Thanks for the video. You’re tips on what is off are all correct. As someone who started learning Chinese after the age of 20 the accent is about as good as I can get it as a non-native speaker. That was the meaning of the clip from the video. You’re right that there’s stuff I could still work on, but it’s like diminishing margin on returns when putting countless hours into getting perfect pronunciation. I don’t think it will ever be perfect, but that’s ok. For those studying Chinese or any second language, don’t worry about having a little accent here and there. It doesn’t hurt you too much using the language for work or university studies as long as you are understandable.
I really like how you said that, you could spend more time perfecting the accent but it really has diminishing returns. You might as well spend that time learning a completely different language to an ok level But then again it depends on your goals, if you need to speak perfectly for your job then it's still worth spending that time with diminishing returns
Hi 安明！Thanks so much for your comment. I never imagined you'd actually watch the video. You're definitely right with regard to diminishing returns! Plus, there's no clear divide between a native accent and an accent that is comprehensible to natives. It very much depends on the listener and their experience speaking to people with various accents (both native and non-native). At the end of the day, it's just a personal choice as to when you stop honing your pronunciation and instead focus on other aspects that may be of higher priority to you. Coming from this Chinese teacher, I hope that other learners are inspired to put the work into pronunciation like you did because it's very clear that it has really helped in bringing you closer to the people that you end up speaking to. Keep it up! 👍👍👍
I don't speak Chinese but I watched this whole video as I love Oriental Pearl's videos. She's inspired me to start learning a language. And I admire how brave she is speaking to locals. You're an amazing teacher and this was very kind!
Please keep posting content on pronunciation. I am sure many people struggle with what Oriental Pearl is struggling with. And some (like me) want to spend time and effort to get it as close to perfect. So this kind of content, held in a very very respectful and educational manner, is really what was needed a long time ago on youtube. We are all so lucky you are actively posting and working to help us all out for free! Props to Oriental Pearl for an amazing Mandarin level.
Thank you so much for the comment! Pronunciation definitely needs time to be drilled specifically. I really appreciate that you truly understand what I've been trying to bring into the Chinese language learning/teaching community on RU-vid!
Interesting that a lot of her tone errors are in beginners level vocab - shows how it is harder to "unlearn" incorrect pronunciation, even though now as an advanced learner she is learning new words with better tones. I feel like I probably make similar mistakes, because when I learnt those beginners words I was still kinda tone deaf 😅
Interesting observation, and thank you for calling a spade a spade, lol. Many might think we're being too harsh, but really, these pronunciation errors are elementary-school basics. It's the first thing school children are taught, and I hope this fact alone speaks for itself. Back to what you were saying - if you're already at an advanced level, I do think it's not too late for these earlier habits to be corrected. At worst, it would probably be on par with the difficulty level of picking up a new accent in the same language.
That’s exactly why in linguistics and phonetics classes they taught us to spend the first months of language learning listening and not producing. It lessens the amount of mistakes that you cement in your patterns of speech. Because habits are hard to break. And after each level of advancement, there needs to be a period of reflection and detail oriented analysis of your pronunciation. That will involve about a month of just speaking with native speakers as practice, and listening to how they correct or guide you. Or recording yourself saying sentences and then recording native speakers saying the same sentences, and comparing. Taking careful note of each mistake. Each time I went up a level of HSK I did this. I’m at HSK 4 now, but tested at advanced low speaking capabilities. For people who don’t have access to native speakers, or who don’t seek them out, not having this period of time for production practice and corrections can be detrimental to their overall progress and they can reach a point where the correction required can seem overwhelming. That’s when you see people say stuff like, “this is the best I can hope to get”
@@abstersadventures4172 don’t think you understood what she meant by, “this is about the best a non-native speaker like could get”. First of all, at some point like anything you learn in life there will be a point of diminishing returns. It’s not worth it whatsoever to go and try to obtain this perfect level of tone/accent because at the end of the day, it isn’t necessary. I can understand, that at the fundamental level of your goal is to sound as close to a native speaker as you can possibly get, then continuing to study and put hours will allow you to continuously get better in theory. But at some point for the overwhelming majority of people it will not be worth it.
@@Jonathan-cz4ky this just isnt true. If you get thousands of hours of input and wait to output until you have been immersing for a few years, after about a month of output practice you will already be much better than 99% of people who set out to learn languages in the traditional grammar study way. You can achieve near native level pronunciation even as an adult if you use the immersion approach.
Her grammar and vocabulary are superb. She clearly worked really hard on those aspects of the language. I wonder if someday she’ll focus on pronunciation the same way. Personally I think my approach to pronunciation is similar to hers. If people understand me easily then I’d rather spend time on vocab probably.
I absolutely adore educators that focus on pronunciation and phonetics and dispense information in ways that are easy to take and apply to one's own speech. Thank you Rita for the lovely videos; I've only just discovered your channel but I'm so glad that I have!
Hi, Rita! I teach Mandarin too, and I've realized through experience that the third tone is a common struggle because there are actually three third tones: the full dip, the half dip, and the 3-3 to 2-3 switch. When non-native speakers are taught the third tone in isolation, they're taught to pronounce it as a full dip, but in speech, they have to consciously adjust the third tone to fit the way the sentence runs. For native speakers, this is so natural that we take it completely for granted and can't get it wrong even if we tried. Of course, when a third tone is off, it can affect how subsequent tones are pronounced. For instance, the 3-3 to 2-3 switch requires speakers to think ahead to the next character and adjust the pronunciation of the first character to a second tone, but learners often don't look ahead that way because they're trying to read everything one character at a time, so they pronounce the first character as a third tone before reading the next character as a first to compensate. Once this becomes a habit, it's hard to switch out of.
I would love to help you pronounce your English better, and thank you for your very good instruction for Chinese! Do you still practice English pronunciation?
Oriental pearl is the first person I know who was born in america and moved across the country to learn Chinese and Japanese, that's the braviest thing I have ever seen. She did say in plenty of her videos that her pronunciation might not be that good, but when she go into stores and shops Chinese and Japanese people are shocked and amazed at her speaking their language. She is outgoing and brave to do that and also put smiles on her fans faces, and I also saw that she is now learning korean. Wow 😳 keep up the good work!!! #lol #not #from #russia
@@lxtatar7773 It's definitely brave from the perspective of the average American. Most Americans aren't privileged enough to even leave the country and go somewhere new 😂😂😂😂
@@zack2804 You obviously don’t know Americans. The majority are white rednecks who could care less about traveling anywhere, they don’t care about other cultures, lol.
As a native speaker of both English and Mandarin I would say that the clips used with the wrong intonation sound like AI to me. Like if you tried to translate long paragraphs in google translate or other speech to text bots. Something about the intonation just sounds instinctively unnatural. I've noticed many text to speech bots used on youtube especially for reddit videos seem to really struggle with some words. That's the equivalent of it for me like it sounds jarring. Hopefully this gives you at least one perspective of what a native speaker might hear. I know it's not the same as hearing the difference yourself though but maybe my comparison brings to mind similar examples in English
I don’t speak Mandarin and had no interest in learning until seeing this but I still watched the whole video 😂 Mandarin seems impossible to learn and I’m so impressed by any non-native speakers who can speak it!
@@mangosday Yeah, I can confirm that it's easier than Japanese, at least for me. Pronunciation is a bit tough to get right but you don't have to be perfect from the start, and anyway there are many useful videos that explain things like the position of the tongue in your mouth and so on. I've studied Japanese for 4-5 months a few years ago, but then I quit because I had no more interest. I've been studying Mandarin Chinese for the past 6 months and I just can't stop learning it 😁
I am a native Mandarin speaker watching this as it is absolutely fascinating seeing how Rita breaks down the language! I have never noticed some aspects that she points out, and have gained an added appreciation for Mandarin~
For me i think oriental pearl actually knows much more chinese vocab than me. Tbf i quit chinese school when i was in 6th grade. But i did learn to speak mandarin before english.
Right. I'm kinda tone deaf, I guess? I tried to learn French but I was told my pronouncation is off but I couldn't hear the difference. In French. I bet that's more noticeable than Chinese tones.
@@Pavlinka__ funnily enough, people that speak heavily tonal languages like Mandarin or Cantonese have a higher prevalence of absolute pitch and are better are relative pitch overall, so the ability to differentiate tones is crucial.
@@Trendilien69 its complicated for an english speaker but thats just because its so different from our language the main most difficult thing in mandarin is the writing system tbh, and the phonology isnt super simple but its not so bad
It's true, there's no other teacher that can help me with my spoken Chinese like your channel!! thank you so much for this video.. really helpful indeed I also noticed while speaking Chinese I make almost the same intonation mistakes, because I'm thinking about what to say next! I love that you're providing tips and examples which are a great help🌷🌷 keep it up please ❤️ waiting for you next video
Thank you so much for not only reviewing accuracy of non-native speakers, but also spending extra time to help us learn the more correct way, with detailed explanations!
I havent the faintest about chinese so watching this video this might genuinely be the most complex and nuanced languange humanity has ever constructed.
I studied Chinese for two years in high school. I can hear the differences in pronunciation but I am still very impressed with oriental pearl. I know that I could never reach her point in a thousand years 😂. Great video!
I found these videos by accident, but I wanted to say that I love your stuff!! I watched these more out of curiosity than anything, since I never thought to learn Chinese primarily because of the tones, especially because I have some hearing loss that I thought would make differentiating them even more difficult. But to my surprise I can actually hear the differences when you point them out quite clearly!! You're an amazing teacher and I'm glad to have found your videos.
Can't judge her Chinese, but I checked a video where she speaks Japanese and while she seems to speak it quite well (good grammar/vocab), she needs to work more on pronunciation. She sometimes mispronounces words even anime fans can correctly pronounce.
You are the best You Tuber for explaining Chinese language. Your detailed study of "perfect Chinese speakers" is excellent. Please please make more videos. You speak the truth about the true abilities of foreigners who think they can speak perfect Chinese. I hope you make many more videos to help us improve our spoken Chinese. Also, you have the best idea at the bottom of the screen where you list each section of the video (like How are her tones . Interjection). So we can easily see where we are in the video. This is *such an intelligent idea*. I never see any other You Tuber use it. You are the best!!!
I don't understand a word of Chinese but having spent years studying English I admire Oriental Pearl's efforts and dedication. I also think that the obsession with the accent shouldn't apply for those who learn the language as a hobby but for interpreters and professionals
The thing is that Chinese has tones and they're very important because if you get the tone wrong you'll end up saying a completely different word. It's not just about having a good accent
you're completely right about how years don't really serve as a good meter of someone's ability. i've been learning mandarin for 6 years but i am not nearly as fluent as i should be because the time i put into learning and practicing outside of class is not enough. i hope i can fix this and actually be better at speaking...
Does anyone know of a RU-vidr who does what Rita does, but for Japanese? I love learning about the details of errors non-native speakers make, but I know more Japanese than Chinese! These videos are great and I will keep watching them, I just want a Japanese version too! (BTW Rita thank you for captioning! I'm hard of hearing and it helps so much!)
I had similar emotional struggles with English. I'm half German, half American but I never learned English as a native language. When living in the states as a teen I was so eager to "get rid of" my accent. I got to a point where people asked me "You're not from around here...right?" But I never got further. When returning to Germany and visiting the states for vacation I ate out at a restaurant. When the waiter asked me "Ohh, are you from Germany??" I was SO disappointed. A few years later I know the perfectioning of the spoken and written language comes and goes with practice. I will never ever sound like a native speaker because I'm not. Its part of my identity, of my culture to feel like a part of American culture but I'm not a native which is perfectly represented by my language. Nowadays I wouldn't change my accent even if I could because it shows my path so perfectly.
Yeah. After 14 years in China, I can easily smash out a work email in Chinese, but drop me into an unfamiliar conversation where someone asks me questions I’ve never answered and my Chinese becomes one-word responses again. No exaggeration. I sound like I’ve been here 14 days. The ability to improvise is very different to reciting a prepared speech, as any Chinese person who has been in an English competition will know very well!
Thank you so much for including the pinyin translation too omg! I knew I was pronouncing 我 and 学 wrong this whole time lol 😂 this video analysis helped so much. Would love to see you make a video on HSK, Especially about the new changes
I think it would be so interesting if you would discreetly record a conversation in Chinese with your husband (Chris) and then analyze his Chinese for us on your channel! :)
15:08- Well said!!! I teach English to college students in China and I completely agree with you about teaching more normal speech! For example some teachers think they should talk very slowly and formally, and not use contractions (do not instead of don’t) and only use strong forms for grammar words (strong vowels not schwa sounds). But this is really so uncommon in the majority of speech! Teaching what is common in the language gives learners much more ground to stand on! Yesterday I showed my students that if you slow down some connected speech, you find more syllables that begin with a consonant sound and end with a vowel sound, just like Chinese
Your comparison of Chinese syllables and English connected speech is fascinating!! I’d love to hear more about it👏😄 And for real - if English learners don’t know anything about schwa, how can they understand the natives’ speaking?!
I actually really like the analysis of tones in these videos. A lot of foreigners think that Chinese lose the tones when they talk really fast or sing, etc., so we try to just pick up the language by ear, but sometimes maybe we 听错了, and then speak wrong tones. So this analysis is very useful
Do we lose tones when singing? Yes, cuz there's a whole melody for the song. Do we lose tones when talking? Never, but the tones are just too subtle to be recognized for Chinese learners. And it could be very rare that someone can train themselves to get the tones right only by ear... Glad you find my content useful😄🙌
@@RitaChinese Well, actually for me, listening to a sentence and repeating it helps me more than reading its pinyin. I think that the ear is actually the best thing to use in this case.
I really like watching your videos! I am second year mandarin student here in Auckland, New-Zealand and I'm loving my journey! Thank u for choosing to support us with fine teaching abilities :D Keep up the great work.!
I am glad this video popped up in my recommendations! I don't speak Mandarin at all, but I do speak Japanese (I would say I have a decent level that allows me to be independant in any situation in Japan, even work, but not native) and I saw many people reacting to Oriental Pearl's videos about Japanese language. I was a bit sceptical because in Japanese it's pretty obvious that she is fluent but still has a pretty thick accent (which is by no mean a bad thing), I was very curious to have the opinion of a native Mandarin speaker. So thanks a lot!
I took Mandarin in high school. I was the only non-Chinese kid AND the only kid who chose to take the class (parents forced everyone else lol). I was at an immediate disadvantage with that already, their parents spoke Chinese to them. But also, I'm left handed, this was the beginning of me becoming an ambidextrous writer (I already did a lot right handed just because the world is set up for righties). And also, I didn't have a Chinese name, and my real last name cannot be translated. So, my name was Yuè Yù in class, Jade Moon, which tbh I've always really liked and was happy when the teacher gave it to me lol. She was militant and super harsh about my writing, but 20 years later, I can still say, "Hi, it's nice to meet you (all). My first name is Jade, my last name is Moon. I'm from Canada. How are you?" And I can count to 10. Given I took an entire semester, it's not great, but it stuck it my brain. Haven't had any Chinese since but I really like the language and would take it again for fun.
As someone who's learned 5 languages, and now learning Chinese--I can tell you that learning a language is all about staying consistent. It's not about how fast you can learn, but how long you can keep going--like a marathon. Use it or lose it.
Caveat: I found this video when Anming referenced it in a recent video of hers, and I don't speak Chinese at all. I've studied several languages in part, and I've sort of accepted that tonal languages are probably a bridge too far for someone as old as I am. But I can tell from this video that you're an excellent language teacher and I enjoyed watching it a lot. :)
Thank you so much! (Didn’t know that she referred my video and I’m thrilled now😄 It takes some time to train your ears and voice for a tonal language, but it’s definitely possible for everyone to learn it😊 Find a good instructor and give it a try😄🙌
If you take something from this video I hope you take away the fact that you can make mistakes with your tones and still be easily understood so it’s not hopeless. Just don’t make ALL the mistakes on the tones 😆
I'm the same way! You have to balance spending some time practicing tones with really just saying "the hell with it" and speaking with people as much as possible. Because that's where the real learning comes from and you can't let being afraid to mess up stop you. Mess up as much as possible! Only way to get better.
Just like how there are thousands of words in the English dictionary, it's the same with chinese. So just as much as someone learning to speak English isn't expected to learn every single word in the dictionary, it's also unrealistic to expect the same for Chinese. It really boils down to memory and practice (the more you can remember and practice, the more you'll learn). It's another hurdle no different from any other learning process, is what I'm saying
I feel so discouraged when I hear "I passed HSK 6 after 3 years..." I've been learning for about 8 and I'm only just at that level. I study every day and practice speaking with my friends at least once, sometimes twice a day. I don't get how people do this.
Some people spend hours every day for decades, some spend minutes every day for months and the two can somehow end up reaching the same level in a language, this is the case for every language, don't feel discouraged! My advice is to not compare yourself to others, there will ALWAYS be someone who looks like they are doing better than you, at everything. If you're spending time comparing yourself to others you'll never be able to see the great progress that you have made and are making! You have to think back to where you started, and see where you are now (ignoring the length of time it has taken) and just admire the fact that you have been working on something over time and that there has been progress made!
Remember that passing HSK6 does NOT necessarily mean they are at that level or particularly fluent at Chinese. You can literally just memorise the vocab list and grammar rules - HSK is not a very well designed test for actual language ability... I'd say that your approach of focusing on conversation practice is just as valuable, and although it takes longer to get to the point of passing the exam (compared to someone who has cram-learnt the exam content), you will have a much deeper understanding and actual ability to USE the language. Also, bear in mind that three years of study could be vastly different in terms of actual hours and focus between different people. They may have been taking intensive private classes while living in China with a Chinese partner for three years, or self-studying at home with zero budget using apps and textbooks for a few hours a day. So don't compare yourself to other language learners as everyone's situation is different, just focus on your own language studies :)
I had a friend who was studying supper quickly but was also surprisingly ignorant during the process - like she knew a lot of characters but was totally butchering them while writing them. Let's say that you must be learning with more care and try to stay accurate
Don’t stress about how fast you are learning. I studied Spanish in Costa Rica and advanced more quickly than my classmates who started on the same day. Our brains are all different and we progress at different rates.
The video quality, the editing, your explanation, this is so high quality, I didn’t even look at your subscriber count initially and I’m shocked you don’t have more, this is such a good video! Definitely subscribing! 😊
@@timothyvanvliet7802 already did haha: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Ey0gJvLO15c.html And this one: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Ub0iQs9OZqk.html
I honestly don't know anything about Chinese or tonal languages, but I am a linguist (fluency in 2 romance languages, Spanish & Italian, Arabic, and currently in the beginning stages of learning Hindi) and anyway this is the first video of yours that I have seen and it was phenomenal. I had basically no knowledge at all about Chinese and just simply thought of it as a beautiful, and as far as I know a very complicated language but now I'm very interested. I do know.... 谢谢! Subscribed.
Your videos are so high quality! Have you ever heard of Stu Jay Raj? He is an Australian polyglot, who speaks Chinese, along with many other languages like Cantonese, several other Chinese dialects, Thai, Vietnamese, Indonesian, and then some European and Indian languages. He has a RU-vid channel, and there are some clips of him speaking online.
I think that people who speaks any language that doesn't have tones will never fully understand the huge difference that a subtle change of a tone can make when speaking a language that has tones. My native language is Portuguese. Even though I can understand things when people pronounce an "ã" like an "a", for example, it still sounds weird and sometimes changes the whole meaning of the word or the phrase itself. But that's not a thing that should make people learning a language stop. They should go on even when committing mistakes.
Rita : analyze Oriental pearl chinese that's claimed closed to native chinese speaker. People : you're English is also not even sounds like native English (she never claimed her english is closed to native English😂)
Exactly, also she her audience is people who want to learn native CHINESE! Ofc no one is going to really care abt her English, as long as it’s understandable. Also people have to keep in mind that she isn’t doing this to be rude, it is for educational purposes only.
@@depressedteadepressoespres186 : you can scroll the comment sections and see. People commented on her English which is not the case of what this video is all about. lol
She doesn't claim to be as good as a native or near native speaker. You misunderstood plain english, as did the creator of this video. She basically says her current proficiency level (whatever that may be, she makes no claims) is as close to native speaker level that she will obtain...however close (or far) that may be. Understand the difference?
@@quocnguyen9501 Well yes, but I think the point was that you shouldn’t even be insulting her English anyways. Also, the creator didn’t misunderstand, the point of the video was to give tips on how to improve native Chinese, and mistakes to avoid.
@@depressedteadepressoespres186The title of the video reads "NEAR NATIVE CHINESE?" Meaning, does oriental pearl speak near native chinese? Just get it right for flip sake. Why is this so hard lol
These are very good tips...but you can't pretend foreigners to speak like natives. Do you speak English like a native? Oriental Pearl Chinese is really good, her pronounciation is just as any foreigner (especially native English speakers) speaking Chinese.
I speak fluent Cantonese, and I promise that NO ONE, literally nobody will be able to nail all the tones perfectly to sound like a native speaker of Cantonese! Unless you learned it from childhood ... not even mandarin speakers, and you know what I am talking about ;-D Oriental Pearl is a huuuuge inspiration to any langauge nerd such as myself. So desu neh! Japanese is my 8th language btw. Swedish is my 1st. and English, German, Spanish, Danish, Norwegian in between!
Her accent is very obvious to me even as another non-native speaker (I live in China, so I'm very familiar)- very American sounding Mandarin pronunciation - but less fake than XiaomaNYC who claims "perfect" Chinese on his video titles and...it's not even close. Thing is, many native speakers are VERY forgiving about exact pronunciation or grammar and will compliment people's Chinese no matter what and will even claim it's perfect. I talked with my wife (a native speaker) about this and she agrees that native speakers are SO familiar with the language that their brain is actually able to ignore mistakes that will be very glaring from the standpoint of a non-native speaker who is trained to hyper-fixate on exact pronunciation, grammar, etc - they evaluate anyone who *looks* non-Chinese in a different way - a Chinese-looking person speaking HSK4 or HSK5 level Chinese would draw attention because they'd zero in on the mistakes - but if that person looks European, that same level suddenly in their mind becomes "impressive" - because they're evaluating them in terms of "for a lao wai, it's very impressive" - but for a person born and raised in China to speak like her would be a bit odd. That's my point. Funny thing is, I can hear American, French or other western accents in people's Chinese MORE easily than native speakers like my wife - because I'm more familiar with the intonations of those accents, being a native english speaker from the west. When a French guy speaks Mandarin, I *clearly* hear the influence of this original French accent in most cases, and same for her American intonations in Mandarin. As I said, native speakers may not be as familiar with telling a U.S. or Canadian accent apart, or a German from a French one, or a British from an Australian one, but to ME, it's very very obvious - and it bleeds into their mandarin - and evidently many native speakers can't tell specifically or don't comment on it.
Just commented about accents. I agree, you will hear their native accent bleed threw. It's no different than when someone not from USA speaks English and has a thick German or french accent. Do they pronounce things perfectly in the American dialect? No. Do they sound like someone from USA? again, no. They have their native accent. Which I personally love. I find it unique and some accents I just absolutely love. You can be fluent in English and still have a strong accent. The same applies to every other language. I wouldn't tell someone their English isn't perfect despite being fluent just because they have a south African or Norwegian accent. The " standard " American English taught nobody sounds like anyways. Just saying, New journey doesn't sound like Texas. Nor Alabama like Oregon.
Second tone is very hard for me! I heard people say to pretend I’m asking a question, but it’s very hard for me to say it naturally. My Chinese is very very beginner though
In my understanding. First tone is like a "relative" high pitch longer vowel Second tone is a mix of the question thing + doing the firs tone in a lower pitch and rising it a lil bit. Third tone you start low then lower even more till you have those annoying vocal fries, losing all the energy of the vowel. (And dont ever go up as it is shown in those tones drawing line, natives never raise it when speaking fast) Forth tone is just the "normal" way you pronounce syllables in non tonal languages And the neutral is just the a quick vowel that is cut in half
Q = hktch Ch = Ch Ch is from the front of your mouth and uses your teeth Q is from the roof of your mouth and does not use your teeth and is explosive, blow lots of air.
@@kori228 the lips are also important, sorry I left that out: 1. Ch -- your lips should be round and pushed out, it's a position English never uses in fact. 2. Q -- your lips should be flat but very wide almost like smiling. Likewise, English doesn't ever use this position. Yes, the tongue should be flat and wide for Q, there should be space through which the air flows over the tongue and under the roof of the mouth. Q is heavily aspirated, Ch isn't. I have exactly ONCE heard a native speaker in Mandarin pronounce Q as Ts which was the Wade-Gilles transliteration. I've no idea if Ts for Q is from some dialect or what, I've literally ONLY heard it used once, but definitely have. It would be so much easier if we could just use Ts for Q but I don't think native speakers would understand that. I would love to be wrong.
It looks like she's reading off a script which means the sentences are probably more polished and refined. However, I've watched some of Oriental Pearl's more improvised videos and can agree that her Mandarin is really good, better than a lot of American/Western Born Chinese
@@thebrokenmystic879 Cantonese was the lingua franca of the Chinese diaspora in the States probably until the 2000’s. Older generation ABCs are unlikely to speak Mandarin.
I relate so much to what Pearl said about her doing high school Spanish, but with French. I became fluent in Spanish (which is much easier than Mandarin, btw, which is why less time) in around 3 years studying independently and spending a lot of time conversing with native Spanish speakers, but I studied French in school for 5 years and, like...mais oui je parle un PEU de Francais, but I never really got past the general conversational level in all that time.
Amen Rita. Aquistion of a language requires understanding comprehensible input plus 1 key word and key phrase method spaced repetition and humbling myself to the fact that I am not going to understand everything.that 2 natives are saying for a long time. I have been acquiring Mandarin Chinese for 2 years now. 6 months ago I went to eat lunch at an Asian buffet restaurant. One of the waitresses that served me is from China. I talked to her about the weather my name what her name is did she miss China and how delicious the food in her restaurant is and etc all in Mandarin. When I finished she told me in good English that she understood 70 percent of what I said in Mandarin. I thanked her for her brutal honesty. Like oriental pearl I am going through growing pains. God bless Peace
I was reading the comments. It is quite amazing that @Oriental Pearl can take the opportunity to learn the language. I mean Learn Chinese with Rita has a broken English...shall we bashed on her English? No, we should not. Here in American there is so much prejudice of race and other countries that we should break this barrier and love other people's culture. I am an Asian American, and I do appreciate that open-minded people can appreciate the culture, values, and food. So let us be kind to one other and be happy. Here in America and many countries there are too much hate due to politics. But, if we can enjoy the values of one another.
"broken english" is different than non native pronunciation. rita does not have "broken english". I would argue that her english is much better than pearl's chinese actually..
What I really about this video the honest and detailed analysis made by laoshi! 謝謝您! It is great guideline for all learners how to avoid this kind of mistakes during study process!
Just subscribed to your channel. These analysis videos are helpful and educational. Would love to see you analyze JJsays and maybe even an analysis of her singing in Mandarin.
@@RitaChinese I believe JJsays learned Mandarin in Taiwan, and I'd be interested in knowing if there's a difference in accents - I don't know much about the two, other than Taiwan uses traditional characters.
@@tososhin Gotcha! Yeah Putonghua and 国语(Mandarin in Taiwan) definitely have some difference in terms of accents and words. Would be interesting to talk about it as well!
Do you have any tips on how to avoid letting English intonation impact Mandarin tones? E.g. 多写 becoming duo4xie3 because English speakers want to stress 多 and saying it like a 4th tone is how to do this in English
That's an essential question on Chinese pronunciation! This is why I always wanna help my students to stabilize their tones first, cuz in Chinese, we fully pronounce the syllable with the right tone when we stress a word.
English is my first language, Chinese is my second language. My Chinese is not good. When I hear Chinese as a second language people speak Chinese, I often find it easier to understand than Chinese spoken by a native speaker. I think Oriental Pearl's Chinese is easy to listen to. I appreciate your comments. Her Chinese may have issues that can be nit picked, but it is understandable. That to me is the main goal. Your English. It is understandable, sure, good, but it also has a lot of issues that could be nit picked. Do you want a detailed analysis? You are easy to understand, but your grammar and pronunciation, well, not perfect. Is it ok to comment about it? At what point does it matter?
I think all foreigners (including myself) overestimate their Chinese level. I think the reasons are the following. 1. They get praised so much for having not that good Chinese. 2. When they brag about their Chinese fellow foreigners are in no position to judge their level and will also heap praise on what could be low level Chinese. 3. Chinese takes a lot of effort to learn compared to other foreign languages. Learning french for an english speaker would be the equivalent of a Chinese person learning another dialect. Basically, you can put 1000 hours into French and be pretty good but only be at a basic level in Chinese. There’s a sense of denial amongst foreigners that they could spend so much time into something and still not be where they want to be. 4. The HSK as you say doesn’t necessarily reflect a true level. HSK 6 is probably an upper mid level. HSK 4 is a lower mid level or upper beginner. But a foreigner can enter a Chinese university degree course with HSK 4! Actually the HSK is changing there will soon be HSK 7, 8 and 9 which will be a better measure of ability.
I dont think that The "oriental pearl" girl overestimate her chinese level. She only said she is as close of a native speaker as she can get as a non-native speaker. Most people keep some accent even when they reach a fully fluent level. Think of an italian speaking English for instance.
Cool. You accepted my request to make a video on her😀. Well done! I read her comment about her accent being as good as is possible for an American to attain as an adult learner....well, that is not true...lol..lol...hahah....There are videos of others speaking with a much better accent/tones than her, from Westerners. In the accent area, she clearly didn't make it a priority, from the START. If she had emphasized accent/tones from month 1, in her daily learning process, she would have a better accent. I am not implying accent must be perfect. An excellent accent is a bonus, but with modern technology, having a very good accent is more doable that ever before. So that was a small weakness in her development. She is still awesome in many ways and she achieved A LOT! I respect her achievements and attitude.
Yes, I agree with her. This Pearl mandarin chinese is actually very good as she's a foreigner. But not at "fluent" level yet. I think Pearl speaks Japanese better than mandarin chinese. And I think she cannot improve either Japanese or Chinese anymore, as I think she has "something" in her tonal or voice that really can't be changed. That "something" will always indicate that she's a non-native speaker for both languages. What I mean by "something" is: commonly happens to non-native speakers who eventhough they live in the origin country of the language for the rest of their lives but still cannot speak like native speakers.
Really? Her Japanese pronunciation had many mistakes the last time I saw a video of her. And some of them were simple fixable mistakes like voicing sounds that shouldn't be voiced. I remember specifically for example 近く always voiced chikaku when it's more like chkaku. That voicing mistake was done everywhere soo, I think that "something" does exist but half the time we call something "that" it's more like an excuse. She may have improved since then though as I don't remember how old that was.
Most fluent non-native speakers of any languages keep some accent. A lot of persons speak English fluently while you easily can notice this is not their native language.
Do make a video on HSK if you can! Would love to see what your thoughts on the exam are, both 2.0 and 3.0, especially since I'm currently using Coursera's HSK courses from Peking University (1-6 - the old one) to learn Mandarin.
Let's not forget she mentions off the bat *as close as SHE can PERSONALLY get* good for learners to see a native go over those errors she makes so they can practice on them too. But I think another thing to remember is, no matter how long you live somewhere, your accent will stay as your native accent. Or will only ever be very close, but not 100% the same. Simply because, in the end you are not native to that area. And that's okay. Fluent in language is far better than worrying about fluent in accent.
As a bilingual native English and Chinese speaker, I think there's a severe under-emphasis throughout the youtube Chinese language learning community on how critical intonations are in the Chinese language. My only hope is that instructors stress on this more without fearing that learners will be put off, or feel offended by what might seemingly be 'nitpicky'. Because it is FAR from nitpicking. Intonations are so, incredibly fundamental to the chinese language that they're one of the first few things toddlers are taught at home, and certainly the first few lessons taught in pre-school/elementary school. Intonations are NOT accents. I see this misconception all the time, and it is frustrating. The same word with a different intonation becomes two completely different words (and I'm sorry but native speakers will, and do laugh behind your backs, although it's all in good humour, lol). It is the literal difference between: "west" and "wash" (西/洗）; "sit" and "left" (坐/左) ; and just about over 10,000 other different words, or something. Is this daunting and challenging to a new learner? Absolutely. Should we cut leaners some slack because they're doing their best? Of course, no one should ever be made to feel like using the wrong intonation is a reflection on your learning progress. However, is it still important to let learners know how absolutely critical this is? Yes, I really think it is. And again, I'm saying this as a native English/Chinese speaker who sees the enormous gap between these two languages that needs to be bridged, and this doesn't change my opinion, still. I think ultimately, the onus lies on instructors to do so (don't mind me saying, but y'all really are way too soft, seriously...lol). Still, much respect and props and apologies for my completely out of left field rant.
2+4? 🤔 I don't find it that difficult. I find 3+2, 3+3, 2+3 and 4+4 the most confusing pairs, and I often mispronounce them. Sometimes I mispronounce a 1st for a 4th or vice versa, because they start at the same pitch.
I follow Steven he here on YT (look him up if you don‘t know him), and a couple of months ago, I did a programming job for a Chinese/Belgian company where I had a meeting with their CEO, and I really had to control myself not to burst into laughter when I heard him speak English. It was EXACTLY like Steven he‘s imitation :) Rita here has the same intonation.
Of course they understand her perfectly. It is just that her pronunciation is not absolutely perfect. A native chinese person can say that she is not her mothertongue. The funny thing is a lots of chinese butcher their tones in putonghua, but they do it following patterns corresponding to some traditional accents/dialects, so it is still native chinese in some way.
it's amazing how a non english speaker has such and obvious foreign pronunciantion and makes so many errors, while roasting another foreigner's pronunciation speaking another foreign language. you indeed have a huge way to improve your english pronunciation.
I always look for Oriental Pearl not because I want to learn Chinese or Japanese, but as my inspiration as I am into the Celtic languages of the icy north, those wonderful Vikings that conquered Russia and built the great wall of China on their day off. 😂♥️
I dont really understand this obsession with having to sound native as an indication of fluency. I was at a bbq the other day me and my partner were invited (she is chinese) i was speaking chinese the entire day and was understood. My accent is not as good. I think people conflate accent with pronunciation .
Accent is totally fine for any foreign language learner, but I will say in mainland China people are much more sensitive to it (equating accent with inaccuracy). Most of the problems addressed in this video are on tones not accent I think. But in all honesty I'm glad I've seen a couple of people ripping into the YT in question here because she is super arrogant and shits on other Chinese speakers on RU-vid.
I guess one note is that tones are misunderstood by both parties therefore foreign language learners learning in an academic environment tend to struggle with them. Rather than think of tones being there at all , it is much more beneficial to look at every vowel with a tone as an entirely new vowel, this is why you see so many non-academics speak fluently through exclusively immersion learning.
Regarding the ü, I'd say she DEFINITELY pronounces it as ü - just slightly darker, but darker as in lower in the mouth, not further back like u. Basically, the difference between your ü and hers is the same as the one between French u [y] and northern Italian dialects ü [y], with the latter being a bit lower to fit with the snarkier, less refined overall aesthetic of those dialects compared to modern French. After all, if she was getting it wrong by going further back towards u, since she's clearly NOT going *all the way* to u, it would sound very muddy, because central vowels have that distinctive muddy sound - think Mandarin i [ɨ] or English unstressed short vowel [ə]
It's similar to Xiaomanyc's claim to have "perfect" Mandarin - The problem of making bold statements like that is that - you can unintentionally limit yourself from continuing the language learning process as you may be just telling yourself that you're at the precipice and that there's nothing left to learn or improve on... which is more often wrong than right.
@@Skyried With Mandarin in most cases there is ALWAYS something to improve on, even for native speakers that have been speaking it for 40 years. Continual improvement is a good thing
You'e 100 percent right about her trying to stress certain words for emphasis， 每天多听多看多写，等等，at the expense of tones. I have trouble with this as well. It also sounds like she has spent too much time in books and not enough time talking with people. Or maybe she's just enunciating a bit awkwardly for the Chinese learners. 我的汉语水平就是5级，但是我的发音比她的好。然而她的语法和词汇都比我先进。这是因为我在中国自己学习，没有太多正式的课程。它有助于更自然地说话。无论如何，她几乎听起来像一个母语是中文的人。这也是我的目标！好好学习天天向上～
@@RitaChinese Thank you - I look forward to it! I've been binging your videos after watching your league of legends video and you're an amazing teacher! Keep up the good work 😁
