a few things:
- This scary ü sound is known as a close front rounded vowel — don't worry about what that means just yet!
- Our normal /i/ sound (as in feet) is a close front unrounded vowel — the only difference between /i/ and ü is that ü is rounded!
- The /u/ sound (as in goose) is a close back rounded vowel — in other words, you already know how to make rounded sounds!
So to make this new ü sound, you just have to do two already-familiar things:
- Set up your lips as if you were saying the oo sound in goose
- Intentionally maintain that lip shape, but say the ee sound in feet
A basic introduction to your speech organ:
Here is a map of your speech organ. As you’re reading the instructions below, or as you're experimenting with English's sounds as suggested above, reference this regularly. It's important that you learn your way around your mouth.
Some sounds that English and Mandarin share
In this section, we will look at sounds that both English and Mandarin share. This means they are pronounced (almost completely) the same and that the sounds carry similar qualities.
While you are already pronouncing these sounds correctly in Mandarin, we’ll still walk through them anyway. Your goal is to get familiar with the sound components (voiced, nasal, etc) so that you can more confidently apply them when we start talking about new sounds.
Consonant N — /n/
This parts of this sound are as follows:
- Voiced: If you place your hand on your throat, you'll feel it (your vocal chords) vibrating
- Alveolar: The tip or blade of your tongue moves toward the alveolar ridge (the bumpy area right behind the upper front teeth)
- Nasal: The sound (and airstream) comes out from your nose, not your mouth (hold a hand in front of your mouth, say haaaa, then say nnnn; you should notice the airstream change direction)
Fun fact: Nasal sounds occur as a result of your (a) your tongue/lips blocking airflow out of your mouth and (b) your soft palate lowering, opening up your nasal cavity for air to flow through. Say an English word with N in it — can you feel the palate lowering?
Some Chinese words that include n are 鳥 (niǎo, bird) and 南 (nán, south).
Consonant M — /m/
Here's another nasal sound. Its parts are as follows:
- Voiced: If you place your hand on your throat, you'll feel it (your vocal chords) vibrating
- Bilabial: bilabial = two lips; when you pronounce this sound, your lips are closed (or very nearly closed)
- Nasal: The sound (and airstream) comes out from your nose, not your mouth (hold a hand in front of your mouth, say haaaa, then say mmmm; you should notice the airstream change direction)
To pronounce the /m/ sound, simply close your lips and make sound. For an experiment, make an ahhh sound and then close your lips to make the /m/ sound. Do you notice a change in sensation in your mouth/speech organ? Did the sensation move?
Some Chinese words that include m are 馬 (mǎ, horse) and 媽媽 (māma, mom).
Consonant T — /t/
The parts of this sound are as follows:
- Voiceless: If you place your hand on your throat, you won't feel it (your vocal chords) vibrating
- Alveolar: The tip or blade of your tongue moves toward the alveolar ridge (the bumpy area right behind the upper front teeth)
- Plosive: Plosives are two part sounds — first, air is temporarily blocked, and then it is allowed to "explode" out
To pronounce the /t/ sound, first place your tongue tip against the alveolar ridge. Doing so blocks the flow of air coming out of your mouth, and you'll feel some air pressure build up. Finally, release the air pressure by relaxing your tongue back to its natural position. This will result in an audible "explosion" of air — if you put your hand in front of your mouth, you'll feel it.
We'll need to talk a bit more about this sound below because Mandarin differentiates two T sounds that English doesn't. You can make both sounds perfectly fine, but you might not be used to consciously differentiating them.
Some Chinese words that include t are 桃 (táo, peach) and 跳 (tiào, to jump).
Sounds that exist in Mandarin but not English
This section looks at the sounds which English speakers most struggle to produce. These sounds are not present in English, meaning you’ll need to use the IPA skills we built above to figure them out.
Many English speakers end up replacing these sounds with the closest English approximates instead of actually learning how to make them. Doing so will make you sound like a 老外 (Lǎo wài, foreigner). There's not necessarily anything wrong with that — your Mandarin will have a distinct foreign accent.
If you want to sound closer to a native speaker, pick apart these sounds and learn to pronounce them well:
The "retroflex" consonants: Zh, Ch, Sh
None of these consonants exist in English, and they're often grouped together because they share a common feature: their "retroflex" nature. Retroflex simply means "bend backwards." In Mandarin, they're referred to as 卷舌音 (juǎnshé yīn, bent-tongue sounds.)
The term "retroflex" is unfortunately a little bit ambiguous, and different linguists may use the terms "postalveolar," "alveolo-palatal," or "prepalatal" to describe them.
However you want to call these sounds, you make them like this:
- Use the tip or blade of your tongue
- Raise it toward the post-alveolar region of your mouth
- Bend your tongue back toward the soft palate, but don't bend it so much that the underside of your tongue touches the roof of your mouth
- Our closest English approximate (the sh sound in she) is palatized, meaning the mid/back of your tongue raises up toward your hard palate — the Mandarin sound isn't palatalized; these sounds involve only the tip of your tongue
- Your lips become slightly rounded, but not as much as when saying making the ü sound we discussed above (see the lip shape at this timestamp)
- (If you're scratching your head right now, refer to the color-coded mouth diagram at the beginning of the blog article.)
As an English speaker, my mouth feels a bit stuffy and crowded when I make these sounds. We don't put our tongue quite so far back, so it's an unfamiliar feeling.
Pinyin Zh — /ʈʂ/
The parts of this sound are as follows:
- Unaspirated — When you pronounce this sound, you shouldn't feel a puff of air escape your mouth
- Retroflex — Raise the tip of your tongue and move it toward the back of your mouth, as described above
- Affricate — These sounds begin as a plosive and end as an affricate — your tongue will initally block airflow, then let it hiss out
- Rounded — As mentioned above, the lips are slightly rounded, so they'll feel a bit tense
You can see a nice demonstration of this sound here on YouTube.
To pronounce this word, start out by saying the English word jerk. Say it slowly a few times and identify your tongue's position on that J sound. From there, push the tongue further up and back; it'll feel tighter. Pronounce jerk with with this new tongue position, and without the final K sound, and you'll end up with something pretty close to the zhi syllable in Mandarin.
Chinese words with the Zh sound include: 豬 (zhū, pig) and 中 (zhōng, middle).
Pinyin Ch — /ʈʂʰ/
The parts of this sound are as follows:
- Aspirated — When you pronounce this sound, you should feel a puff of air escape your mouth
- Retroflex — Raise the tip of your tongue and move it toward the back of your mouth, as described above
- Affricate — These sounds begin as a plosive and end as an affricate — your tongue will initally block airflow, then let it hiss out
- Rounded — As mentioned above, the lips are slightly rounded, so they'll feel a bit tense
You can see a nice demonstration of this sound here on YouTube.
The primary difference between this sound and the Zh sound above is aspiration. When you pronounce this sound, a large puff of air will escape your mouth. (In IPA, a super script h stands for aspiration.) You can follow the pronunciation guidance from the Zh section, but say chirp instead of jerk.
Chinese words with the Ch sound include: 吃 (Chī, to eat) and 茶 (Chá, tea).
Pinyin Sh — /ʂ/
The parts of this sound are as follows:
- Voiceless — When you pronounce this sound, you shouldn't feel your throat vibrating
- Retroflex — Raise the tip of your tongue and move it toward the back of your mouth, as described above
- Fricative — The tip of your tongue doesn't quite touch the roof of your mouth, leaving a small passage through which you forcefully "push" air
- Rounded — As mentioned above, the lips are slightly rounded, so they'll feel a bit tense
You can see a nice demonstration of this sound here on YouTube.
To pronounce this correctly, start by making the shhh sound you use when asking someone to keep quiet. Now, roll the tip of your tongue even further back, not quite touching the roof of your mouth. Round your lips a little, as if you're preparing to kiss someone. In this new position, make that shush sound again. You should notice a difference. It's more breathier, and should sound deeper / a bit lower in pitch.
Chinese words with the Sh sound include: 十 (Shí, ten), 傻 (Shǎ, stupid), 書 (Shū, book).
The "dorsal-palatal" consonants: j, q, x
As with the retroflex consonants, none of these three sounds exist in English. In Mandarin, these sounds are called 前硬腭 (qían yìng è, literally front hard palate), indicating that the sound's articulatory position is the front palate. This movement isn't super complex — it'll be second nature before long — but it's not something we do in English, so it'll feel weird at first.
What these sounds have in common is:
- To make them, you must raise the middle/back part of your tongue (the dorsum) toward the front part of your palate. If you're not sure what this sounds like — say the words car and cube very slowly. Pay attention to the middle of your tongue. The cu in cube is palatalized, but the ca in car is not.
- What you do with the tip of your tongue isn't as important: you might drop it just behind your bottom row of teeth, you might place it behind the top of your teeth, or you might leave it neutral. Try all of the variations and do what feels comfortable.
Think about trying to make a "tent" with your tongue — the middle part rises up.
Pinyin J — /tɕ/
The parts of this sound are as follows:
- Unaspirated — When you pronounce this sound, you shouldn't feel a puff of air escape your mouth
- Dorsal-palatal — As mentioned above, raise the back/middle of your tongue toward the roof of your mouth
- Affricate — These sounds begin as a plosive and end as an affricate — your tongue will initally block airflow, then let it hiss out
You can see a nice demonstration of this sound here on YouTube. (Note that, whereas her lips were rounded/circular for the zhi sound in the previous section, they aren't rounded here.)
To make this sound, raise the back/middle of your tongue toward the roof of your mouth. Don't worry too much about the front of your tongue. Maintaining this position, say jee, as in jeep. You should notice that the middle of your tongue first touches the roof of your mouth, then it relaxes down a bit and the sound begins. If you're making this sound correctly, you should be able to smile while making it.
Some Chinese words that begin with J include 教 (jiào, to teach) and 近 (jìn, near).
Pinyin Q — /tɕʰ/
The parts of this sound are as follows:
- Aspirated — When you pronounce this sound, you should feel a puff of air escape your mouth
- Dorsal-palatal — As mentioned above, raise the back/middle of your tongue toward the roof of your mouth
- Affricate — These sounds begin as a plosive and end as an affricate — your tongue will initally block airflow, then let it hiss out
You can see a nice demonstration of this sound here on YouTube. (Note that, whereas her lips were rounded/circular for the chi sound in the previous section, they aren't rounded here.)
As with the zh and ch sounds above, the main difference between j and q is that q is aspirated. When you pronounce this sound, a puff of air will escape your mouth. (In IPA, a super script h stands for this puff of air.) You can follow the pronunciation guidance from the above q section, but say cheap instead of jeep.
Some Chinese words which include Q include 七 (qī, seven) and 橋 (qíao, bridge).
Pinyin X — /ɕ/
The parts of this sound are as follows:
- Voiceless — When you pronounce this sound, you shouldn't feel your throat vibrating
- Dorsal-palatal — As mentioned above, raise the back/middle of your tongue toward the roof of your mouth
- Sibilant fricative — The tip of your tongue doesn't quite touch the roof of your mouth, leaving a small passage through which you forcefully "push" air; aim for the back of your top row of teeth, and expect a relatively high-pitched hissing sound
You can see a nice demonstration of this sound here on YouTube. (Note that, whereas her lips were rounded/circular for the shi sound in the previous section, they aren't rounded here.)
To make this sound, lift the back/middle of your tongue up into the same position that you found for j and q. Now, while in this position, say see or she. You should hear something that sounds similar to she, but the hissing sound is a bit softer and higher pitched. Again, you should be able to comfortably smile while making this sound.
Some Chinese words which include X are 習近平 (Xí Jìnpíng, the chairman of the CCP) and 謝謝 (xìexìe, thank you).
Pinyin Ü — /y/
We talked about this sound above while discussing the IPA. While this sound doesn't exist in English, all of this sound's components exist in English. This isn't so much an entirely new sound as much as a new combination of familiar elements.
- "Close" vowel hight — Your tongue is near the roof of your mouth, but not quite touching it
- Front/near-front vowel — Your tongue is positioned in the front of your mouth (near your top row of teeth)
- Rounded — Make a puckering gesture, as when preparing to kiss, then relax them slightly (when you pucker your lips are closed; to make this sound, you need an opening between your lips)
Conveniently, English's /i/ (as in feet) is a close front vowel, and English's /u/ (as in goose) is a rounded vowel. To make the ü sound, then, all you have to do is position your lips as if you're about to say the oo of goose, but then say ee instead.
English speakers sometiems forget to round their lips to make this sound, and this can cause misunderstandings. For example, the word 女 (nü, female) without lip rounding may end up sounding like 你 (nǐ, you).
To hear the quality that lip rounding brings to this sound, compare the vowel in 路 (Lù, road) and the vowel in the first part of 旅遊 (lü4yóu, trip/travel).
Tones
Of course, we have to address the elephant in the room. Mandarin is a tonal language, and English isn't. Mandarin comes with four tones and a fifth a neutral tone, which thankfully places it on the easier side of tonal languages. Cantonese and Vietnamese have six tones, for example.
Here's each of the tones in Mandarin:
- First Tone: This tone is high and level. It is represented by a straight line above the vowel, as seen in "mā" (媽, mother).
- Second Tone: This tone starts at a mid-level and then rises higher towards the end. It is represented by an upward-falling line, as seen in "má" (麻, numb).
- Third Tone: This tone is more dramatic. It starts at a mid-level pitch, drops low, and then rises again. This V shape is reflected in the tone's symbol, as seen in "mǎ" (馬, horse). (Note: so as to not be twice as long as the other tones, most 3rd-tone vowels are only “half” pronounced — you start with a low voice and then drop into an even lower “raspy” or "gravelly" voice, but don’t rise back up.)
- Fourth Tone: This tone starts at a high pitch and falls quickly, as if you're saying something in a strict tone of voice. The symbol representing the fourth tone can be seen in "mà" (罵, scold).
- Neutral Tone: This is best described as a neutral, or "toneless," tone. Syllables with neutral tones are often shorter and less pronounced than other syllables. This tone doesn't have a specific tone mark. It is represented by a plain/undecorated vowel, as seen in "ma" (嗎, the question particle).
Then, I have three important notes for you:
- English doesn't use tones to differentiate words like Mandarin does, but we do add tones to words in order to convey certain emotions. If you're a native English speaker, you can actually make all of Mandarin's tones perfectly fine — you're just not used to sticking so many tones side by side in a sentence.
- The pitch of these tones is relative, not absolute. A young girl's low third tone will almost certainly be higher than an old man's high first tone. Furthermore, the tones aren't fixed to a specific pitch (like middle C on a piano). If you look at the tone of any particular word, what really matters is the tone of the words coming before and after it. There's a flow.
- Many learners have a tendency to underpronounce their tones. Because we use them for emotion in English, it can seem dramatic to pronounce them fully when speaking Mandarin. Having said this, the tones are just a normal thing in Mandarin. While the tones might make you feel like you're speaking dramatically, it probably sounds normal to Mandarin speakers.
Sounds That Exist In English, But Not In Mandarin
In this section, we explore sounds in English but not Mandarin. These are often the sounds that Chinese learners of English struggle to pick up. They usually ended up replacing these English sounds with the nearest Mandarin sounds. As a result, they developed an accent.
We'll cover:
- A few typical features of a Chinese accent / things that Chinese speakers struggle with in English
- Some things which don't exist in Mandarin that you should be careful not to let slip into your Mandarin speech
Some consonants
If you're feeling a bit overwhelmed after looking at the above section, just know that it goes both way! Chinese does not have a V sound, so Mandarin speakers find this sound difficult. People with an especially strong Chinese accecent in English tend to replace V sounds with W sounds, leading to things like enwironment or Wolkswagen.
There aren't any similar sounds in Mandarin, so you shouldn't feel a need to use this one, but just in case: keep the /v/ sound for other languages instead.
Mandarin also lacks the th sounds (the voiced one in this, the unvoiced one in thought), the R and L sound, and a few others. If this topic intersts you, skim through this academic article.
Consonant clusters
In Mandarin Chinese, virtually all syllables consist of a single consonant plus a vowel (or dipthong). The only vowels that can come at the end of a syllable are n and ng. By contrast, English is much more rich in terms of how sounds get combined. We can combine multiple vowels together, and our syllables can also end with consonants, as with the word thrust.
Due to these differences in how sounds fit together (known as phonotactics), Mandarin speakers tend to place vowels after isolated English consonants: the word good might become goo-duh, for example.
As a native English speaker, understand that consonants and vowels are very important in Mandarin. Make sure you pronounce your vowels clearly!
Word Stress
Mandarin is a tonal language — each syllable of each word has a fixed tone, and that tone pattern is a part of the word's identity. English, on the other hand, is a stress-timed language with a a stress accent. In concrete terms, this means two things:
- Some syllables in a word get a bit more "oomph" than other syllables — important is pronounced imPORtant
- The key words in a sentence get a bit more "oomph" and the filler words get de-emphasized
This gives English speech a pretty distinctive rhythm/melody. (Here's a cool video that breaks it down in real-time.)
Unfortunately, the rhythm/melody of English is very different than the rhythm/melody of Mandarin. Some Mandarin speakers may come off a bit robotic when speaking English because they give each English syllable an equal amount of time/emphasis. Conversely, when you are speaking Mandarin, try not to stress random syllables and words in your sentence.
(Note: To be clear, Mandarin does have its own ways of emphasizing specific pieces of information in a sentence. How Mandarin does it just isn't likely to be what naturally comes to you. You'll need to make a point to listen for this and consciously apply it in your own speech.)
Variations in vowels
English is a language that evolved by integrating various tongues from around the British Isles. This is a big part of why English spelling is such a mess — but, to stay on topic, it also means that there are many variables/inconsistencies in terms of how our vowels get pronounced.
Simply put, English has many "flavors" of vowels:
- Short vowels: Some vowels are held for a a slightly smaller amount of time than other vowels. A famous example is the short sound in ship (/ʃɪp/) vs the long sound in sheep (/ʃi:p/)
- Long vowels: Some vowels are held for a slightly longer amount of time than other vowels. Again, compare the long vowel in bean (/bi:n/) vs the short vowel in bin (/bɪn/)
- Weak-vowels: Vowels on unstressed syllables get reduced to the scwha /ə/ — notice the difference between the first and second O sound in common
- Diphthongs: Diphthongs are two vowel sounds that get combined in a single syllable. Examples include the "oi" in "oil," the "ou" in "owl," and the "ai" in "bye."
- R-controlled vowels: When a vowel is followed by the letter "r," you may notice differences in pronunciation. For instance, the "a" sound in "car" or the "i" sound in "third" get influenced by the presence of the "r" following them.
As an English speaker learning Mandarin, this means two things for you:
- Be consistent with your vowels. In Mandarin, an "a" sound is an "a" sound is an "a" sound
- Prononuce words as they're written: don't turn a single vowel into a dipthong (as we do when saying the word no — say it very slowly and observe how the shape of your lips change), don't turn a random vowel into a weak vowel, and so forth
Sounds that exist in both languages, but that are slightly different
In this section, we look into a few sounds that exist in Mandarin and English but have slightly different qualities in each. These are often subtle and may not be very noticeable at first.
While you’ll be understood even if you ignore these differences, these adjustments are often the sounds that will make you sound closer to a native. Again, this isn’t completely necessary. Intelligibility is more important in learning a foreign language than sounding like a native.
Consonant S — /s/
The parts of this sound are as follows:
- Voiceless: If you place your hand on your throat, you won't feel it (your vocal chords) vibrating
- Alveolar: The tip or blade of your tongue moves toward the alveolar ridge (the bumpy area right behind the upper front teeth)
- Sibilant: You bring your tongue tip near the roof of the mouth (but not touching!) and then "push" air through it, resulting in a 'hissing' sound
To pronounce the /s/ sound, you bring the tip of your tongue up near the roof of your mouth, towards the alveolar ridge, without touching it. Next, "push" air through it, yielding a hissing sound. In Mandarin, however, the S is pronounced more strongly/with more effort.
Compare these recordings of Mandarin's sòng (送, to gift) and English's song. Can you tell the difference?
Voiced and unvoiced plosives — T/D, P/B, K/G
Oftentimes, sound is something that exists on a spectrum. Different languages may have the same sounds, but their sound falls at a different place along the spectrum.
You'll see pairs of several consonants (T/D, P/B, K/G) in both English and Mandarin, but each language differentiates them in a different way.
- In English, T/P/K is an unvoiced sound and D/B/G is a voiced sound, meaning that your vocal chords won't vibrate while but they will when saying
- In Mandarin, T/P/K are aspirated and D/B/G are unaspirated, meaning that your mouth will emit a puff of air when saying T/P/K but will not emit one when saying D/B/G
We actually have both aspirated and unaspirated versions of these sounds in English, but we don't mark this difference. The "k" in king is aspirated, but the "k" in sky is unaspirated. While these are actually two distinct sounds, we represent them with the same letter.
Your takeaway:
- Pronounce Pinyin T like the "t" in take, Pinyin P like the "p" in pie, and Pinyin K like the "k" in king
- Pronounce Pinyin D like the "t" in stake, Pinyin B like the "p" in spy, and Pinyin G like the "k" in sky
- English D/B/G are also unaspirated, and Mandarin D/B/G might sometimes get voiced, so you don't need to think about this super hard — simply be aware of it
To see this in action, compare the pronunciation of 代代 (dàidài, generation after generation) and 太太 (tàitai, wife).
Consonant R — /ʐ/
Both English and Mandarin contain an R sound, but they don't have much in common. In fact, they're so different that we almost put this section in sounds that don't exist in English / Mandarin.
People around the world struggle with English's R sound because it is unique: whether you're coming from Spanish or Russian or Mandarin or Korean, your R sound isn't what Americans think of when they think of the letter R. Unfortunately, the inverse is also true: if you're a native English speaker, you're better off aproaching Mandarin's R as a completely new and unfamiliar sound.
To make the English R:
- The tongue should be in the middle of the mouth
- The tip of the tongue doesn't touch anything
- The sides of your tongue touch your side teeth
- The tongue is very tight, almost as if you were flexing it
- The lips are rounded, as if you were puckering to kiss someone
To make the Mandarin R:
- This is a retroflex sound, so the position is the same as the zhi chi shi sounds we talked about in detail above: curl the the tip of your tongue back along till the middle of the roof of your mouth (but don't quite touch the roof of your mouth)
- The main "actor" is the tip of your tongue — you shouldn't feel the sides of your tongue touching your reeth or the roof of your mouth
- The lips are not rounded — at least, not as much as they are in English
Many teachers (including here, in the same video from above about retroflex consonants) note that the Mandarin R sound is quite similar to the sound that "s" makes in the word measure. If you cut off the the beginning of measure, and just say -sure, you're indeed pretty close to the sound that Mandarin speakers make when they say rì (日, sun). However, the Mandarin sound doesn't really "buzz" like our English one does. This in mind, you might try saying -sure several times, but slowly reduce the buzziness and bring out the R sound.
Compare these two sounds:
- Row and róu (柔, soft/supple)
- Read and rì (日, sun) → note how the "i" sound almost disappears when following Mandarin's R sound. The same is true for "i" following zh, sh, and ch.
Key Takeaways
Hopefully this guide has helped you to better understand how certain Mandarin sounds are made. You've also learned that not all your English pronunciation habits will be useful in Mandarin — many of those sounds do not exist in Mandarin!
Start practicing Mandarin's unique sounds now. First, you'll need to understand how they're made. Eventually you'll be able to make them with effort, and after a lot of practice you'll make the correct sounds without thinking. You may just sound like a native speaker!
If you found the IPA to be a useful tool, then consider trying a free Glossika's free trial. All of our sentences come with an IPA transcription, so you can be confident that what you're hearing is correct.
