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Introduction. Any time I write anything about China, I get emails from readers asking for help in pronouncing Chinese names. Here is a brief guide. First, please keep in mind the general phonetic principle that each language has its own repertoire of sounds, that cannot be matched up exactly with those of any other language. The human vocal tract — throat, nose, tongue, teeth, lips, cheeks — can make sounds in an infinity of ways; or if not an infinity, certainly a much larger number than any one language needs. Each language picks a selection from all possible sounds, and builds its spoken words around that selection. No two languages use the same selection. A French "t" is by no means the same as an English "t". English people make vowels with the throat only, and use the nose for nothing but "m", "n" and the "ng" of words like "singer". French people can use both the throat and the nose simultaneously to make a "nasalized vowel", as in vin. In the case of languages much further apart than French and English, you must expect to encounter some very odd sounds indeed, sounds that you can't accomplish properly without special voice training. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language asserts that every possible method for making sound using the mouth, nose and throat is employed in a regular way by some language somewhere — including even the "Donald Duck" sound made by squirting air between the cheeks and gums, known technically as "buccal" sounds. (I can't help thinking this really should be "duckal".) Here I shall give only rough approximations for Chinese sounds. Note also that the usual style of writing and saying Chinese names is surname-first. Mao Zedong's surname was Mao; his father's name was Mao Shunshen, his son's name was Mao Anying, and so on. One-syllable surnames are the norm. There is a scattering of two-syllable ones (and there were many more in ancient times), of which the only one you are likely to encounter is "Ouyang". Given names can be either two-syllable or one-syllable, with one-syllable names currently much favored by younger mainland Chinese. Sensible Chinese people take an English name when living abroad: "Richard Li," for example. (Just as I take a Chinese name when in China: "Dai Yuehan".) A few do not do this, causing endless confusion for the rest of us, especially when they have a one-syllable given name. If I see a name printed on the English side of a business card as "Li Hao," should I suppose that this is Mr. Li, writing his name Chinese-style, or Mr. Hao, who has put his surname last to conform to American usage? There is nothing for it but to ask. Spelling Systems. Of the many systems that have been worked out for spelling Chinese words, there are two that an English-speaking reader is likely to encounter: Wade-Giles and pinyin. Wade-Giles is the older system, commonly used in America and Britain up to the mid-1970s in newspapers, and somewhat later than that in academic publications. Its characteristic feature is the showing of all consonants by their unvoiced (see below) English equivalents, aspiration indicated by an apostrophe. In pinyin (which is just the Chinese word for "spelling"), unaspirated-aspirated pairs of consonants are shown as voiced-unvoiced English pairs. This is explained fully below. Wade-Giles writes "ping" and "p'ing" where pinyin writes "bing" and "ping". Wade-Giles writes "chang" and "ch'ang" where pinyin writes "zhang" and "chang"... and so on. Quick and Dirty Guide. Say pinyin "x" halfway between English "s" and "sh". Say pinyin "q" halfway between English "ch" and "ts". Say pinyin "c" (when immediately followed by a vowel) as English "ts". Pronounce "chi", "ri", "shi" and "zhi" as "chrrr", "rrr", "shrrr" and "jrrr" respectively — those "r" sound just buzzed, never rolled. Pronounce "ci", "si", "zi" as "tsszz", "sszz" and "dzzz" respectively. There you go. Full Guide. Here is a more comprehensive guide. If you take all this in, and practice a little, you'll have a good Chinese accent — good enough that you'll get a smile and a compliment from a Chinese person who's just heard you pronounce his/her name properly. This is good ice-breaking stuff. Consonants. b-p, d-t, g-k etc. Most English consonants can be paired off like this, one member of the pair being "voiced", the other "unvoiced" (or "voiceless"). "Voiced" means this: If you put your finger to your Adam's apple while making the sound, you can feel your voice-box vibrate. If you try this with English "z" you will feel the vibration. Try it with "s" — no vibration. These two sounds are otherwise pretty identical: the lips, tongue etc. are in the same position for both. The difference is in the voicing. For "z" the vocal chords are making a contribution to the sound; for "s" they are not — the entire sound comes from the friction of air hissing through a narrow gap (in this case, between tongue and palate). Similar remarks apply to English "v-f", to "j-ch", to the "th" in "this" versus the "th" in "thanks", and so on. (That last example shows that spelling is no guide. Both of the "s" sounds in "houses" are voiced.) Chinese does not "cut" consonants this way. There are no voiced consonants in Chinese. (This is not strictly true, but a good enough approximation for present purposes.) Most Chinese consonants come in pairs, too, but the pairs are differently defined. What distinguishes a Chinese "b" from a Chinese "p" is not voicing, but aspiration — that is, a puff of air, a little "h", following the sound. Chinese "b" and "p" are both unvoiced, but the first is made with no aspiration, the second with a strong aspiration: "p-hhhh". This is true for all the following pairs of Chinese consonants: b-p, z-c, d-t, g-k, j-q, zh-ch. z-c. The "z-c" pair sounds, to an English ear, like "dz-ts". As in many Eastern European languages (Hungarian, for example), the "c" is read as a "ts", with strong aspiration: "ts-hhhh". The common Chinese surname "Cao", for example, is pronounced "ts-hhhow". Chinese "z" is the un-aspirated version of "c": Chinese "zei" (a bandit) sounds like "dzay". Because English ears are not used to hearing a "ts" un-aspirated at the beginning of a word (which is where it always occurs in Chinese), we tend to hear it as a voiced sound "dz". It's not voiced, though; it's unvoiced and unaspirated. j-q. A Chinese "q" is pronounced roughly halfway between an English "ch" and "ts". Do a "ch", then do a "ts," then try to get a sound in between the two. This sound is strongly aspirated. Chinese "j" is the unaspirated version, pronounced halfway between an English "j" and a "dz". For the same reasons as with "z", it is heard by English-trained ears as a voiced sound close to English "j". People who pronounce "Beijing" with a French "j" sound are pronouncing it wrongly. The French "j" sound does not occur in Chinese. An English "j" is much closer. x. English has two unvoiced sounds of the type popularly called "sibilants" (not a word phoneticists like much): "s" and "sh". We also, of course, have the voiced equivalents: "z" and the first consonant in "usual", for which English spelling has no letter. (When we need to write it, we generally use "zh". When we need to talk about it, we generally call it "the French 'j'".) Chinese has three sounds in this zone: "s", "sh" and "x". Chinese "s" can be done just like an English "s". Chinese "x" is about halfway between an English "s" and an English "sh". Chinese "sh" is a retroflex consonant.... The retroflexes: sh, ch-zh, r. These are the trickiest consonants in Chinese. "Retroflex" means "bend backwards". The thing that is being bent backwards in this case is your tongue. Curl the tip of the tongue up and back against your palate, as far back as it will go. Then, with the tongue in that unfamiliar position, make an English "sh", "ch" (with lots of aspiration: "ch-hhhh") and "r". Those are your basic Chinese retroflexes. Chinese "zh" is the unaspirated version of Chinese "ch". It is not a French "j". However, you will notice when you make a retroflex "r" that it has a sort of French-"j" sound to it unavoidably. This is probably the strangest of all Chinese consonants, to an English ear. Pinyin writes it as "r", but the old Wade-Giles system wrote it as "j"! That's how tricky this sound is. If you hold your tongue in the retroflex position and strive for an English "r" sound, though, you'll pretty much get it right. Vowels u. Only three Chinese vowels are tricky: "u", which has two different sounds depending on what precedes it, "e" likewise, and "i", which can have three utterly different sounds. Chinese "u" is a regular long "oo" sound, as in English "fool" everywhere except immediately after "j", "q", "x" and "y". Then it is the sound heard in French "lune" or German "Glück". So pinyin "chu" is pronounced "ch-hhhoo" (with the retroflex "ch", of course), but "qu" is pronounced "ch-hhhü" (no retroflex, the "ch" moved halfway towards "ts"). After "l" and "n", the letter "u" can take either value. In these cases, the ordinary "oo" is written plain "u", the French/German sound is written "ü". "Lü" is quite a common Chinese surname. e. When it appears alone — the Chinese word "e" has a number of meanings, depending on tone (see below) and context: "hungry", "goose", "Russian", "evil" etc. — this vowel is pronounced something like the English "ugh!" of disgust. No kidding. It is also pronounced this way when alone after a consonant ("ge", "zhe"). When alone between two consonants ("hen", "cheng") you can soften it a bit to sound like the vowel in English "but", though a bit more drawn out. When there is no following consonant though, don't hold back; give it a good strong "ugh!" sound. In diphthongs, however, "e" is a different sound, like the English "e" in "bet", but more drawn out. The Chinese word for "moon" is "yue", pronounced "y-ü-e", with a definite short "e" at the end. The diphthong "ei" is pronounced like the so-called "long 'a'" in English "late". The diphthong "ie" is pronounced "ee-e," a long "e" followed by a short one (something like the diphthong in the ballet term "plié"). i. After a retroflex ("ch", "sh", "r" or "zh") the pinyin "i" is pronounced as a retroflex "r". The tongue stays in the retroflex position. Chinese "shi" thus sound to English ears a bit like "shrrr", though the whole thing is retroflexed. Chinese "ri" sounds like this: "rrrrr" (but retroflexed, not rolled — not far from a drawn-out French "j"). In the pinyin words "ci", "si" and "zi," the "i" sounds like no vowel at all. To an English-trained ear, these words sound like "tsszz", "sszz" and "dzzz", approximately. Everywhere else — in diphthongs ("ia", "ie", "ai", "uai", "iao" etc.) and after "b", "d", "j", "l", "m", "n", "p", "q", "t", "x" and "y" — pinyin "i" is a "continental 'i'" sound, like a long English "ee". Chinese "xi" (meaning "west") sounds close to "shee". o. Chinese "o" is not particularly tricky, but note the following. When any consonant-sound is followed by just "-o" or "-uo," the "o" has the "continental" value, a bit like English "-aw". Chinese "po," for example, which means "granny," sounds a bit like English "paw". The common surname "Guo" sounds somewhat like "Gwaw". Chinese "dong" (meaning "east") is pronounced "doong," with a vowel like the one in English "book" but a wee bit longer. Diphthongs "ao" and "ou" are pronounced "ow" and "oh" respectively. Tones "Tone" means "a combination of pitch (low, middle, high) and contour (falling, rising, level)". Standard Chinese has four tones: High pitch with a level contour, middle-to-high pitch on a rising contour, low pitch with a rise at the end, high-to-middle on a falling contour. There is a way to mark these over a Chinese syllable, but it is hardly ever used. (An exception is the Lonely Planet Guide to China, which marks tones on all Chinese words.) Tones are essential to the meanings of words, so if you plan to learn Chinese, you have to master the little devils with all their tricks. (A tone changes subtly — and sometimes un-subtly — depending on which tone precedes and follows it.) I'm not teaching you Chinese, though, just trying to get you through a diplomatic encounter with grace and style. I'm therefore going to say nothing about tones. |
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