Learning Chinese has one specific challenge in its early stages: pronunciation. The tonal sounds of Mandarin Chinese will be a challenge that you will have to overcome. A Mandarin Chinese learner will have to exercise and train their mouths to create the Mandarin Chinese pronunciation as best as possible.
First, you must learn from a native speaker so as to not repeat the mistakes of the non-native speaker. Second, you must learn written Pinyin, Romanized alphabet of Chinese, essential to understand spoken Mandarin. Third, you should study by yourself under the guidance of your native teacher.
As a Mandarin Chinese teacher, there are two pronunciation exercises that I always recommend my students do at home to exercise their mouths for Chinese pronunciation. These are simple but effective: all you need is paper and a mirror!
Exercise #1: Mirror
As I mentioned before, when beginning Chinese, learning Pinyin should be the first step. Learning Pinyin will help lay the foundation for pronunciation. Chinese Pinyin consists of initial consonants (b, p, m, f, d, t, n, l, g, k, h, j, q, x, z, c, s, r, zh, ch, sh) and finals or compound vowels (a, o, e, i, u etc.). How can you make sure that you are pronouncing them accurately? Watch yourself in the mirror! When you try to imitate the pronunciation of the written Pinyin, check your mouth’s appearance, along with your lip and tongue positions as you make the sounds.
Here is an example of what to look for in the mirror:
For initial consonants: n, m
When you pronounce the "n" sound, your lip needs to be kept slightly open, exposing your...Read More
