"an" final pronunciation

Question

I have had eight mainland Chinese teachers over the time I have spent studying, and I am still confused, because I find there are inconsistencies between my textbook's audio CDs, my teachers' explanations, and what I typically hear people say. I don't know how to read IPA so please bear with me.

In some audio CDs, and most of my teachers, they agree that "an" should be pronounced like the English "an" (e.g. an apple) and not like the English "un" (e.g. that was fun) and I do often hear it for cases such as "怎么办？" and "赶得到". They also tell me it's the same for 换 and 言 etc. (just not for 天 as "ian" is a different rule.)

However, the disagreement stems from others telling me it should be the English "un", and there are resources that also show this (I read through Pinyin tones pronunciation cheat sheet and listened to the accompanying links http://lost-theory.org/chinese/phonetics/ and http://chinesepod.com/tools/pronunciation, which follows this rule.)

I do also notice that some of the teachers in the first camp, while pronouncing 办 with the English "an", seem to pronounce 看 with the English "un". Not all of them, however. This makes things very confusing.

I have broken my pronunciation habits once and switched from the first camp to the second camp, and now am wondering if I should have done that, and if I should actually be switching back.

Can anybody clarify this?

(Note: The teachers that were staunchly in the second camp also pronounced "iu" as English "ew", not like the "iou" that it should be (就 etc.,) but I don't know if that's enough to disregard their arguments for what is considered correct pronunciation.)

UPDATE: Wiki article on pinyin claims:

an  [än]    an  like British English "ban", but more central

Not ... entirely sure what "but more central" means, but going by the Macmillan Dictionary audio sample for ban and the CCTV link @Stan commented with it doesn't sound like the "an" in "an apple" nor does it sound like the "un" in "that was fun", but it sounds somewhere in between the two, what I'm thinking at the moment is that it sounds like the "an" in "hand".

Answer 1

To answer your question, we need a little basic phonetics: A vowel has two main attributes -- how open your mouth is when you are making the sound, and whether the sound is made at the front of the mouth or at the back. For example, FLEE vowel is close and front, FLU vowel is close and back. BAN vowel is open (more open than BET, which is more open than FLEE) and front, START vowel is open and back. The FUN vowel is usually in the mid of the mouth, but not as open as START.

The BAN vowel is more open in some accents in England than in the general American accent. As Stan has found, the vowel in http://www.macmillandictionary.com/pronunciation/british/ban is front and very open, more open than the same vowel in American accent.

Now, regarding your original question what 'more central' means, it means that you open your mouth as wide(open) as the BAN vowel in the audio clip above, but move the tongue position a bit towards the back. As a side note, the standard mandarin accent uses a mid vowel in pinyin ban, while the Taiwanese accent uses a fronter variant (just like the BAN vowel in the audio clip).

Answer 2

The right pronunciation should sound like "ahn". The English pronunciation of "an" sounds wrong in Chinese.

Answer 3

The pronunciation and/or images of the an sound of the teachers from Zhejiang might well be influenced by their dialectal mother tongue. In Zhejiang dialects, at least in that spoken in Hangzhou, where Zhejiang University is located, many an sounds are pronounced closer to the English an as in an apple than their Mandarin equivalents.

Some examples from Phonemica, a site collecting samples of Chinese dialects:

http://phonemica.net/entry/353 The 板 in 銅板 at 00:09 and elsewhere

http://phonemica.net/entry/368 The 饭 in 中饭 at 00:12

Answer 4

there's a script from a Chinese teacher, which explained your confusion.

Answer 5

For me, the a in Chinese pinyin sounds like the a in father.(It's same as the Italian pronunciation of vowel a too) The an in Chinese sounds like the an in fantastic. Hope that helps! :)

Answer 6

I am a Madanrin native speaker, and I pronounce pinyin an in the exactly same way as un in lunch.

So for me 饭 is pronounced exactly same as fun in "Have fun."

While 烦 is pronounced exactly same as fun in "Did you have fun?" Because fun is the last word in that sentence, its tone is raised, making it sound exactly same as 烦 or 凡 or 繁.

So the following pairs are pronounced exactly same:

办 BUN, 畔 PUN, 饭 FUN 蛋 DUN, 难(nàn) NUN, 干(gàn) GUN, 汉 HUN, 散(sàn) SUN.

Answer 7

Indeed, the phonetic alphabet is a tool you use for each speaker and speaker, and it is also very important to know that subjective ways of teaching are the rule. Some of my teachers say quinzi, the others qunzi as mandarin standard. The individual or collective differences are not something the speaker is always aware of. The teacher is part of a process of "idealization" of his own language. Sometimes, your ears are right, but your brain does not translate it right. The last drill on the Net "yanni-lionel" is one of those problems, phoneticians have to cope with: the spectrum of sounds delimitation is tricky. Both might be right and the answer is not the one, but both. bun and ban, you can use forvo or university of main databases for these different pronunciations.