The Chinese "r"

[nipponman]

The chinese "r" is a strange beast in that it is/was the only chinese phoneme (if you could call it that) that I couldn't pronounce effectively. Well, as I have since taken a chinese class I have found out a basic pronunciation guide for those of you who, like me, had/have trouble with this.

The chinese 'r' seems to have a different pronunciation depending on what comes after it. If its a single vowel, like re4 for example, the is pronunced like zhre4. The zh is not the same zh as in zhuo, or zhua, but a more silent form, like the english 'g' before an 'e'. It sounds like the "ti" part of "attention", but not "shun", but "zhun". This is what it sounds like to me anyway. Now, when followed by two vowels, like in rui4, it comes closer to an english r but the tongue is still in the same position as the chinese 'zh'. I hope that these are both helpful and accurate, if they are not, please let me know.

[Gulao]

This is going to get technical, but bear with me, because it's hard to be precise otherwise.

Strictly speaking, the phoneme represented by the letter "r" in Mandarin pinyin is a voiced retroflex fricative. What this amounts to is like the z in azure, or the s in leisure, only with the tongue curled back (literally, retroflex) slightly. If you are American, you probably won't even have to worry about the retroflexing when thinking in this manner, as the /r/ American English is retroflex and thus colors the z and s in the examples above, but it's still a good idea to keep that feature in mind.

As to allophonic change before /u/, I think, but do not know, that the effect is more a rounding and velarization of the /r/ sound than anything else. The fact that the tongue tends to be further back when velarizing a letter may lessen the effect of the frication, but overall, I think the sound remains in the same vein.

[atitarev]

Chinese "r" is always transliterated in Russian as Ж (ZH - e.g. Zhukov, J - in French, s in English "pleasure"). Although this is not exact (neither is the English R), that's the way it is. Russian learners of Chinese when first addressing the pinyin, always wonder why it is an R for Ж, the Russian R is like Italian/Spanish R, which ha snothing in common with the Chinese R.

Nipponman, it makes sense what you describe but it would be confusing to a beginner, IMHO. I have no problem with the sound but I think it can't be compared 100% with any sound in European languages, it's unique (?) to Mandarin.

In this article, they compare the voiced retroflex fricative ʐ with Russian ж and Polish ż but I can't agree with it 100%, it's somewhat different but it seems closer to the Russian Ж (or the French J) than to the English R:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiced_retroflex_fricative

[nipponman]

atitarev]Chinese "r" is always transliterated in Russian as Ж (zh - e.g. Zhukov, zh - is French). Although this is not exact (neither is the English R), that's the way it is. Russian learners of Chinese when first addressing the pinyin, always wonder why it is an R for Ж, the Russian R is like Italian/Spanish R, which ha snothing in common with the Chinese R.

Nipponman, it makes sense what you describe but it would be confusing to a beginner, IMHO. I have no problem with the sound but I think it can't be compared 100% with any sound in European languages, it's unique (?) to Mandarin.

Ah, you're right. I am looking for a simple way of explaining that the chinese 'r' sounds nothing like the english 'r', although it does sound alittle like it when my teacher says rui4. I don't know any linguistic terms and I don't think most beginners do either. Gulao, I've asked this other places and forgotten b/c I can't follow the detailed pictures or what not but, what the heck is voiced retroflex frictave? what's the difference b/w voiced and unvoiced?

[imron]

Voiced/unvoiced means whether or not the sound you make uses your vocal chords. Compare the sounds 'z' and 's' in English. They have the same mouth shape, tongue position, and they both blow air the same way. The only difference is that with 'z' you also make a sound with your vocal chords, hence it is voiced. Likewise, 's' is unvoiced because you don't make the sound with your vocal chords.

[atitarev]

Retroflex:

Pronounced with the tip of the tongue turned back toward the hard palate

More:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retroflex

Fricative:

Of speech sounds produced by forcing air through a constricted passage (as 'f', 's', 'z', or 'th' in both 'thin' and 'then')

More:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fricative

List of phonetics topics:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_phonetics_topics

[Jose]

A useful rule of thumb, which was mentioned in a recent thread, is to think of Chinese 'r' as half-way between an English 'r' and a French 'j' (or Russian Ж, or the English sound in Asia, pleasure). That French 'j' flavour is what gives the sound its fricative condition. Try to pronounce "ru" as a sort of "rjoo" blending together the 'r' and the French 'j' as much as possible, and I'm sure your 'r' will sound much more Chinese than if you simply pronunce it as an English 'r'.

The fact that the Chinese 'r' is close to the French 'j' is the reason why some transcription schemes like the older Wade-Giles system use 'j' rather than 'r' to represent this sound, a practice that seems to have been adopted by the Russians as well.

[anonymoose]

The fact that the Chinese 'r' is close to the French 'j' is the reason why some transcription schemes like the older Wade-Giles system use 'j' rather than 'r' to represent this sound

That's interesting. I always used to think it strange that the Taiwanese transliterated 仁愛路 as Jenai Road (as can be seen here).

[againstwind]

I think nipponman indicated an important but complicated question on one of Chinese sandhis.

I wonder if anbody here know IPA ((International Phonetic Alphabet)? if soneone knows, it will be likely easier to master the phonetic variants ending with the sound "er" at different situations.

[Gulao]

I always used to think it strange that the Taiwanese transliterated 仁愛路 as Jenai Road

I'm pretty sure this is is from use of Wade-Giles romanization, which represents the pinyin /r/ with a /j/.

[lokki]

As far as I can understand this article does a really good job of explaining many of the more difficult sounds in mandarin, including the r. And it does so "both in linguistic terms and in everyday language".

[nipponman]

Thanks for that lokki

***Edit***

This is exactly what I was talking about:

Say the word "leisure." Now focus on the end, the "-sure" part. Is your tongue pulled way back in your mouth? It should be. And the tip of your tongue should be pointing up. Now leave off the "-s-" and just make the "-ure" part. Did you notice how saying "-sure" made your tongue vibrate a little but just saying "-ure" doesn't? See if you can bring back just a little of that buzzy vibration without returning fully to the "-sure" part.

Here

[leosmith]

As far as I can understand this article does a really good job of explaining many of the more difficult sounds in mandarin, including the r. And it does so "both in linguistic terms and in everyday language".

Excellent article! Thanks lokki.

[Luobot]

nipponman - nice, clear, simple explanation. good job! what i still can't get right is "ren2." the pronunciaton sounds to me like 'wren' with a lot of the 'w' sound, as if you were saying the word 'wrench' with crackers in your mouth. in fact, i've practiced the pronunciation this way, and it's the closest i've been able to get to the authentic sound that i hear, without resorting to the linguistic gymnastic instuctions. the downside to this method is having crackers handy when you need them in a conversation.

[goldie]

"Say the word "leisure." Now focus on the end, the "-sure" part. Is your tongue pulled way back in your mouth? It should be" quoted from that article.

of course, this is how North Americans would say the word, but i'm thinking that Brits wouldn't put their tongue that far back, in fact, it's totally not in the same position.

[Language Guy]

Hmm...

My Chinese teacher does not make a fricative sound when pronouncing "r". Instead, she makes an "r" sound much like the American English "r", but noticeably more curled(retroflexed), but still no fricative or "j" sound.

Does anyone recognize this as a dialectic trait? I'm not sure where she's from.

Have any of you in China also heard this way of pronouncing "r"?

[heifeng]

'wrench' with crackers in your mouth.

..

the downside to this method is having crackers handy when you need them in a conversation.

I like this idea. Maybe if you substitute 瓜子for crackers it will sound even more authentic and easier to keep 瓜子 on hand at all times.

(Not to bring this too far off a topic but for 人 I was told many foreigners also say the 'n' final too heavy so it sounds a bit unnatural...overall we just really butcher this character's pronunciation)