The R's of English...

[Dennis143]

I have been helping out in ESL classes, twice a week, by reading words in English and having the students recite back what they hear.

 

I am now trying to devote a few hours each evening tutoring Leiqin with her English words. We all know and tease how they say their R's (weally, weally...etc), but I'm finding some R words are more trying than others for her. Example: RIGHT, RED, are words that she seem to grasp fairly well. Yet, we spent a half hour tonight on ZERO (and then just the word ROW). She continually kept trying to use her tongue to say ZELO. She finally got it. Now, she'll just need to practice.

 

I'm wondering, do you have any suggestions? Have any of you crossed this challenge? I don't expect perfect diction, however, I do want to teach her correctly. Can you Chinese women offer any help? Can you men with Chinese wives offer any suggestions too?

[Yuanyang]

Dennis, how are you teaching the "ch" (pitch) and "th" (smith) sounds?

[Bessie]

Hi Dennis,

 

I Same here have big difficulty to pronunce R correctly. My husband also tried a number of times to help. Still I am doing not that good.

 

You know, we have a R in Chinese, which is similar to English R. We have been used to it years. So it's very very very difficult for us to change it to another very similar way.

 

The point is that we can not position our tongues correctly. When I read a single R, I did good. But when I read some words, especially some words I haven known for quite some time, I went back again.

 

It's a good topic!

[mercator]

Yes - my wife often says R's with the heavy Y influence. (like Zeyo) She does pretty good with L's since I showed her they are all like the Chinese word 'Lu.'

 

I, on the other hand, can't say R the chinese way. I also have trouble with words like 'cai,' which, as best I can tell, sounds like a really soft ts-eye

 

So its R's for her (we worked on 'warm' today) and R's and C's for me.

Edited January 27, 2006 by mercator (see edit history)

[LeeFisher3]

I have found that my wife has great pronounciation on words she has learned verbally, but if she reads the word first she will sometimes struggle with it.

 

Many times it is easier to repeat the same sound as another makes, when someone reads a word they automatically apply their phonetics as they learned them.

[ndjarrett]

Repetition & close sounding words. Yaya does not quit trying to say it right until she does several times in a row. Which is great...except when we are ready to goto bed

[tywy_99]

My wife has trouble with pronouncing words beginning with 'V'. My stepdaughter also.

[Dan R]

Pay attention to tongue position. When I taught ESL I used diagrams of a cross section of the mouth showing the positioning for each sound. The Rs you mention having problems with a more gutteral. The tongue is pulled back closer to the uvula and up. This more extreme position is more difficult for Chinese because the Chinese R positions the tongue midway in the mouth. Since the tongue is a muscle it takes practice and can cause cramping to make this sound right at the begining.

 

I would tell my students Speech is a sport. It takes practice and exercise to move the facial muscles and tongue correctly to form sounds.

[Dan R]

My wife has trouble with pronouncing words beginning with 'V'. My stepdaughter also.

186239[/snapback]

This is an easy one. They need to keep the lower lip against the upper teeth until half way through the sound. There is actually a slight vibration of the lower lip then it is let go. With the lips open it sounds like W.

[awch]

This is really strange as neither my husband nor any of the hundreds of students I taught had any problem with the "r" sound. Maybe its a difference between northern and southern dialects??? In fact, a lot of people would put more of an "r" sound than necessary into their speech- such as saying "ther" instead of "the".

 

I did experience quite a lot of problems with the "v" and "th" sounds though.

[Mick]

Yes, the R sound often comes out as L. Just don't let her watch Elmer Fudd cartoons. Then they may start coming out like w.

[izus]

Chun does well with her english but struggles with the word

"World"

no one has mentioned us trying to pronounce R's the way Chinese does.

i always thought i had good pronounciation for foriegn languages living in miami...

then i tried saying the name Ren

seems simple

[izus]

her mom calls me Beeeer

[pkfops]

No big deal.

 

Barbara Walters had trouble with R's and had a good career.

[Joanne]

This is really strange as neither my husband nor any of the hundreds of students I taught had any problem with the "r" sound. Maybe its a difference between northern and southern dialects??? In fact, a lot of people would put more of an "r" sound than necessary into their speech- such as saying "ther" instead of "the".

 

I did experience quite a lot of problems with the "v" and "th" sounds though.

186252[/snapback]

Yes. People speak northern dialects usually has less trouble with that "r" sound. Beijing dialect (closest to PutongHua) does include "v" sound. They used a slight "v" sound for some of the "w" words. However, in most part of China, there is no "v" sound in the dialect. It is difficult for people to start putting their teeth against lower lips.

 

As for "th", another difficulty, for me too. We are reluctant to stuck our tongue out when speak.

 

I guess to overcome the general pronounciation problems, you may start by asking your SO to speak English with exaggerated mouth movement (I notice that is what little kids are doing when they started speaking).