10 English Pronunciation Errors by Mandarin Speakers
[ssba] If your mother tongue is Mandarin, you may find certain sounds in English more difficult than others. Here we present to you some of the common errors made by Mandarin-speaking students at Pronunciation Studio:
1. /l/ vs. /r/
Mandarin-speakers often find it difficult to produce the difference between /l/ and /r/ and may choose the wrong sound in a word. Make sure the tip of the tongue touches the alveolar ridge for /l/ but not for /r/:
“English class” “report” “arrange”
2. /n/ vs. /ŋ/
Mandarin-speakers often use /ŋ/ instead of /n/ at the end of words:
“sun” shouldn’t sound like “sung”
“ban” shouldn’t sound like “bang”
“mine” shouldn’t sound like “maing”
3. /v/ vs. /w/ or /f/
Since Mandarin does not use /v/, students often replace this sound with either /w/ or /f/:
“every day” “live” “of course”
4. th
The < th > sound does not occur in Mandarin, which means that Mandarin-speakers may use /s/, /z/, /t/ or /d/ instead:
“On Thursday we went to the theatre”
5. Intonation
In Mandarin, intonation affects each syllable, but in English, intonation affects a group of words or even a whole sentence. Some Mandarin-speakers add too much intonation to English and this doesn’t sound smooth:
“I went to buy a lot of books”
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6. Consonant clusters
It is difficult for Mandarin-speakers to pronounce a group of consonants – what we call a consonant cluster – as these do not occur in Mandarin. This leads to the omission or changing of some letters in consonant clusters and this can be difficult for native English speakers to understand:
“I asked him” – (say /ɑ:skt/ not /as/)
“He needs it” – (say /ni:dz/ not /ni:d/)
“actually” – (say /æktʃəli/ not /aʃli/)
7. /i:/ vs. /ɪ/
English has two close vowels: /i:/ and /ɪ/, where Mandarin only uses [i], so Mandarin-speakers need to learn to make the shorter, more relaxed sound /ɪ/:
“It’s in this bin”
“Give Tim this dish”
“Jim finished his knitting”
8. /ɒ/
In English, the /ɒ/ sound found in “got” is made with the jaw open and rounded lips. This sound doesn’t occur in Mandarin, so when speaking English, Mandarin-speakers sometimes use an open but UNrounded sound:
“Tom’s got a lot of dogs”
9. Separate Words
Mandarin-speakers tend to separate words – this means their speech can sound robotic and unnatural to the native English-speaker. They can improve this by learning the rules of joining in English, which will help them to remove unnecessary gaps between words:
“I went to the lesson alone.”
10. Syllable Stress
In Mandarin, many words only have one syllable, so it’s important to say each syllable clearly. This is different in English – you only have to stress some of the syllables in a sentence – the rest can be weak:
“There are lots of Chinese students studying in London.”
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