Mandarin sounds not found in English language

My Mandarin is conversational and learned entirely through friends/work.

I have a question for all of you who have studied Mandarin and are familiar with the sounds.

What are some examples of sounds found in Mandarin that are not found in English?

Thanks.

v as in nv (女) isnt found in English

si as in 4 and others like shi and zhi etc 4 tc…these schwaa-like sounds don’t really exist in english
the same goes for the e in hen and ren

sh and zh are not really found in English but can easily be produced with a little practice with regards to positioning the tongue.
also c as in cong(聰)and z as in zai(再) are not used in English as first consonants.

My chinese is kind of low intermediate but I’m religious about my pronounciation and I often notice a lot of native english speakers, even at a very high level of Mandarin competency, haven’t grasped these basic phonetic differences.

Except in Scottish English as in “Look at the book.”

[quote=“rooftop”]My Mandarin is conversational and learned entirely through friends/work.

I have a question for all of you who have studied Mandarin and are familiar with the sounds.

What are some examples of sounds found in Mandarin that are not found in English?

Thanks.[/quote]

The initial “r” in Mandarin is not found in English. It’s like a cross between the “r” sound in “red” and the “j” sound in the French word “jour”.

[quote=“rooftop”]My Mandarin is conversational and learned entirely through friends/work.

I have a question for all of you who have studied Mandarin and are familiar with the sounds.

What are some examples of sounds found in Mandarin that are not found in English?

Thanks.[/quote]

A better question might be: what are some sounds found in Mandarin that are also found in English?

You won’t find many.

English spekers who hail from locations where “dew” and “do” do not rhyme do not seem to have much problem seperating lv4 (green) from lu4 (road)

The only sounds found in Mandarin that are not found in English are the (pinyin) ‘r’ and the nasal 'n’s.

The ‘v’ or ‘u’ with dots on it. Can be found in ‘neuter’, or many words such as ‘nude’ as pronounced by some people in England.

Brian

Bu Lai En,

Could you give an example or two of some words that have the nasal “n” sound in them please?

Yes please do.

I’m a phonetics idiot, but I do know that ‘n’ at the ends of words in Mandarin is a tricky one for English speakers.

When English speakers say ‘n’, the tongue, which was touching the roof of the mouth just behind the teeth, falls, producing an almost inaudible ‘uh’ sound. But in Mandarin the tongue stays touching the top of your mouth. No ‘uh’ sound at all should be produced.

Sorry that I don’t know all the technical terms to describe this more precisely. Maybe somebody else can help.

Bu-lai-en, is this the nasal ‘n’ you were talking about?

Actually, I don’t know if that’s really ‘nasal’. I always thought it was. Maybe I’m wrong.

I just really mean that the final ‘n’ and ‘ng’ sounds in Mandarin are different from final ‘n’ and 'ng’s in English. I always assumed that the description for this was ‘nasal’, but I may well me wrong.

Brian