Difficult, but not impossible. It's definitely difficult for the average native English speaker, especially given that Mandarin has quite a bit of "sh" and "ch" sounds. As a native Persian speaker, I had very little to no difficulty pronouncing words once I got the hang of it.
It's really cool to see the tattoo artist instantly light up when he realized xiaoma speak Mandarin, let alone Fujian dialect, which makes him like a brother and feel more familiar. I grew up in Hong Kong and only spoke standard Cantonese (based on Guangzhou). My grandparents on my father's side were originally from Guangdong (廣東台山and 恩平) then moved to guangzhou , Hk, and US, could speak the dialects from their own counties and also Cantonese with a provincial accent. I probably understood my grandparents around 70 to 80%. Imagine if grandparents or parents can't talk to their kids. So both putonghua/guoyu and preserving one's family dialect is important for communication. So he has a Chinese wife, that explains it. No better language teacher than a spouse. I was not good at mandarin when I was young, but have improved a lot over the years practicing with friends and coworkers from China and Taiwan. Dating women from China was a great motivator lol. Now I'm still learning Cantonese, mandarin, Japanese, and English everyday, it's a non stop process. I'm lazy with my zh ch sh so I sound more like a Taiwanese, and I probably still mess up the 1st and 4th tone lol So basically xiaoma's pronunciation is slightly off since he's too focused on pinyin like the eng letters like most ABCs, which might be preventable if studying mandarin in zhuyin used by Taiwan
the comment on english being throat pronounce confused me a little because it made me think of front/back pronounce. i think a better way to describe it is in english you pronounce lower in the throat and in mandarin you pronounce higher one weird way i figured this out is saying 俄罗斯 and then russia over and over 😂 you can definitely hear the difference
Don't (pinyin)zh, ch, sh, and r all have retroflex pronunciation? It's nearly impossible to make these sounds without moving your tongue backwards as you say them.
yeah he got them mixed up. the "sh" and "zh/j/g" sounds in English are not the retroflex sibilant fricatives, but palato-alveolar sibilant fricatives. He is correct about not curling the lips though.
@@gappleofdiscord9752 yeah good point. thx.I forgot that shit haha. That's why I don't consider myself as a language taecher or something. Just for reference.
Thanks- it’s really useful to hear about how to position sounds in the mouth, not something that comes naturally from just listening to native speakers.
Xiaoma speaks very good Chinese don’t get me wrong but it’s always jarring when Chinese people go 你中文很標準 or 聽不出來你是美國人 like he clearly has the american accent Good but FAR from flawless or perfect he even stated it himself
That's not the problem. They're only saying this out of politeness. The problem is that he makes videos and the title is something like 'Westerner surprises Chinese people by speking perfect Chinese'. It's very good but far from perfect.
I try to imitate how people pronounce, so I can sound clearer. But sometimes they mix the sounds, like the name Zhang, sometimes they speak Chang. By the way, I have watched your old videos, gosh you look like another person? That old you needed a buff and more confidence. And you got it this year. Now I wish the same happen to me. 🤣
Well made video from a production standpoint and I enjoy the way you present information. Also this is a good topic, because it can be hard to tell if, "foreigner impresses locals," language videos are staged or not.
Oh, in the languages other than Chinese, he is just mostly memorizing lines. But in Chinese he actually is taking/taken the time to learn. He would never be able to do videos in other languages like he does on Chinese. Hence, why the rest are shock value click bait titles in New York
The speaker in the movie clip around 3:30 is speaking English in a Singaporean/Malay accent, not a Fujian accent. Of course, there are many Fujianese people in Singapore (Hokkien), but that English accent is more influenced by Malay intonation.
it is like in Ukraine before Russia invasion, - many spoke Russian without any issues. I would say more than 50% probably. Despite one country one language, - people still want to speak the way whey want and nobody gonna stop them.
It‘s true.English，French or German are all from Latin language system. Chinese is originated from hieroglyph. As a result,you are not able to read it from its spelling.
@@ChinaExplained Hmm, those are just the alphabets. English and German are related as they both come from Proto-Germanic, whereas French comes from Latin. However, they are all definitely more related to each other than they are to Chinese.
7:02 If we analyze xiaoma's pronunciation of shang, we see he used [a], whereas a Mandarin speaker would use [ɑ]. His pronunciation of jing is also apparent of a foreign accent [ʧʷɪŋ], with his apparent rounding of lips. Mandarin uses [tɕiŋ] instead, the vowel is closer, never rounded, and the consonant is a palatal sound. I disagree with your analysis of "Chinese is pronounced more in the front not in the throat" statement. This is not what phonetics tell us. You are likely talking about voiced/unvoiced consonants. e.g. Mandarin b/d/g/j/zh/z are all unvoiced, meaning the vocal folds don't vibrate when producing the consonant sounds. But there are still voiced consonants, like n/r. "Vowel/consonant fronting" is a phonetic term describing sounds migrating to the front of the mouth, but this is not what's happening in Chinese compared to English, as evident as the shang example, English prefers "fronting" the a [a], whereas Mandarin pronounces the sound with the tongue at the back [ɑ]. Mandarin uses retroflex for zh/ch/sh/r. This is recognized by linguists. When comparing sh in Mandarin vs in English, English puts the tip of the tongue further to the front. Comparing 書 shu and the English shoe, besides English commonly fronts the /u/, the placement of the tongue for the consonant should also be different.
I was going to comment something similar, but you said it better than I could. It’s annoying when people make comments about linguistics (or anything really) when they obviously have no idea what they’re talking about.
Xiaoma's Chinese is good but I wish he wouldn't use video titles like 'white guy surprises people by speaking perfect Chinese'. It's not perfect. Just say 'speaking Chinese'.
Really interesting. Thanks for doing this. Talking about pronunciation, your english pronunciation is actually fantastic except one word that you said a lot in the video- tongue. It's a weird one, I know. We pronounce it 'tung'. in pronouncing it, you need to also swallow the 'ng' part of the word with an almost glottal stop.
you pronounce your NG like a glottal stop?? I don't think that's common. Most people pronounce it same as N, and some pronounce it as a more throat oriented N. (not trying to be pedantic here lol.)
@@johnnoon9999 No, I said an almost glottal stop. There is a slight break due to pronouncing the 'ng' at the back of the throat. No one pronounces it 'tun'! Some people in the midlands of the UK also pronounce it 'tong', but they are in a tiny minority
@@andymurray3516 Many Americans, especially in the Midwest and the South do indeed pronounce the NG the same as the N. But think what you want. I aint trying to argue. I was trying to be polite about my question and my opinion but people gotta take everything the worst way possible, smh.
