Comments on: Instant Zhonglish improvement — guaranteed

By: johnleemk

johnleemk — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 02:38:43 +0000

Actually I’m pretty sure she is saying “bu4 shi4 yi2ge mi4mi” — she’s just singing so fast that it’s a bit hard to hear.

By: syz

syz — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 02:41:14 +0000

Düüüüüd that is, like, a totally cool analogy. I almost think it might work as a teaching aid.

Great explanation about the R too. Playing around with the vowel makes all the difference.

By: Zev Handel

Zev Handel — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 02:14:48 +0000

I do hear what you hear with the zhī, and indeed the same thing with the shì. Both are pronounced to rhyme with the English word “shirr” (a favorite of egg-lovers). The vowel of the English is lower, more of a rhotacized schwa, while the vowel of the Chinese is higher, the jaw not changing position from the articulation of the consonant to the vowel.

I’ve often wondered if Southern Californians might have an easier time with the Chinese ü vowel, since in that dialect /u/ is fronted pretty far when between two alveolar consonants (think “duuuude”). But it probably doesn’t transfer.

By: syz

syz — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 01:47:43 +0000

Maybe I shooyao a new set of ears, Zev -- it is a pretty sorry ü and I didn't give it much thought before. To my ear the zhī is still worse, but that might be just because my own ü is pretty weak. Good point about the overproduction too. When you chop up something enough, eventually no one's going to have any idea if you're a native speaker. Right, Barack?

By: Zev Handel

Zev Handel — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 19:46:09 +0000

I agree that the overall quality of the Chinese here is good, and certainly comprehensible. One reason that some native speakers may not recognize that the singer is non-native is that pop songs are so highly produced these days, with all kinds of digitized effects made to the vocal as well as the instrumental tracks, that slight features of a non-native accent might not stand out amid all the other distortions. For example, in this song, there seems to be some kind of digital editing or compression going on in the phrase “nǐde nǚpéngyou”; the “de” is shortened and sort of overlapped with the surrounding syllables.

To my ear, the most salient marker of an English accent is one that syz didn’t mention: the first vowel of “xūyào”. This is a high front rounded vowel in Mandarin (pinyin ü, IPA [y]), but Lavigne pronounces it more like a back English “oo” (IPA [u]).

By: syz

syz — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 13:57:05 +0000

“pretty darn good” — I agree and I shoulda said that explicitly at some point.

Human psychology is funny in the way that it loves to snipe, in this case about her Mandarin. Sheesh, there’s a lot to complain about in the song if you want to do that. But (my guess is) people complain about the pronunciation because they’re pretty sure most other English-speakers reading their comments won’t be able to call them on it. Others have no idea if it’s good or bad. But just a few minutes ago I got re-confirmation from none other than Mrs. BJS herself. After listening to the clip, she said she had no idea it was not a native Chinese speaker. That’s two for two now.

By: Jens

Jens — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 06:09:28 +0000

If it’s true that she had no prior knowledge of Mandarin and spent only a few hours practising this, then I’d say her performance is pretty darn good. Certainly many people would need much longer exposure to the language to reach this level of accuracy.

True, singing obviates the need for observing tones, but since she is a professional singer and therefore has a keen sense of pitch, I’ve got to think she could pick up the tones of Mandarin easily if she tried.