Pronouncing American English Vowels An Accent Guide for Native Mandarin Chinese Speakers CD Audio Version Sarah Hoefflin
ii Pronouncing American English Vowels: An Accent Guide for Native Mandarin Chinese Speakers Published by Logical Learning Publications, LLC 21415 Civic Center Dr., Suite 117 Southfield, MI 48076 order from: www.logical-learning.com 1-800-816-6148 Copyright 2004 Logical Learning Publications, LLC. All rights reserved. No parts of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, by any means (electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher. ISBN 0-9753816-0-1 Library of Congress Control Number: 2004112798 Printed in the United States of America. First Edition.
iii Dedication To Frank, whose vision, determination, confidence, and unwavering support have made many things possible. Acknowledgments Over the past few years I have had the honor of working with wonderful native Mandarin-speaking students whose feedback has been essential in the writing of this book. It is a privilege to work with people as committed, intelligent and enthusiastic as you. Dr. Joseph Paul Stemberger s outstanding phonetics and phonology courses at the University of Minnesota provided an excellent foundation for an ongoing education about the structure of spoken English and other languages. I wish Joe the best of luck at the University of British Columbia.
iv Table of Contents Introduction... 1 Overview of American Vowel Sounds.. 2 What are these funny symbols?... 2 The IPA Vowel Chart for American English.. 3 Graph: American English Vowel Chart.. 4 Why Use Colors?... 5 The Color Purple... 6 Overview of Mandarin Vowel Sounds.. 7 Vowel Length... 8 Long and Short: Misleading Terms... 8 Syllable Stress (Emphasis)... 8 Syllable length... 10 About the Accent You are Learning... 11 Organization of this Book and CD Set.. 12 /i/... 13 //... 17 /e/... 19 //... 23 /æ/... 26 er -- //... 29 //... 32 /u/... 35 you :/ju/... 39 //... 40 /o/... 42 //... 45 //... 48
v Table of Contents, continued Diphthongs... 51 //.. 52 Slide from // to //... 54 / /... 56 //... 57 Vowel Comparisons... 59 /i/ vs. //... 60 /e/ vs. // vs. /æ/... 62 // vs. /æ/... 63 /æ/ vs. //... 65 // vs. //... 66 // vs. /u/ and //... 68 Vowel Length and Consonant Endings... 69 Ten Ways to Improve Your Accent... 78 Bibliography... 79
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1 Introduction This book is for native Mandarin speakers who wish to improve their accent when speaking American English. It can be used as a self-study manual or under the guidance of an accent modification trainer, such as a speech-language pathologist. A CD accompanies this book and is an indispensable tool for ear training and practice. Mandarin Chinese speakers tend to make similar mistakes when speaking English. I have analyzed and categorized many of these errors while conducting accent training with your compatriots, and researchers in the fields of speech pathology, English as a Second Language, and acoustics have found similar speech patterns in their studies of English speakers of native Chinese background. This is the reason that I have written a book for Mandarin speakers only: you can focus on your difficulties and not worry about the errors speakers of other languages make. With this guide you can learn exactly which vowels you need to change and how you can change them. You can learn the American English vowel sounds in a logical, step-by-step manner. You will learn the various ways that a single sound can be spelled, and you will have many opportunities to practice each sound with the CD. You will feel more confident about your English as you begin to apply what you have learned to everyday speech. You are now on your way to speaking with a clear, refined and natural American accent.
2 Overview of American Vowel Sounds Do you know that much of what a listener perceives as an accent is related to the pronunciation of vowel sounds? Because you did not grow up speaking English, you have probably realized that vowels are not the easiest part of the English language. As you know, the vowel used in the written word often has very little to do with the vowel sound that comes out of a native speaker s mouth. You probably learned English primarily by reading instead of listening or speaking and now find that your ideas about English vowels are not the same as the vowels used by native speakers. What are these funny symbols? Because both spoken and written languages have evolved, the sounds of a language may not correspond to the way a language is written. This is especially true in English, which evolves very quickly and absorbs new words from other languages quite easily. Years ago, linguists decided that they needed a way to write based only on the sounds of the languages they studied, so they developed the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). If a person knows the IPA very well, he should be able to write (transcribe) the sounds of a language that he does not know, even if he does not understand what he is hearing. If you learned English in school, you may have been introduced to the IPA, but if you have never heard of the IPA, do not worry. By using the book and CD together, you
3 will learn just enough about the IPA to help you sort out the sounds of English, but not so much that you feel overwhelmed. The IPA Vowel Chart for American English 1 Let s take a look at the way the vowel sounds of American English are written in the IPA (see chart, page 4). There are twelve basic American vowel sounds. As you can see, each sound has a place in the standard IPA vowel chart. The chart is divided according to high, middle, low and front, central, back. High, mid-high, mid, mid-low and low refer to tongue and jaw height *. Say the word beat and hold the ea or /i/ sound for a few seconds. Do you feel how high your tongue is? Is your jaw almost closed? Now say the word bottle. Hold the // for a few seconds. You should feel your tongue on the floor of your mouth and your jaw open much wider. These are the two extremes of tongue height. Front, central and back refer to the part of the mouth in which the sound is made. Say the word beat again. Do you feel that your tongue is closer to the front of your mouth? Now try the word bought. You should be using the back part of your tongue more than the front and you should feel * For purposes of simplicity, we will discuss the vowel chart in terms of tongue position; however, according to the phonetician Peter Ladefoged, the vowel space is more accurately used to describe the auditory qualities of the different vowels and not absolute descriptions of the position of the body of the tongue.
4 a slight constriction in your throat on the //. It may be difficult for you to produce these sounds accurately right now, but it will get easier with practice. Do not become too analytical about tongue placement; your ears are your best guide to accurate vowel production. Even if these ideas seem a little strange to you, the vowel chart provides us with a good way to organize our thoughts and will help you understand why you may sometimes mix up two vowels that sound the same to you. They are probably neighbors on the vowel chart! Those are the sounds that you can focus on and practice most frequently. American English Vowel Chart [Chart only: 2] Front Central Back High /i/ beat (green) /u/ boot (blue) Mid- High /I/ bit (pink) // Bert (purple) // book (soot) Mid Mid- Low Low /e / bait (gray) // bet (red) /æ/ bat (black) // but (plum) (// about) /o/ boat (orange) // bought (chocolate) // bottle (blond) // indicates an unstressed or weak vowel (See pages 15-16). It is produced in a similar manner as // but is much shorter.
5 Why Use Colors? Each cell of the vowel chart contains one vowel. For each vowel there are two words. The first word consists of the target vowel placed between the consonants b and t (except //, for which there is no such word). The second word in each cell is the name of a color containing the target vowel (e.g. green for /i/). As you go through the rest of the book, you will see that it is color-coordinated according to the colors on the vowel chart. You might find it easier to memorize the vowel sound using the color as a reference instead of the IPA symbol. Now that you understand the chart, let s try reading it. Some of the individual vowels may be a little difficult, but that is to be expected. You will have ample opportunity to practice each vowel later. Please read the entire chart out loud starting from the upper left cell (/i/) and going from top to bottom. Did you feel how your jaw opened as you went down the chart? Did you feel how the constriction in your vocal tract (mouth/throat) moved from front to back as you went across the chart from left to right? If you feel the changes, you are on your way to producing accurate English vowels. Track two of this CD is the vowel chart only with the b --- t words. Please use track two as a
6 sound reference any time you need help with this program or with a word from the dictionary. The Color Purple // = /r/ You may wonder why there seems to be an R sound in the vowel chart, especially if R (/r/) is a difficult sound for you. In many words, such as bird and purple, the R sound // is the only vowel. This is called an r-colored vowel. Is there really a big difference between /r/ at the beginning of a word like red and the r-colored vowel // in bird? Not much, so if you have learned to pronounce R at the beginning of a word, it should help you with the r-colored vowels as well.
7 Overview of Mandarin Vowel Sounds 3 Sometimes the best way to learn about a second language is to analyze your native language. The Beijing dialect of Mandarin has six vowels: /i, e, y, u, o, /. As you saw in the vowel chart, American English has 12 vowels but it does not include the Mandarin vowel /y/. Five Mandarin vowels /i, e, u, o, / are similar to the English vowels with the same transcriptions; however, you will still need to listen carefully because they are a little different. The seven American vowels /,, æ,,,, / do not occur in (standard) Mandarin. This means that there are five familiar vowels and seven unfamiliar vowels in American English. The similarities and differences in vowel sounds will be discussed throughout the book.
8 Vowel Length Long and Short: Misleading Terms When you learned English, you probably learned that some vowels are long and some are short. For example, you may have learned that /i/ is long and // is short. Likewise, you may have learned that /e/ is long and // is short. This is indeed true from a linguistic standpoint and helps linguists analyze the speech of native speakers. Nonetheless, it is not the most helpful way for Chinese speakers to learn to hear and pronounce differences among English vowels. The key to pronouncing these contrasting vowels correctly is learning the different sound qualities and not concentrating as much on the differences in length between the vowels. Vowel length is very important, however, when dealing with syllable stress. Chinese speakers tend to produce vowels of equal length regardless of where the vowel appears in a word. Now you are going to learn how to lengthen the vowel in the stressed syllable, which will make a noticeable impact on your speech. Syllable Stress (Emphasis) First we need to discuss the difference between stressed and unstressed syllables. Every word has at least one syllable, and words with two or more syllables will have one stressed and one or
9 more unstressed syllables. In the examples below, the stressed (emphasized) syllables are capitalized. BOOK CHIna complete proposal COMplicated 1 syllable 2 syllables 2 syllables 3 syllables 4 syllables The stress is not always placed on the same syllable in English words, so you need to learn the correct stress pattern whenever you learn a new word. The vowel in the stressed syllable is always longer and clearer than the vowels in the unstressed syllables. Vowels in the unstressed syllables are not pronounced as precisely as those in the stressed syllable. Think about proposal : which vowel is clear and strong? Only the second /o/. That is the vowel you want to concentrate on and lengthen, and you will find proposal in the /o/ section of this book. As you work through this book, you will notice that the vowel you are practicing is always in the stressed syllable. Unstressed syllables in English are pronounced with a neutral vowel, which is called the schwa vowel and transcribed like this: //. It doesn t matter how an unstressed syllable is spelled (a, e, i, o, or u), it is never pronounced precisely and clearly. When you concentrate on the stressed syllable, which we will be doing in this book, your unstressed syllables will probably be just fine. You should not need to practice the
10 unstressed syllable, but you should be aware that unstressed syllables are all short and neutral and not pronounced as written. Syllable Length When practicing the words in this book, pay attention to the length of the vowel modeled and to the length of your vowel. Make sure your vowel is long enough. American English vowels are always pronounced longer in the stressed syllable than Mandarin vowels. Chinese speakers of English almost always have too little variation between stressed and unstressed syllable length, making it very difficult for an American listener to understand. Do Americans tell you that you talk too fast? Your stressed syllables are probably too short. If the stressed vowel is clipped, your speech sounds choppy and Americans will think you are speaking too quickly. Americans are listening for the stressed syllable in order to understand the word. If it s not long enough, they will not be able to tell which syllables are stressed and which are unstressed. When you say the words in this book, try overlengthening the primary, stressed vowel. You will probably feel strange at first, but do not hesitate to try it in a real-life situation. You will be surprised to see that your listeners understand key words that they were previously unable to understand. If you lengthen the target vowel in each section, you will be lengthening the correct
11 vowel. Do not lengthen any consonants: only the vowel of the stressed syllable is lengthened. Let s try a couple: succeed /iiiii/ calendar /æ æ / moment /ooo/ Were you able to stretch the vowel in the stressed syllable? Even if it feels strange, practice this technique on the following pages and your American colleagues and friends will notice the difference. About the Accent You are Learning Within the United States, there are numerous accents and word variations. Unlike some languages, there is no standard or normal American English (in fact, the U.S. has no official national language). The accent being modeled in this book is Midwestern American, which is typically used by national news anchors and reporters. If an accent trainer is assisting you and has a different regional accent, he or she will be able to demonstrate any variation between the pronunciation on the CD and the standard pronunciation in your part of the country.
12 Organization of this Book and CD Set This book is organized according to the vowel chart. The pages are in order from the high vowels to the low ones and from the front vowels to the back ones, in other words from top to bottom and left to right on the chart. Each page is colorcoded according to the key colors of the vowels. Because English spelling so often interferes with correct pronunciation, each vowel set will be arranged according to the possible written forms. The words you will be practicing are common words that are used constantly in spoken English. Your active vocabulary will improve if you look up the words you do not know in the dictionary and begin using those new words every day. Two symbols are used throughout to help you quickly find what you need in the book and on the CD. Listen up! Pronunciation tips. Change tracks on the CD. This book and CD set provides you with numerous opportunities to hear and repeat each vowel sound, and your habits will change with practice. It will take a while for your mouth to learn new habits, but when you can produce these sounds correctly, you will see the difference in your listeners reactions!
13 /i/ High, front vowel Tongue: high and tense Lips: pulled back (slight smile) 4 The vowel /i/ is produced with the tongue tensed near the roof of the mouth, like the Mandarin 1 but longer. Concentrate on the length of this vowel as you imitate the following words. Key word: beat Spelling ee agree asleep beer * between cheek cheerful cheese deer (also dear) degree engineer freedom greeting knee meet (also meat) queen sheet sleeve speech succeed three week (also weak) Key color: green Spelling e be (also bee) he me she we convenient experience female frequently idea immediately inferior medium recent secret * The r-colored vowels /ir/, /er/, /ur/ and /or/ are included with their pure vowels.
14 Spelling e e Chinese complete Cantonese evening extreme here (also hear) severe these Spelling ie believe chief field grief niece piece (also peace) priest relief Spelling "y" and "-ey" happy* key energy* money* very* * /i/ has secondary stress Spelling: ea appear beach beard breathing clean disease dream each ear easy eat fear heating leader least meal meaning please read (also reed) seating speak teacher team tear (also tier) treatment wheat wreath year