Speaking in Tongues Medical Study proves Holy Spirit praying
AIM to educate the common difficulties with English pronunciation for the Chinese language speakers.
The sound system of English is very different from the sound systems of different Chinese languages, so English Chinese students may have particular difficulties with pronunciation.
There is not a single Chinese language, the people of China and overseas Chinese can speak a variety of different native languages While Mandarin Putonghua is promoted as the national language in China, and most Chinese are learning this variety, their first language or dialect may be quite distinct.
Many issues that cause problems for Chinese students of English are common to speakers of one of the Chinese languages, so this resource are usually referring to the Chinese language rather than identifying specific languages or dialects eg Cantonese , Hokkien, etc.
While the large number of Chinese students of English in Australia means that many Australians are familiar with the pronunciation of these speakers, there are particular aspects of pronunciation that can influence the success of communication with speakers of Australian English.
This section identifies some of the common difficulties for Chinese speakers in the English pronunciation; however, it is a complete guide.
English more Chinese vowel sounds that languages and, although some Chinese vowels can be similar to those in English, they are not identical In addition, Chinese pronunciation rules means that the same vowel may seem different from different words.
Chinese speakers sometimes struggle to pronounce the vowels in English ever, especially since the English spelling system is not regular, so the same letter can correspond to more than one sound, in the words that appear in .
difficulties common to Chinese speakers with English vowels understand.
Speakers insert an additional vowel between consonants or after a final consonant, e g.
Post may sound like the poster; worked work may seem like that.
Speakers omitting an unstressed syllables reduced vowel English words often have a reduced vowel, known as schwa ə written in the International Phonetic Alphabet Since this is much less common in Chinese and English, speakers often use a full vowel, that doesn t sound natural in English.
The sounds here are the same, even if they are spelled with different letters.
Learners tend to focus on too many syllables in English, giving the weak syllables full rather than reduced pronunciation, e g.
Diphthongs move from one vowel to another within the same syllable.
While the Chinese languages have diphthongs, they are usually pronounced with faster and more little tongue and lip movements than their English counterparts, if its too short with insufficient distinction between two components vowels, e g.
English distinguishes the following vowel sounds, which can be difficult to distinguish for Chinese speakers, e g.
The sounds represented by the e combination of letters are difficult for speakers of many languages, especially because there are two different sounds that fit that spelling.
Th y, b e e, al e Ough, ga e st expressed Play.
These sounds must be produced with vibrations between the tip of the tongue and the back of the teeth, as opposed to d or t English fluent Chinese speakers replace these sounds with t, d; s, z, or w.
The sound v English is not common in Chinese languages, speakers so often replace with w and f, g e.
ine V, unlike ine ine weight f or Play.
Difficulties with n and, in some languages e g don t Cantonese change the meaning of a word, but do it in English so that learners have difficulty distinguishing, e g.
H tends to be pronounced more strongly in the Chinese languages, with friction in the back of the mouth rather than a soft sound in the throat, e g.
Chinese speakers often omit consonants sounds at the end of English words, which may make the meanings difficult to interpret, e g.
Because English grammar is sometimes indicated by the end of the word e g -s plural, past tense -ed, it is important to clearly pronounce the end of words.
consonant clusters two consonants together without a vowel sound between are not common in China, so often speakers either.
Insert a slight vowel i Poon e g at Play spoon.
In Chinese languages most words are composed of two syllables that are distinguished by the tone of a pitch change rather than the stress they are English Chinese speakers may therefore have difficulty hearing or to make a distinction between accented and unaccented syllables.
Use the word stress activity to practice with medical words.
Anglophones use stress sentence to highlight important words in a sentence Chinese speakers sometimes try to pronounce each word correctly and completely, making speech that is difficult for the listener to decode, ie to work the intended meaning of the speaker .
Use contrastive stress and more stress contrastive activities to practice the stress of the sentence.
Changes in tone are not used in the Chinese language to distinguish words whose pronunciation is also the same; intonation is less used in a sentence that is in English This can make it difficult for Chinese speakers to learn to both understand and use the intonation patterns effectively in English.
intonation activities and intonation of questions to practice English intonation.
Because the structure of the Chinese words is very different from English, Chinese students of English tend to separate English words in a sentence rather than join them gently in a speech stream, which produces a jerky and jerky.
There are a variety of resources available to help Chinese students of English to improve their pronunciation, including references below Focused practice, ideally with feedback from a teacher or a native English training will help solve some of these problems for Chinese speakers and improve their English pronunciation.
Deterding, D 2006 English pronunciation by speakers of English China World Wide 27 2, 175-198.
Chang, J In 2001 NCS M Swan B Smith eds learning English teacher's guide to interference and other problems pp 2nd ed 310,324 Cambridge Cambridge University Press.
Yates, L, Zielinski, B 2009 Give it a Go teaching pronunciation in Sydney adults AMEP Research Center, Macquarie University Available from.
For those who speak the Chinese language doctors speak, speakers, Chinese.