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As we begin to learn a new and foreign language, our pronunciation tends to be effected by our mother tongue. Therefore the closer our native language is to the language of study in terms of phonetics then the better and more confident we will be at speaking the language. However, as the chinese language shares very little in regards to pronunciation, many native chinese speakers find it difficult to proununce English words. This results in a lot of miscommunication between native speakers and students losing their confidence in speaking the language. This essay will discuss some of the most common pronunciation problems Chinese students face when they learn English in China. The L and R letters Many Mandarin speakers find it difficult to say the l and r consonants letters and at times distinguish between them in reported speech. They end up saying and producing the l letter most of the time. For example: right may become light. arrange may become allange. The th sound The th sound, which involves the tip of the tongue being under the teeth, does not exist in chinese, and as a result many native chinese speakers replace it with an s sound. This results in words such as this being pronounced as sis. The letters d, t, s and k A common mistake which is unique to native chinese speakers of English is the mispronunciation of d, t, s and k. Chinese speakers tend to stress the last sound of the word which results in the inclusion of an extra syllable. For example: And becomes an-deu. The letter n Chinese students for some reason tend to add an extra g at the end of the n letter. This results in words such as Monday becoming Mongday or Sun becoming sung. The letter i Many chinese students often take the short i sound and convert it into an elongated ee sound. This may be a result of trying to find similarities between English and Chinese, however it results in mispronunciation of the word and at times speech being misunderstood. For example: Ship becomes sheep. Bin becomes been. The letter o The letter o is another letter that causes many problems for Chinese students. The students tend to turn the short o sound into a long elongated o. For example the o in offer becomes ofer or the o in honda becomes onda. The letter v Since Mandarin Chinese does not use the letter v, students often replace this sound with either a w or f. As a result the v in every day becomes ewery day or the v in evening becomes ewening. Consonant clusters For native Mandarin speakers, pronouncing a group of consonants, or a consonant cluster, is difficult as they do not occur in Mandarin. This results in omission or the changing of some letters in these clusters and can lead to difficulty for native English speakers to understand them. For instance: I asked him turns into I ass him. He needs it turns into he nee it. The topics covered above are some of the most common mistakes Chinese students face when they are trying to speak English. Many of these mistakes stem from trying to find common substitutes of the English sounds in Chinese, but results in unnatural sounds being pronounced, which can lead to communication problems among native speakers. Alleviating these issues above is not an easy task, however, by ensuring you separate and do not mix the pronunciation of English with Chinese and practice daily then these pronunciation problems may no longer be a problem for native Chinese speakers.
