Mandarin Pronunciation

In this section of the site, I go over the finer points of pronouncing common Chinese words. Here you’ll find useful guides and tools for practice.

In the materials on this page, I often touch on the physiology and psychology of learning Chinese. When I first started learning, between 2012 and 2014, I thought speaking and hearing were two completely different, unrelated skills.

Back then, I listened to podcasts every day and, honestly, fooled myself into thinking I was “learning Chinese.” Your ear will never train itself, because it looks to your own speech organs for support.

You shouldn’t start learning Chinese with listening. You need to start with physiology. More precisely, with your tongue. Your literal tongue: figuring out where to put that little part inside your mouth.

For example, there are sounds like zhi chi shi zi ci si j q x.

And here’s the main problem: these sounds are usually taught as a list of nine sounds, each with its own description, and our brains try to remember nine different pictures. But I think we need to understand a single spectrum (an axis) and learn to “walk” freely along it from one end to the other.

Mandarin pronunciation is a living system, rather than just something you’ve learned that now sits somewhere in your brain forever. It’s a skill you need to practice. Stop practicing, and the skill slowly starts to fade.