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Mandarin pronunciation of o/e | ||
Tags: Mandarin | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5372 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes  Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 1 of 10 24 May 2012 at 5:50pm | IP Logged | ||
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Many years ago, I used to study Mandarin. I was, and believe I still am, pretty clear on all the sounds of the language, including pinyin, but I met a new tutor yesterday and a few odd things popped up. I couldn't help attribute it to her own particular accent. Although I don't know exactly where she's from, it appears to be somewhere North-East of Beijing.
In particular, she clearly said the word wai4po2 as wai4pe2. I said po, she said it was ok, but she said pe. Might just be lack of rounding. I asked her and it puzzled her; she didn't know what to say -- she'd never thought of it or noticed it. It seemed as though o and e were not distinguished for her, at least in that word or position, or tone, or something. Anyone know what this may be? Regional accent? Dialect? My misunderstanding? Edited by Arekkusu on 25 May 2012 at 3:29pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5372 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 2 of 10 25 May 2012 at 3:30pm | IP Logged | ||
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*bump*
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 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6900 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 3 of 10 26 May 2012 at 12:37am | IP Logged | ||
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Disclaimer: I know that Swedish å and ö aren't exactly the same sounds as the Chinese o and e - on an IPA level they are similar enough, though (in some positions). In some accents, the å can have ö-character and in other accents it's vice versa. I wouldn't be surprised if the same phenomenon exists in other languages, and I have indeed seen the Chinese province Henan be transcribed as Honan (even Hunan) in articles. Maybe due to pronunciation, maybe due to the writer's idea of how Chinese sounds. Edited by jeff_lindqvist on 26 May 2012 at 11:19am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| vonPeterhof Tetraglot Senior Member Russian FederationRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4763 days ago 715 posts - 1527 votes Speaks: Russian*, EnglishC2, Japanese, German Studies: Kazakh, Korean, Norwegian, Turkish | Message 4 of 10 26 May 2012 at 9:29am | IP Logged | ||
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| jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6900 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 5 of 10 26 May 2012 at 11:27am | IP Logged | ||
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I know they are, but in these cases (martial arts articles) I'm dead sure that the writers have meant Henan. This can of course more of a transcription issue (especially if the writer isn't particularly into Chinese), but it's still an example of when an [ə] can "become" an [ɔ].
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| michaelyus Diglot Groupie United Kingdom Joined 4556 days ago 53 posts - 87 votes Speaks: Mandarin, English* Studies: Italian, French, Cantonese, Korean, Catalan, Vietnamese, Lingala, Spanish Studies: Hokkien | Message 6 of 10 27 May 2012 at 5:46am | IP Logged | ||
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(Almost) definitely an accent; it does sound characteristic of non-standard northern rural Mandarin. Some super-minimal systems for (Standard) Mandarin phonology analyse /e/, /o/, /ə/ as /ə/ because all of the three are in complementary distribution. So unrounded [ə ~ ɤ ~ ʌ] for Pinyin -o is completely plausible. Some Taiwanese Min Nan is also going through unrounding of its /o/ phoneme, although both the [o] and [ɤ] realisations are meant to be acceptable throughout the island.
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| tangerine Newbie England Joined 5202 days ago 19 posts - 38 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 7 of 10 27 May 2012 at 10:21am | IP Logged | ||
She clearly has a very strong accent cos of where she's from. I suggest you get a new tutor ASAP, unless you want to develop the same accent... Her muted reaction may have been because she is aware she doesn't speak standard Chinese, hence she lost face. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| LaughingChimp Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4690 days ago 346 posts - 594 votes Speaks: Czech* | Message 8 of 10 27 May 2012 at 8:05pm | IP Logged | ||
I seriously doubt that o ane e are distinct sounds in Mandarin, they seem to be in complementary distribution.
You can even merge i, u and ü, here is the analysis a posted recently: http://i42.tinypic.com/x1yc1u.jpg Edited by LaughingChimp on 27 May 2012 at 8:26pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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