Daniel Tsui44 Posted February 7, 2017 at 05:36 AM Report Share Posted February 7, 2017 at 05:36 AM No, "ea" in "easy is the first tone, 易 is the fourth tone. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
陳德聰 Posted February 7, 2017 at 05:49 AM Report Share Posted February 7, 2017 at 05:49 AM Lol this thread is cracking me up. Yes to second tone, because the 個 is 4th tone. As for the EE vs YEE distinction, lips you may want to revisit your pronunciation if you think pinyin "yi" obligatorily has a glide "y" sound at the beginning. ^^ I think it's been discussed before that this can be heavily influenced by regional differences. But Daniel may want to be cautious of the Chinese accented English pronunciation of words like "eat" and "easy" that carries the little baby glide "y" sound at the front. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daniel Tsui44 Posted February 7, 2017 at 05:57 AM Report Share Posted February 7, 2017 at 05:57 AM Thanks 陳德聰. Yeah, "ea" in "eat" is different from "easy". What's a baby glide "y" sound like? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
陳德聰 Posted February 7, 2017 at 06:07 AM Report Share Posted February 7, 2017 at 06:07 AM 11 minutes ago, Daniel Tsui44 said: Yeah, "ea" in "eat" is different from "easy". No they're not. The baby "y" glide sound is [j] in IPA and you probably don't notice when you are using it and when you're not because it doesn't create a difference in meaning. You can say 容易 as rong[ i ] or rong[ ji ] and it doesn't make a difference. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daniel Tsui44 Posted February 7, 2017 at 06:22 AM Report Share Posted February 7, 2017 at 06:22 AM I see where the problem is. "ea" in "eat" and "easy" pronounce the same according to IPA, but apparently different in pinyin, since there is tone. "ea" in "eat" is the fourth tone when we pronounce it, while in "easy" is the first tone. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
陳德聰 Posted February 7, 2017 at 06:25 AM Report Share Posted February 7, 2017 at 06:25 AM 1 minute ago, Daniel Tsui44 said: since there is tone. "ea" in "eat" is the fourth tone when we pronounce it, while in "easy" is the first tone. Ah? I guess this has gone too far off topic now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daniel Tsui44 Posted February 7, 2017 at 06:26 AM Report Share Posted February 7, 2017 at 06:26 AM 16 minutes ago, 陳德聰 said: You can say 容易 as rong or rong[ji] and it doesn't make a difference. You lost me here. 容易 rong yi Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
陳德聰 Posted February 7, 2017 at 06:28 AM Report Share Posted February 7, 2017 at 06:28 AM Just now, Daniel Tsui44 said: You lost me here. 容易 rong yi The post has been edited. Square brackets denote IPA [ ] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Demonic_Duck Posted February 7, 2017 at 06:42 AM Report Share Posted February 7, 2017 at 06:42 AM The first one of your square brackets got swallowed due to being passed as an opening italic marker in the forum BBC markup, which is probably adding to the confusion. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Publius Posted February 7, 2017 at 06:43 AM Report Share Posted February 7, 2017 at 06:43 AM Sandhi rules for 一: 1) 一 is first tone when part of an ordinal number where each digit is read out as it is, e.g. 一九一一年 yi1jiu3yi1yi1 nian2 (but yi4qian1 jiu2bai3 yi1shi2yi1 nian2), 一年級一班 yi1 nian2ji2 yi1 ban1 (but 我上一年级 wo3 shang4 yi4nian2ji2 also sounds correct, don't ask me why) 2) 一 is first tone when word-final, e.g. 统一 tong3yi1, 唯一 wei2yi1, 同一律(the law of identity) tong2yi1 lv4 3) 一 is second tone when followed by forth tone, hence 一个 yi2ge4, 一律 yi2lv4 4) 一 is forth tone when followed by other tones, e.g. 一只 yi4zhi1, 一条 yi4tiao2, 一起 yi4qi3, 一年又一年 yi4nian2 you4 yi4nian2 5) 一 is reduced to neutral tone in V+yi+V sequence, e.g. 瞧一瞧 qiao2yi5qiao2, 看一看 kan4yi5kan4 (but I believe it's acceptable, at least in the south, to not neutralize it, i.e. qiao2yi4qiao2, kan4yi2kan4) 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daniel Tsui44 Posted February 7, 2017 at 06:44 AM Report Share Posted February 7, 2017 at 06:44 AM 8 minutes ago, 陳德聰 said: I guess this has gone too far off topic now. LOL, the topic is answered. It's important to learn pinyin and tone in order to pronounce Chinese well. The non-native speaker always tends to pronounce Chinese in a fourth tone. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lips Posted February 7, 2017 at 08:00 AM Report Share Posted February 7, 2017 at 08:00 AM My bad for taking the thread off topic. My original comment was on using the sound of "ea" in "easy" as a proxy for the sound of the character "一" in putonghua, or, "east" and "yeast" are not pronounced the same in English, or the letter "e" is not pronounced "yee". But what do I know? The experts have spoken. Sorry for not making my point clear. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Apollys Posted February 7, 2017 at 08:18 PM Author Report Share Posted February 7, 2017 at 08:18 PM 14 hours ago, Daniel Tsui44 said: No, "ea" in "easy is the first tone, 易 is the fourth tone. Be careful saying things like this. English doesn't have tones. To say an English syllable is pronounced with a specific Mandarin tone is nonsense. I can pronounce "easy" with any Mandarin tones I want, or any non-Mandarin tones, it's still the same word. English is a non-tonal language. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Apollys Posted February 7, 2017 at 08:23 PM Author Report Share Posted February 7, 2017 at 08:23 PM 13 hours ago, Publius said: 一 is reduced to neutral tone in V+yi+V sequence, e.g. 瞧一瞧 qiao2yi5qiao2, 看一看 kan4yi5kan4 (but I believe it's acceptable, at least in the south, to not neutralize it, i.e. qiao2yi4qiao2, kan4yi2kan4) Strange, all the audio samples I've come across so far don't do this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
陳德聰 Posted February 7, 2017 at 08:28 PM Report Share Posted February 7, 2017 at 08:28 PM 3 minutes ago, Apollys said: Strange There are probably a lot of possible explanations for it, e.g. They do it but you aren't hearing it because your ear is inexperienced? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Apollys Posted February 7, 2017 at 08:31 PM Author Report Share Posted February 7, 2017 at 08:31 PM No. People keep saying this kind of thing to me and it's rather annoying. My ear is inexperienced means I'm better at hearing the actual tones, not worse. Experienced speakers of the language will actually be listening less carefully and just classifying sounds based on their experience, intuition, guesses for what the speaker is trying to say, etc. A more likely explanation is that the audio I have encountered is instructional in nature and thus not completely natural, utilizing exaggerated tones. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
陳德聰 Posted February 7, 2017 at 08:33 PM Report Share Posted February 7, 2017 at 08:33 PM Perhaps because you keep classifying completely normal things as "strange". The excerpt you quoted said it's acceptable to not neutralise them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Apollys Posted February 7, 2017 at 08:35 PM Author Report Share Posted February 7, 2017 at 08:35 PM Not really. He said he believes its acceptable, at least in the south (which would not be the region of the most standard Mandarin). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
陳德聰 Posted February 7, 2017 at 08:44 PM Report Share Posted February 7, 2017 at 08:44 PM "the South" comprises a ridiculously huge number of Mandarin speakers and very few people in general speak *standard* Mandarin even in "the North", so you're going to be encountering quite a bit of regionally flavoured Mandarin in your studies and in your real life, so it would probably save you a lot of time to just accept that people say things differently depending on their background. In my experience, as one of such "Southern" folk, the neutralisation is a result of speech speed. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flickserve Posted February 8, 2017 at 02:55 AM Report Share Posted February 8, 2017 at 02:55 AM 6 hours ago, Apollys said: A more likely explanation is that the audio I have encountered is instructional in nature and thus not completely natural, utilizing exaggerated tones. And slower speed. When I speak English more slowly to non-native speakers of English, I slow down and enunciate more carefully. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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