Say the name of hte letter “E” and hold it out…eeeeeeeeeeeeee. Don’t move your tongue.
Now round your lips (you were smiling before, right? sort of? Now don’t move that tongue but make your lips say “oo” as in “soon” (a pure “u” vowel as in Italian or Spanish).
The umlaut u is just what we call a “front, rounded vowel” in linguistics. “i” is a front unrounded vowel; “u” is a back rounded vowel, so when you put the rounded lips of “u” together with the tongue position of “i”, you get umlaut “u”.
(Same thing works backwards for the infamous “retroflex i” vowel: it is a back unrounded vowel, so say “u” with your lips rounded, freeze your tongue and teeth in position, and smile!)
Say the name of hte letter “E” and hold it out…eeeeeeeeeeeeee. Don’t move your tongue.
Now round your lips (you were smiling before, right? sort of? Now don’t move that tongue but make your lips say “oo” as in “soon” (a pure “u” vowel as in Italian or Spanish).[/quote]
Ironlady, that’s very cool! Do you have a similar explanation for umlaut O? Chinese doesn’t have this sound, but someone above referred to Peter Seller’s French accent in the Pink Panther. Let’s be careful, the French has both umlaut O as in “bleu” and umlaut U as in “rue”, they are different animals. When Peter Sellers said “pheun”, he was making fun of umalut O.
Another way to explain umlaut U is, pronounce “oo” as in “soon”, and press your tongue firmly to the back of your lower teeth.
[quote=“Ironman”]My wife does the bopo thing and I often hear the bapama and it sounds to me like bepeme and not bapama.
I found this very confusing as well. My current plan is to throw the bpmf out the window.[/quote]
Why does it matter how you pronounce your bpmf? As long as your consistent, and can use it to build a correct sounding word/syllable, you can surely do whatever you want (or whatever your teacher wants).
Listen to how an English speaker and a French speaker say the alphabet:
“Ay, Bee, Sea” vs. “Ah Beh Ceh” - the same letters are pronounced in a different way (or ask a Brit and an American to pronounce the letter ‘Z’).
I must admit, when I starting learning Chinese (via bpmf) I found it incredibly frustrating that I had been learning for a week and hadn’t yet learnt a single word of Chinese - just made these weird noises. I guess if you learn via pinyin this is slightly less painful, but you’ve got to learn how to make the correct sounds however you learn…
An explanation, I found helpful. Put your tongue in place ready to say an ‘r’ sound, but then try and make a ‘j’ sound, without moving your tongue too much.
As for bo/po/mo/fo, be/pe/me/fe, ba/pa/ma/fa - it really doesn’t matter. You’re not learning the vowel part - you’re learning the b-, p-, m-, f-.
[quote=“Bu Lai En”]An explanation, I found helpful. Put your tongue in place ready to say an ‘r’ sound, but then try and make a ‘j’ sound, without moving your tongue too much.
[/quote]
The Chinese “r” (initial, rather than final)… it seems to be about halfway between the “r” in “red” and the “s” in “pleasure”.
[quote=“Ironman”]My wife does the bopo thing and I often hear the bapama and it sounds to me like bepeme and not bapama.
I found this very confusing as well. My current plan is to throw the bpmf out the window.[/quote]
I finally got an explanation from a language exchange the other day.
The old-school way of teaching it was bo-po-mo-fo. But my generation learnt it as be-pe-me-fe. Hence the difference. Old and busted/New hotness.
HI jwar.
Where exactly is “any place” that sells 2nd hand CDs. I don’t know of any nor have ever noticed any. I’m interested in getting the Cds you mentioned. Oh yeah I happen to be in taichung.
Say the name of hte letter “E” and hold it out…eeeeeeeeeeeeee. Don’t move your tongue.
Now round your lips (you were smiling before, right? sort of? Now don’t move that tongue but make your lips say “oo” as in “soon” (a pure “u” vowel as in Italian or Spanish).
The umlaut u is just what we call a “front, rounded vowel” in linguistics. “i” is a front unrounded vowel; “u” is a back rounded vowel, so when you put the rounded lips of “u” together with the tongue position of “i”, you get umlaut “u”.
(Same thing works backwards for the infamous “retroflex i” vowel: it is a back unrounded vowel, so say “u” with your lips rounded, freeze your tongue and teeth in position, and smile!)[/quote]
This is exactly how umlauts are taught in Germany as well (at least, how they were taught to me when I lived in Germany.
Umlaut O = Say “eeeeeeyyyyyy” (like Fonzi or Hey or a long aaaaaaaaa). Your tongue is in it’s normal place and your mouth is wide. Now move your lips forward and round them (like you want to say “soon” and don’t move your tongue. Say the same eeeeeyyyyy sound again. You have a perfect Umlaut 0.
Umlaut U = See Ironlady’s post above. Instead of aaaaaaaaaa, you use eeeeeeeeeee and round your lips.
Can anyone suggest a good source for learning bopomofo. I’m looking for a good site with a nicely laid out chart I can download, and even maybe an explanation or two.
I’ve had a bit of a look on Google but can’t find quite what I’m after.
This website is really good. Did you see this post? Just ignore the intro and go to the chart.
I applaud you for at least trying to learn ZhuYin; you will be so much better off in Taiwan. I have a feeling Taiwanese hate to see things “romanized”. It probably has to do with the KMT deeming roman characters as inferior during a point in history. I remember reading somewhere that a group of English speaking missionaries created a very extensive system to “romanize” Taiwanese, in order to translate the bible. The KMT confiscated their works and wouldn’t allow them to spread it to the people of Taiwan.
So anyway I doubt you care, but it’s my personal opinion that if you come to Taiwan you should learn ZhuYin. There are only 37 letters and it took me max 1 week to memorize (a little longer to master) and I’m pretty dumb. Plus, all beginner level books here have ZhuYin as well as Chinese and it’s a hell of a lot easier to read when you know ZhuYin. I see way too many foreigners in Taiwan who don’t even know what BoPoMo is, yet they’ve learned to speak a little Mandarin.