pronounciation of 'zh'

[tortue]

Hi all,

I wonder why sometimes words which begin with a "zh" seem to be pronounced rather like "z".

For example 中国 is "zhong guo" with "zh" like in "juice". Today in class we learned 桌子， zhuo zi, and the teacher pronounced the "zh" - in my ears - definitely more like in "zuo zi" (cannot think about an english example - does that sound even exist?).

I asked the teacher the question but she would not really understand, I guess unlike me she finds her pronouciation of "zh" rather the same for both words - that's why I ask for your opinion here.

Chris

[Lugubert]

A friend of mine said that she was born in Hangzou, so it seems to be a southern dialect thing.

[easMonstret]

Like haft-something of the chinese speaker do that, so you better get used to it. It seems to the ear of many chinese they're rather the same sound.

Edit: Where's your teacher from anyway?

[hisia]

some people , actually a lot of chinese people just can't pronounce correctly.

they confuse "zh" and "z", "ch" and "c", "sh" and"s" .

in chinese we say those people 平翘舌不分

ps i'm a chinese girl and this is my first post on this site. thanks:roll:

[Lu]

Southern Chinese tend to not have retroflexes: zh, ch and sh end up sounding like z, c, and s. That might be the reason.

[tortue]

Edit: Where's your teacher from anyway?

She's actually from Harbin, so rather north.

Anyway, meanwhile I read some similiar topics here and I think I get the point...

[imron]

Although northerners can easily pronounce the difference between zh and z sounds, for some words they will occasionally get things mixed up. For a long time I thought 窄 was pronounced zǎi instead of zhǎi because I'd learnt it in a spoken context where the speaker (from Hebei) pronounced it zǎi. It was only later when I went to look it up in a dictionary and couldn't find it that I realised he'd been pronouncing it incorrectly. The same friend also pronounces 肘 as zǒu rather than zhǒu, but for example has no problem pronouncing 粥 as zhōu.

[renzhe]

But to answer the original question, it's zhuozi, not zuozi

Unfortunately, not everyone speaks according to the standard, and people mix things up. It's good to be aware that retroflexes are dropped by many native speakers (zh -> z, ch -> c, sh -> s), because you'll be exposed to such speech sooner or later.

Also, some people don't pronounce retroflexes as strongly as others, so the "zh" will sound softer, which might sound too close to a "z" if you're just starting to learn.

It's unfortunate when language teachers do this, though.

[imron]

It's unfortunate when language teachers do this, though.

Agreed.

[meowypurr]

I think also sometimes speaker may find it easier to say 'z' instead of 'zh' (or something in between 'z' and 'zh' - depending on tongue position), especially when speaking fast, because it takes your tongue a lot of work to get from the back of your mouth (for the retroflex) to the front of the mouth (for other consonants)

[Lugubert]

I think also sometimes speaker may find it easier to say 'z' instead of 'zh' (or something in between 'z' and 'zh' - depending on tongue position), especially when speaking fast, because it takes your tongue a lot of work to get from the back of your mouth (for the retroflex) to the front of the mouth (for other consonants)

I must say that don't believe too much in the "work" theory. Swedish has retroflex t, d and n, and most dialects have a sh. Few speakers in few dialects will substitute dentals for retroflex t/n/d or s for sh.

[renzhe]

Croatian has two different kinds of retroflex (c -> ć -> č). The latter two have almost merged, but people never replace a retroflex sound with a non-retroflex one.

[meowypurr]

well, what I mean is that a particular phoneme in any given language may be affected by the surrounding phonemes. For example, we tend to nasalize vowels in English when they come before a nasal phoneme like /n/ or /m/, because it would be too much "work" to prevent it from happening. That may not be the reason for the issue that the OP was talking about, especially given the fact that there seems to be no defined rule for when his teacher said 'z' instead of 'zh', but it definitely happens in other cases.

[atitarev]

It's hard to describe the pronunciation of Chinese using English letters. "zh" is not exactly English "j", especially if you need to compare with other sounds, which can also be rendered with "j". How would you describe 桔子汁 (júzizhī) using English letters?

File 1 (initial zh-): listen to 桌子 (zhuōzi)

File 2 (initial z-): now contrast with 昨天 (zuótiān)

If your teacher's initials sound the same as in file 1 and file 2, then it's not quite incorrect (by northern Putonghua standards).

(disclaimer: I haven't listened to these files myself but I hope they were recorded by a person with a good accent)

Edited December 3, 2009 at 11:29 PM by atitarev

[tortue]

File 1 (initial zh-): listen to 桌子 (zhuōzi)

File 2 (initial z-): now contrast with 昨天 (zuótiān)

I think if she had pronounced "zhuozi" like in that sample I would not have risen the topic here. This is also pretty much as my pleco pronounces it, however only the "zhuo" part and not as the compound "zhuozi", and this can certainly make a difference. And even if pleco had that compound, I am not sure if it would be recorded as such or just rendered from two single samples, zhuo and zi. The same goes for the samples you posted.

BTW I don't quite understand how your disclaimer goes with

If your teacher's initials sound the same as in file 1 and file 2, then it's not quite incorrect (by northern Putonghua standards).

but anyway, thanks for the links!

[atitarev]

You are welcome. The files were from a trustworthy source. I posted them at work and I couldn't listen to the files then but suspected they would be good for contrasting zhuo- and zuo-. I have just listened and the pronunciation seems standard. So you can ignore my disclaimer.

[Hero Doug]

Quote:

Also' date=' some people don't pronounce retroflexes as strongly as others, so the "zh" will sound softer, which might sound too close to a "z" if you're just starting to learn.

It's unfortunate when language teachers do this, though.[/quote']

Agreed.

The silver lining is that the student is being exposed to real Chinese. Their going to come across this problem sooner or later.