Questions on specific points regarding the ability to use the correct consonants, vowels, tone, stress, rhythm and intonation of a word in a spoken Chinese
6
votes
3answers
259 views
Why is it written LIU in Pinyin, when there's clearly an O sound?
Does anybody know why this decision was made in Pinyin, about not writing any hint of the sound /O/ in liu, instead of writing something like liou or liow ?
Because the first reaction of any ...
3
votes
2answers
181 views
Is it common for zh/j, ch/q, and sh/x to be merged?
I learned formally that in the standard Beijing accent, zh, ch, and sh are pronounced more in the back in the mouth than j, q, and x. However, I got lazy and speak all six of these consonants in the ...
3
votes
2answers
509 views
Characteristics of Northern and Southern accents
My first language is Cantonese. I learned Mandarin as a second language. Native speakers of Mandarin often understand me with no major issues. Of course, they recognize the Southern accents right ...
7
votes
6answers
349 views
Do acronyms borrowed from English use neutral tone for all syllables?
I was just reading a Q&A here about Chinese words for DVD and the discussion also included other acronyms from English.
It struck me that nobody wrote the pinyin for any of the terms which made ...
1
vote
2answers
145 views
Authoritative source for 一 changing to 4th tone before 1st, 2nd or 3rd
In another users answer http://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/2046/38 they said:
一 is pronounced in the first tone when it stands alone. It is
pronounced in the fourth tone when it precedes a ...
5
votes
2answers
264 views
Pronunciation of 一 in 一个
When I first learnt the numbers, I learnt 一 with the first tone yi1.
But now, during a Memrise lesson, they teach me that 一个 should be pronounced yi2 ge4 or yi2 ge5.
Is this correct and, if so, is ...
