Mandarin Lessons

How To Speak Mandarin Chinese (And Be Confident About It)

by admin on 30/09/09 at 3:17 pm

Learning how to speak mandarin Chinese can, on the surface, seem pretty straight forward; the words are short and the rules for sentence structuring are simpler than most European languages. This misconception is soon destroyed when you learn the importance of tones and pronunciation, and how they affect the meaning of the words they’re applied to.

Once you’ve realized the importance of tones and pronunciation, a common reaction is to become very shy and conscience of speaking Chinese, especially with native speakers. The important thing to realize is that with the right learning materials and lots of practice, you’ll not only get over your fear of mispronouncing Chinese, you’ll also give yourself a solid foundation for effective future learning.

In the meantime, here are some tips for improving your pronunciation of words and tones in mandarin Chinese:

Mastering Pronunciation

As a non-native speaker using pinyin to learn how to speak mandarin Chinese, many of the sounds involved will be unfamiliar to you, especially when compared to their Western equivalent. An example of this would be recognizing the difference and pronouncing the “c”, “z” and “s” sounds in pinyin – all very similar to the non-native ear.

An excellent method for improving your ear for mandarin Chinese is to listen to the MP3 podcast lessons offered over at ChinesePod (take advantage of the free 7 day trial – you won’t regret it!). These provide clearly pronounced conversations and vocabulary with guidance on meaning and pronunciation in English.

To ensure you’re pronouncing words properly yourself, nothing beats in-person practice. Find yourself a private tutor (if you can afford it) or combine the lessons offered at ChinesePod with a language exchange arrangement with a local (or remote – gotta love Skype) Chinese native. That way you can learn the lessons yourself, become confident with pronunciation and them practice them for real.

Mastering Tones

Getting to grips with the tonal nature of the language is one of the big mental hurdles for those who want to learn how to speak mandarin Chinese. You should accept right away that you are going to make mistakes, everybody does. Once you realize this you can move forward with developing your ability to sound tones correctly, whereas if you dwell on it you will only make learning more difficult for yourself.

Practicing with a native speaker is a big advantage to mastering tones, as they will correct all your mistakes early on and make sure you don’t develop any bad habits that are hard to undo later. Begin with single pieces of vocabulary and then move onto sentences and conversations – the more you practice, the more confident you will become.

One method many foreigners find helpful in coming to term with tones is to use mnemonics. This process has you associate the speaking of each tone with an emotion or form of speech that you are familiar with. Here are some quick examples:

1st Tone – Care Free, Relaxed
2nd Tone – Questioning, Inquisitive
3rd Tone – Mischevious, Sarcastic
4th Tone – Blunt, Aggressive

To further explore the use of mnemonics check out this great post by Laowai Chinese that further explains its application for newcomers to mandarin Chinese.

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We hope this post has given you some useful tricks for developing your tones and pronunciation. Have some tricks of your own to share? That’s what the comment section below is for!