Beginner Mandarin question

[SimonC]

Hi,
Total new language newbie here so apologies if my question may seem a little ignorant

I’ve decided to try learning Mandarin Chinese as I plan to visit the more obscure parts of the country next year where I imagine English will not be widely spoken, if at all.

To give me a taster before I research into the best methods of learning the language, I bought Paul Noble’s audio Mandarin course and have listened to the first CD.

I am a little confused however by the way he advises to ask questions.
For example, he says that if I want to ask someone “Do you want to go to Shanghai?” , instead of phrasing the question as stated, I should phrase it “You don’t want to go to Shanghai? “

So, again excuse the hopeless Romanisation here, instead of sounding like “Nee yow chee Shanghai ma?” where yow = want, he says it should be “Nee boo yow chee Shanghai ma?”, where boo yow = not want.

This seems quite strange to me, but can you advise please as to if this is correct in your experience?
Thanks
Simon

[rdearman]

I don't know what the question is, although I think you mean: Nǐ bùxiǎng qù shànghǎi ma? 你不想去上海吗？

However, the nub of what you're asking is "Mandarin constructs sentences differently than English, please explain." So I think you might want to combine your Paul Nation course with some simple grammar. There is a free online grammar book / course for Mandarin:

https://resources.allsetlearning.com/ch ... mar_points

There is a section on question forms.

https://resources.allsetlearning.com/ch ... tion_Forms

[SimonC]

Hi, thanks for such a quick reply.

I will check out that link you posted right away

Ta,
Simon

[Arnaud]

I don't know what the question is, although I think you mean: Nǐ bùxiǎng qù shànghǎi ma? 你不想去上海吗？

The question is perhaps "Nǐ yào qù shànghǎi ma?" or "Nǐ yào bù yào qù shànghǎi?

Does "bù yào...+ ma" add an extra layer of politeness like "wouldn't you want to do that" ? (question of beginner, too)

[Querneus]

Does "bù yào...+ ma" add an extra layer of politeness like "wouldn't you want to do that" ? (question of beginner, too)

I asked this to a couple native speakers and... interestingly, I was given the exact same thing that you can find in Mandarin grammars. (Native speakers sometimes give very curious answers to this type of question. I like it when they agree with what grammars say without having ever read a grammar...)

It doesn't add politeness, but there's an expectation that you did want to do the thing. "Don't you want to do that?" "Didn't you want to do that?"

I suppose this means that Paul Noble's course makes an odd choice in translation here.

[SimonC]

Hi, thanks for your replies
I have come across another strange one, well to me anyway being such a newbie at Chinese

Again, excuse the horrible romanisation, but Paul Noble's two native Chinese speakers seem to pronounce the words for 'to eat' and 'to go' exactly the same.
Now Mr Noble says to pronounce both as 'ch', but for 'to eat' say it with your tongue touching the roof of your mouth, and for 'to go' say it with your lips tightly rounded.
When I listen to them say both words though I cant tell the difference And it's quite an important difference between going and eating really.

Can any more experienced Mandarin learners advise me here please if that's ok?
Thanks
Simon

[Axon]

Hi, thanks for your replies
I have come across another strange one, well to me anyway being such a newbie at Chinese

Again, excuse the horrible romanisation, but Paul Noble's two native Chinese speakers seem to pronounce the words for 'to eat' and 'to go' exactly the same.
Now Mr Noble says to pronounce both as 'ch', but for 'to eat' say it with your tongue touching the roof of your mouth, and for 'to go' say it with your lips tightly rounded.
When I listen to them say both words though I cant tell the difference And it's quite an important difference between going and eating really.

Can any more experienced Mandarin learners advise me here please if that's ok?
Thanks
Simon

Mandarin uses a lot of sounds and sound combinations that don't exist in English. Neither "chi" (to eat) or "qu" (to go) have ANY sounds that exist in English, and yet they're both completely different from one another! So your brain is kind of panicking and telling you that they both sound the same.

For "eat", the consonant sound is very similar to the "ch" in "church." Technically, you also want to curl your tongue back just a tiny bit (say "church" and think about where your tongue is touching the roof of your mouth, then try to say it again but with your tongue slightly further away from your teeth.). But you can achieve quite a good accent even if you never curl your tongue back, so don't worry there.
The vowel sound is very similar to the "ur" in "church" in American English - so for a pretty good approximation, just say "church" and leave off the last "ch." (I'm afraid I don't know any examples off the top of my head for various British Englishes, but I hope you can do a reasonable American accent to follow along )

For "go," the consonant sound is fairly tricky to make correctly. It took me about a month of practice. However, it's really good to be able to make that sound because it will also help you hear it separately when native speakers say it.
Say "e" as in "eat" and hold that sound. Pay attention to where your tongue is - the tip is pointed down behind your bottom teeth. Practice keeping your tongue in that position as you say "e" over and over, turning your voice on and off. That's the position for the "ch" sound in "go" (it's represented as the letter 'q' in the Pinyin romanization). Listen to your recordings and try making a "ch" sound with your tongue down behind your bottom teeth.
The vowel sound is simply the French or German rounded "ü." Say "eeee" again and, without moving your tongue, round your lips like you really wanted to say "o." But don't change your tongue position! Just your lips. You will notice that the "eee" sound morphs perfectly into a rounded "ü."

And this system actually makes perfect sense! The vowel in "eat" is produced relatively further back in your mouth, so the consonant puts your tongue up and back too. The vowel in "go" is way in the front of your mouth, and so the "ch" sound changes to be closer to that front vowel as well, bunching your tongue up right next to your teeth.

Now, the last big thing is tone. Again, I'll use American English for this.
"eat" is pronounced with a high and level tone. It's exactly the same as the bolded words in this conversation:
"There are too few blankets."

The word for "go" is pronounced with a sharply falling tone, starting high and going way down very fast. Imagine an angry person slamming his fist on the table to punctuate "sonofaBITCH!"

When you evaluate pronunciation materials for Chinese, stay away from advice that says "this sound is the same as English." Instead of that, take on the new sounds as a challenge, but one that can be overcome with the right amount of effort.

[Flickserve]

Hi

Again, excuse the horrible romanisation, but Paul Noble's two native Chinese speakers seem to pronounce the words for 'to eat' and 'to go' exactly the same.
Now Mr Noble says to pronounce both as 'ch', but for 'to eat' say it with your tongue touching the roof of your mouth, and for 'to go' say it with your lips tightly rounded.
When I listen to them say both words though I cant tell the difference

It takes some practice and time to assimilate. The more you listen to them (and some other people saying those words), the easier it gets.

吃 eat
去 go

You can put these Chinese characters in Google translate and listen again. Try doing it multiples of ten.

[SimonC]

Mandarin uses a lot of sounds and sound combinations that don't exist in English. Neither "chi" (to eat) or "qu" (to go) have ANY sounds that exist in English, and yet they're both completely different from one another! So your brain is kind of panicking and telling you that they both sound the same.

For "eat", the consonant sound is very similar to the "ch" in "church." Technically, you also want to curl your tongue back just a tiny bit (say "church" and think about where your tongue is touching the roof of your mouth, then try to say it again but with your tongue slightly further away from your teeth.). But you can achieve quite a good accent even if you never curl your tongue back, so don't worry there.
The vowel sound is very similar to the "ur" in "church" in American English - so for a pretty good approximation, just say "church" and leave off the last "ch." (I'm afraid I don't know any examples off the top of my head for various British Englishes, but I hope you can do a reasonable American accent to follow along )

For "go," the consonant sound is fairly tricky to make correctly. It took me about a month of practice. However, it's really good to be able to make that sound because it will also help you hear it separately when native speakers say it.
Say "e" as in "eat" and hold that sound. Pay attention to where your tongue is - the tip is pointed down behind your bottom teeth. Practice keeping your tongue in that position as you say "e" over and over, turning your voice on and off. That's the position for the "ch" sound in "go" (it's represented as the letter 'q' in the Pinyin romanization). Listen to your recordings and try making a "ch" sound with your tongue down behind your bottom teeth.
The vowel sound is simply the French or German rounded "ü." Say "eeee" again and, without moving your tongue, round your lips like you really wanted to say "o." But don't change your tongue position! Just your lips. You will notice that the "eee" sound morphs perfectly into a rounded "ü."

And this system actually makes perfect sense! The vowel in "eat" is produced relatively further back in your mouth, so the consonant puts your tongue up and back too. The vowel in "go" is way in the front of your mouth, and so the "ch" sound changes to be closer to that front vowel as well, bunching your tongue up right next to your teeth.

Now, the last big thing is tone. Again, I'll use American English for this.
"eat" is pronounced with a high and level tone. It's exactly the same as the bolded words in this conversation:
"There are too few blankets."

The word for "go" is pronounced with a sharply falling tone, starting high and going way down very fast. Imagine an angry person slamming his fist on the table to punctuate "sonofaBITCH!"

When you evaluate pronunciation materials for Chinese, stay away from advice that says "this sound is the same as English." Instead of that, take on the new sounds as a challenge, but one that can be overcome with the right amount of effort.

Thankyou so much for taking the time to write such a helpful and detailed explanation
I think I have the difference clear in my mind now

If you dont mind me asking, how soon into your learning did you start learning Chinese characters?
I've only been studying for a couple of weeks so far, and the general advice I've been given is to leave the characters well alone until i've learned PinYin. Would you concur with this advice?

Thanks
Simon

[Axon]

Thankyou so much for taking the time to write such a helpful and detailed explanation
I think I have the difference clear in my mind now

If you dont mind me asking, how soon into your learning did you start learning Chinese characters?
I've only been studying for a couple of weeks so far, and the general advice I've been given is to leave the characters well alone until i've learned PinYin. Would you concur with this advice?

Thanks
Simon

Well, I don't think it would hurt you or confuse you to learn the characters now, but it's definitely a lot easier to start out with Pinyin. I was exposed to the characters and pinyin at the same time, and I did memorize a couple of hundred characters in the first few months when I started. But I didn't focus on it very hard until a year after I started learning, when I started an intermediate Chinese class and the teacher expected me to be able to know (and write!) a lot more than I did in terms of characters. Mostly until that point I had memorized words and short conversational dialogues, always with Pinyin.

I didn't actually learn Pinyin very well at first. I have a recording of myself a couple of months after starting to learn, and I was pretty bad at reading the pinyin with a good accent. Fortunately, I didn't do very much speaking, and so it wasn't that hard to fix my mistakes and learn to speak more correctly. To be honest, even though I should have learned Pinyin better than I did, I do think I wasted a lot of time by not practicing reading characters. Pinyin is something that can be learned extremely well in a matter of months, and becoming comfortable reading characters is a very, very long process.

In short, don't be afraid of characters, but don't worry about learning them until after you can pronounce Chinese well.