Post a sample of your pronunciation here!

[skylee]

Shi Tong, it is not called 第一文, it is called 母語 (mother tongue). And you better use 中國的普通話 instead of 中國的中文 (this term is very confusing).

I guess you sound like your wife. Very unlike the others here. Natural.

[renzhe]

I'd like to point out that it's difficult to sound natural while reciting a list of China's most livable cities

[skylee]

Indeed.

[taylor04]

You're right Shi Tong, I've been working on my tones lately, trying to enunciate them more in conversation.

[Shi Tong]

Shi Tong, it is not called 第一文, it is called 母語 (mother tongue). And you better use 中國的普通話 instead of 中國的中文 (this term is very confusing).

I guess you sound like your wife. Very unlike the others here. Natural.

Skylee.. absolutely- 母語 is something I've heard a lot of times, so I should have remembered that!

中國的普通話 is also a better way of expressing what I was supposed to be saying.

I'll post another funny story I told a Hong Konger recently another time, since I quite like telling that anecdote.

In terms of accent, yes, it's very Taiwanese sounding. Most of the Taiwanese people who hear me speak say my chinese is 很台, meaning that they think I sound like one of them. I suppose that's a compliment :lol:

I'd like to point out that it's difficult to sound natural while reciting a list of China's most livable cities

hahaha.. I agree.. maybe we should all make something up and post. If we understand what's said, then I guess the Chinese must be good!

You're right Shi Tong, I've been working on my tones lately, trying to enunciate them more in conversation.

Taylor.. interesting I didn't hear many incorrect tones, just that it could be said that the tones are a bit flat. You actually sound a little bit more Taiwanese, since they dont attack the tones like Chinese do.

Either way, it was very well pronounced.

[taylor04]

Taylor.. interesting I didn't hear many incorrect tones, just that it could be said that the tones are a bit flat. You actually sound a little bit more Taiwanese, since they dont attack the tones like Chinese do.

Thanks, it's a work in progress right now. A few months ago I knew the tones, but they were very flat like you said. I decided to start working on it and now emphasize a lot of the more important words and even reviewed the HSK 1 list to remember a lot of the simple word tones. I probably do sound a bit Taiwanese, I lived in Hangzhou for a year and from the Taiwanese people I have met, they sound a lot alike.

What do you guys think about having some recordings with no script/script created after the recording? Possibly a self-introduction?

[wedge]

Thanks Shi Tong! You're right -- I'm an ABC whose parents are Cantonese. I've had much more exposure to Taiwanese Mandarin (than mainland) so I think I've picked up their accent. Some people say I have a bit of a Cantonese accent as well but that makes no sense to me as I don't speak Canto. I'm trying to make my pronunciation sound more "mainland standard" by adding in er's and sh's but it feels awkward.

[Hofmann]

Time for me to post my pronunciation. I will read this poem.

春眠不覺曉

tɕʰwin55 mɛn11 put5 kaɨwk5 hɛw35

處處聞啼鳥

tɕʰɨə̆53 tɕʰɨə̆53 mun11 dɛj11 tɛw35

夜來風雨聲

jia53 ləj11 puwŋ55 ɦuə̆13 ɕjiajŋ55

花落知多少

hwaɨ55 lak1 ʈiə̆55 ta55 ɕiaw35

a bit of poetry mono.wma

[Hofmann]

Just for fun.

what your classmates sound like.wma

[taylor04]

That is so wrong Hofmann, yet it is so funny!

[anonymoose]

Hofmann, your chinese is good, but I think you should try to make it flow more. At the moment, it is rather staccato, which sounds unnatural.

[Shi Tong]

Hofmann,

I love your second recording, much more natural than your first.

KIDDING.

I speak with a Taiwanese accent (in case you've not noticed yet.. ), but I'm originally English.. I can use my English accent to speak Mandarin and it sounds really stupid.. a bit like yours!! (... when you purposefully use an American accent that is...)

You obviously have a lot of knowledge there because you've just shown us you can speak a few dialects. Nice!

I've attached my mainland version of the previous sample, just to prove I can "do a mainland accent" if I want to.. you can tell it's unnatural to me because of my constant pauses and I think I've made a couple of incorrect tones (probably with the 2nd and 3rd).

This is kind of what was "taught" to me when I was in Taiwan.. tried to make me sound as BJ/ standard as possible I suppose, but again, it doesn't really work for me, since I married a Taiwanese lady.

Untitled.wma

[taylor04]

Haha, lets have a chinese-forums battle of the dialects!

[realmayo]

I thought twice before posting this because I don't want to seem like I'm being critical of people's pronunciation while having no intention of posting my own far inferior effort here. But after listening to several of these, I noticed one thing that plenty, but not all, of the posters' accents seem to share -- I can only describe it as a strong "earnestness" ... & sometimes a rather breathy earnestness.

I probably noticed this feature because I heard and disliked it in a recording of my own spoken Chinese some time ago.

Does anyone else hear this feature? I'm sure some of it can be explained away by the fact that most of the speakers here are concentrating on reading aloud a set text, and making an effort to read it correctly.

But I wonder if it's a feature of, say, Westerners' Chinese (I've not heard it from my Asian classmates)? A shared habit we could usefully be aware of and try to eliminate? (In fact just now I've remembered this post I made about sounds coming from the throat or the mouth, maybe related?)

[Shi Tong]

Hello realmayo,

Actually, I agree with you, and I do know what you mean. I tried very carefully to steer myself away from that when I was starting lessons in Taiwan, which is to say that, instead of trying to sound like a teacher, or my teacher, I decided that I wanted to sound like my friends.

It only got controversial when I started intorducing a few taiyu words into our lessons, which the teacher thankfully found funny instead of annoying.

The quality I think realmayo is trying to convey is this idea of trying to be overcorrect/ concentrate too hard on small aspects of pronunciation, also, I feel maybe the overemphasis on going slowly so that every word can be pronounced "properly".

It's probably also why my 3rd tone sounds low and fast, but that's because I always speak that way, fast- to my friends.

Or maybe it's an accent thing.

Either way, I dont think I've heard anything that can be construed as rubbish or incorrect yet, so I think it's a testament to how all of those posters who have DARED to post are pretty damn hot!

[renzhe]

It's probably a combination of cheap microphones (mine was too close to my lips), bad recording conditions, having to read complicated Chinese texts and the general nerve issues when knowing that any little mistake will be recorded for all eternity.

I'm sure that most people here sound much more natural when having a laugh over a pint.

[Shi Tong]

Shame you're in Hamburg renzhe, otherwise we could meet for a pint and complain about each others accents.

I do agree though, it's bad enough speaking to someone on a phone in Mandarin, or doing a wedding speech (which was a pain in the butt). Recording does seem very embarrasing!

[skylee]

any little mistake will be recorded for all eternity

I suppose you can remove the file(s) by editing the post(s).

[Shi Tong]

I suppose you can remove the file(s) by editing the post(s).

Rate I'm going I'll probably find it hard to find them all... and that's REALLY embarrasing.. in fact, when asked in the most embarrasing moment thread, I can just redirect it here.:lol:

[tantech]

please quote on my short dialog because i'm doing for a class project.

chinese recording6.wav