This guy's pronunciation of those Pinyin characters is in some part more accurate than many locals here in Guangdong, China. It's mainly because the local dialect doesn't have these sounds in their phonetic system. In the southern part of China, the command of standard Mandarin often reflects the academical background of the individual speaking it. Three most distinctive dialects (being mutually unintelligible including Mandarin, they're rather separate languages) are Cantonese, Hakka and Teochew.
Cantonese replaces those "sh" sounds with "s" sounds, for example Mandarin 拾 "shi" / Cantonese 拾 "sap". Cantonese is quite accesible to speakers of Mandarin. I'd compare the two to Danish and English.
Canton local here. When I was going to school in China my mandarin was pretty standard. After living in Australia for 10 years my four and ten are pretty much the same now. Dave has a more proper accent than me at times 😂 but Canton speakers don't mind sounding different. There's some pretty strong superiority complex going on here.
As a native English speaker who lived in Taiwan and picked up some Mandarin (Guoyu) and travelled to Shanghai where they speak a very similar accent (Putonghua) _ I found that Be Pe Me Fe system much more helpful that Pinyin or the awful Wades-Giles systems. Dave, you are spot on with your pronunciations (as far as my Waiguoren ear can hear) and I had a good laugh at the hyperforeignism remarks, as it so true.
I love this video. It should be required watching for all news reporters, anchors and "presenters". It's short and to the point. I'm an American from Welsh, Irish, English, French and German descent, now married 25 years to a woman from Beijing. The *first* thing I had to do wrt Chinese was study Pinyin. It's not that hard and it is key to pronunciation and tone.
Jose Mourinho has commented several times on people mispronouncing his first name. This also reminds me of Laurence Olivier, who soon gave up and went with the hyperforeign flow.
As for the American pronunciation of Parisian, it’s a matter of how you handle the yod. I’d argue that Americans handle the word “Parisian” like an English word. The voiced /z/ coalesces with the following /j/ to create /ʒ/. Brits take the other route and add a syllable so that it’s /i.ən/.
Xie xie for doing this. I lived in China for four years and it was maddening to navigate the ‘jzsh’ j sound (partic by Americans). Everyone needs to see this vid!
What’s with the guttural sounds in languages? Why languages like Spanish, for example, lose theirs when it crosses the Atlantic? It seems English, and Spanish became more “polished” in their sounds, less harsh once they came to the American continent. The sounds of consonants are less pronounced. Why is this?
Hi Roxanne. When people say ‘guttural’, they are usually referring to sounds like the Spanish , which is also heard in Scots and Scottish English pronunciations of ‘loch’. They sound like they’re far back in the throat but are actually made in the same place as /k/ and /g/. The phonetic symbol for this sound is /x/. Spanish didn’t lose this when it crossed the Atlantic, but you are right that in many parts of Spain is pronounced more strongly and further back in the mouth than in the Americas. In some varieties of American Spanish, is pronounced [x̞], with a bigger gap between the back of the tongue and the roof of the mouth, resulting in less friction. In other varieties, it can be realised as [h]. The reason for this is that many people who migrated to the Americas were from the Andalusia region of Spain, where the is softer. That’s also why American Spanish doesn’t have the TH sound - Andalusians don’t do that either.
Great video! Though if we're willing to accept that the post-alveolar sounds in English are close enough approximations of the palato-alveolars and retroflexes in Mandarin, then it's not *entirely* right to say "Mandarin doesn't have [ʒ]". Technically it doesn't, but we definitely can pronounce pinyin as [ʒ] in English.
Good point! I'm glad someone said that as I had it in mind when making the video. I decided not to include it because /ʐ/ isn't a very common initial in Mandarin, and most English speakers would render it as [ɹ̠] which I don't thing causes confusion.
Native speakers of Standard Mandarin do not produce the [ʒ] sound while speaking Mandarin. But if someone does use that sound in place of [ʐ] or [ɻ] for the pinyin R, they will still be understood. That doesn’t mean that Mandarin has that sound. It doesn’t. Otherwise, you could say English has a whole host of sounds, simply because non-native speakers can be understood in English while producing them.
The post-alveolar sound /ʒ/ (as in “vision”) does not occur in Mandarin Chinese, although it occurs in the Quzhou and Fuzhou dialects. The pinyin R is normally the retroflex fricative /ʐ/ or retroflex approximate /ɻ/. But it is pretty close. The /ɻ/ is actually the same as the typical R in General American English, though we often tend to labialize it. In England it is more typically the non-retroflex /ɹ/. It’s not surprising that that sound would be transcribed with an R at all. Actually, the letter R stands for a whole multitude of sounds in different languages, from trill to tap to approximants to uvular sounds. In this case, it's either the same as or quite close to the R we use in American English. /ʐ/ and /ɻ/ are not far off from each other, either, which is why they are allophones for the phoneme in Mandarin represented by the pinyin R. One is a retroflex sibilant and the other a retroflex approximant.
“Parisian” is not an example of hyperforeigism. It is a regular sound change that happens to the /zj/ cluster in American English. The same thing happens in the words pleasure, fusion, and euthanasia.
Short, slick and snappy but as informative and entertaining as ever. Great work Dave.
Glad you like it.
This guy's pronunciation of those Pinyin characters is in some part more accurate than many locals here in Guangdong, China.
It's mainly because the local dialect doesn't have these sounds in their phonetic system.
In the southern part of China, the command of standard Mandarin often reflects the academical background of the individual speaking it.
Three most distinctive dialects (being mutually unintelligible including Mandarin, they're rather separate languages) are Cantonese, Hakka and Teochew.
Hi. Thanks for that.
Cantonese replaces those "sh" sounds with "s" sounds, for example Mandarin 拾 "shi" / Cantonese 拾 "sap".
Cantonese is quite accesible to speakers of Mandarin. I'd compare the two to Danish and English.
Canton local here. When I was going to school in China my mandarin was pretty standard. After living in Australia for 10 years my four and ten are pretty much the same now. Dave has a more proper accent than me at times 😂 but Canton speakers don't mind sounding different. There's some pretty strong superiority complex going on here.
Another maddening example of hyperforeignism is English speakers pronouncing every r in Spanish words as "rr" and every n as "ñ"
As a native English speaker who lived in Taiwan and picked up some Mandarin (Guoyu) and travelled to Shanghai where they speak a very similar accent (Putonghua) _ I found that Be Pe Me Fe system much more helpful that Pinyin or the awful Wades-Giles systems. Dave, you are spot on with your pronunciations (as far as my Waiguoren ear can hear) and I had a good laugh at the hyperforeignism remarks, as it so true.
I love this video. It should be required watching for all news reporters, anchors and "presenters". It's short and to the point.
I'm an American from Welsh, Irish, English, French and German descent, now married 25 years to a woman from Beijing. The *first* thing I had to do wrt Chinese was study Pinyin. It's not that hard and it is key to pronunciation and tone.
Dave Huckzhable - the famouzh linguizht who zhpeakzh Zhinezhe with a Dutzzh ackzhent! 😂
🤣
Parmesan, Parisian... Rio de Haneiro : /
Fun that Janeiro is the only one that actually does have a ʒ
Jose Mourinho has commented several times on people mispronouncing his first name. This also reminds me of Laurence Olivier, who soon gave up and went with the hyperforeign flow.
Thank goodness for this video! It makes my skin itch whenever i hear someone say Bayzhing, Azzerbighzhahn, choritso, lonzheray etc.
Those are all bugbears of mine too.
in lonzheray the zh is right but everything else is wrong
As for the American pronunciation of Parisian, it’s a matter of how you handle the yod. I’d argue that Americans handle the word “Parisian” like an English word. The voiced /z/ coalesces with the following /j/ to create /ʒ/. Brits take the other route and add a syllable so that it’s /i.ən/.
You have a point there. Much like how we all say Frisian, I suppose. I still think it a hyperforeignism though.
Dave, I wonder if you’d consider doing a vid on mandarin accents? The difference between the north and south is fascinating.
Intriguing idea. Thank you.
I am going to share your video with my students! Entertaining !
Great. Many thanks.
That intro has me crying 😂😂😂
😎
Brilliant! Thank you for all the extra effort you put into creating this.
Anojer fujjy vijeo! Jank jou Jave for always pujjing a jmile on my faje! 😊
Dave, thank you so much for shedding light on my ancestral language. It was entertaining and easy to learn.
It's funny 'cause it's true!
Indeed. It often has me shouting at the TV.
short, to the point, useful video. oh, and funny! nice one!
Thanks! 😃 Glad you enjoyed it!
Xie xie for doing this. I lived in China for four years and it was maddening to navigate the ‘jzsh’ j sound (partic by Americans). Everyone needs to see this vid!
Where were you based in China?
What’s with the guttural sounds in languages? Why languages like Spanish, for example, lose theirs when it crosses the Atlantic? It seems English, and Spanish became more “polished” in their sounds, less harsh once they came to the American continent. The sounds of consonants are less pronounced. Why is this?
Hi Roxanne. When people say ‘guttural’, they are usually referring to sounds like the Spanish , which is also heard in Scots and Scottish English pronunciations of ‘loch’. They sound like they’re far back in the throat but are actually made in the same place as /k/ and /g/. The phonetic symbol for this sound is /x/. Spanish didn’t lose this when it crossed the Atlantic, but you are right that in many parts of Spain is pronounced more strongly and further back in the mouth than in the Americas. In some varieties of American Spanish, is pronounced [x̞], with a bigger gap between the back of the tongue and the roof of the mouth, resulting in less friction. In other varieties, it can be realised as [h]. The reason for this is that many people who migrated to the Americas were from the Andalusia region of Spain, where the is softer. That’s also why American Spanish doesn’t have the TH sound - Andalusians don’t do that either.
Thank you, I enjoyed a lot and finally know the word for hyperforeignism.
I'm glad!
Great video! Though if we're willing to accept that the post-alveolar sounds in English are close enough approximations of the palato-alveolars and retroflexes in Mandarin, then it's not *entirely* right to say "Mandarin doesn't have [ʒ]". Technically it doesn't, but we definitely can pronounce pinyin as [ʒ] in English.
Good point! I'm glad someone said that as I had it in mind when making the video. I decided not to include it because /ʐ/ isn't a very common initial in Mandarin, and most English speakers would render it as [ɹ̠] which I don't thing causes confusion.
Native speakers of Standard Mandarin do not produce the [ʒ] sound while speaking Mandarin. But if someone does use that sound in place of [ʐ] or [ɻ] for the pinyin R, they will still be understood. That doesn’t mean that Mandarin has that sound. It doesn’t. Otherwise, you could say English has a whole host of sounds, simply because non-native speakers can be understood in English while producing them.
@@artugert Yeah that's what I mean. That's a better way of phrasing it.
i think there IS a zh sound in chinese, but it's r, the last letter you'd expect to make the zh sound
Yes, that’s the closest and I would use zh for that in English.
The post-alveolar sound /ʒ/ (as in “vision”) does not occur in Mandarin Chinese, although it occurs in the Quzhou and Fuzhou dialects. The pinyin R is normally the retroflex fricative /ʐ/ or retroflex approximate /ɻ/. But it is pretty close. The /ɻ/ is actually the same as the typical R in General American English, though we often tend to labialize it. In England it is more typically the non-retroflex /ɹ/.
It’s not surprising that that sound would be transcribed with an R at all. Actually, the letter R stands for a whole multitude of sounds in different languages, from trill to tap to approximants to uvular sounds. In this case, it's either the same as or quite close to the R we use in American English. /ʐ/ and /ɻ/ are not far off from each other, either, which is why they are allophones for the phoneme in Mandarin represented by the pinyin R. One is a retroflex sibilant and the other a retroflex approximant.
“Parisian” is not an example of hyperforeigism. It is a regular sound change that happens to the /zj/ cluster in American English. The same thing happens in the words pleasure, fusion, and euthanasia.
Pzhezhident zhazhezhazh 😂
only 20 minutes in but hahaha all the hyperforeignized zh sounds!
didn't expect it to be for all the other consonants too haha!
Glad you liked it.
@@DaveHuxtableLanguages just realized i said minutes not seconds whoops
@@notwithouttext I knew what you meant.
Great
Thank you!