Consonant Confusion
I knew China would give me another perspective on the world, on human beings, on myself.
But on the inside of my own mouth?
Take the letter J: jaguar, jelly, jump. Nothing to it — except in Mandarin, which had two forms of the J-sound, each a distinct consonant.
The jian in “zai jian (goodbye)” was pronounced with tongue tip against the back of the bottom teeth, its middle raised against the roof of the mouth. Try it until you make a J-type sound.
Now compare that to the zhong in “Zhong Guo (China),” spoken with the tip of the tongue curled up and back, toward the back of the mouth. The sound should be harsher, similar to an R.
Switch back and forth between these tongue positions, each time making a J sound. Hear the difference?
Other consonants differed in tongue placement. Try the SH sounds in shi (to be) and xie xie (thank you): SH with tongue up and back, X with tongue forward and down against bottom teeth. Or the CH sounds in Chang Cheng (Great Wall) and qing (please): CH back, Q forward.
Don’t think the Chinese won’t notice if you blur these consonants the American way. I tried that. It sounded as strange to them as las coming out as ras.
Speaking of ra, I’d never heard anything odder than the Chinese ri – again with tongue raised up and back, but spoken as though the R sound were being made backwards.
Toughest of all, apparently, was the letter C. Again with tongue forward and down, the middle brushed against the roof of the mouth, just behind the top teeth, to make a soft TH sound (as in thought). Not too difficult – except that every time I tried it, Davy corrected me.
“No no no, listen,” he’d say, and repeat the C sound several times, gesturing toward his mouth.
“C, C, C,” I’d repeat.
“No no, look this,” he’d say, “look my tongue.” Again he’d pronounce, “C, C, C.”
“C, C, C,” I’d repeat exactly.
“No no, not C, C. Like this: C, C, C.”
“C, C, C.”
“No, look close. C, C.”
“C, C.”
“No.”
And so on. Try as I could, I never made the C sound to his satisfaction. Nor did I have any clue as to how my C differed from his.
April 30, 2008 at 10:08 am
I remember taking german and learning that the umlauted o” and u” can easily be made by putting your mouth into a specific shape and trying to say “E”. Before then I had absolutely no awareness of the way the parts of my mouth moved for different letters! Since then, I have been able to teach my boys how to say “Three” instead of a babyish “Free”, by having the tip of the tongue between the teeth and saying “S”.