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Pronunciation of "w" and "r"
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Mugi -



Quote:

The 'w' -> 'v' thing is definitely a regional variation. My wife is from Changchun and does it too

It even occurs in Taiwan! My Taiwanese teacher (early 30s) says that when she was at school she
was told to pronounce [w] as [ʋ] for all words that would have an "a" or "e" following the "w" in
pinyin. I've noticed some Taiwanese TV news presenters use this pronunciation before, but I don't
know how prevalent it is.

I don't have the reference on hand, but can recall reading some research on [ʋ] in Beijing
dialect. If my memory serves me right, it's much more predominant among (young) women than men,
and has gained in popularity since the 1980s, perhaps due to the popularization of TVs. (It's not
actually a true "v" [v], but rather a "soft v" [ʋ] (labiodental approximant))



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roddy -

I've heard this occassionally, but

Quote:

pronounce [w] as [ʋ] for all words that would have an "a" or "e" following the "w" in pinyin.

is the first time I've seen any kind of rule. Interesting.










Mugi -

I'll try and dig up the reference I have for this (however, I'm in the process of shifting house
at the moment, so it may be a month before I can find the right box! )










melop -

I guess [w] and [v] is not strictly distinguished in Chinese dialects, that's why some Chinese
people find it difficult to learn languages that distinguish them. Most of the time I would say
[w], I find myself seldom say [v].

r is a retroflex sound just like English, actually the mandarin [r] was evovled from middle
Chinese's [j] sound, that's why many dialects keep using [j](like Cantonese) instead of the
retroflex [r].










stephanhodges -



Quote:

r is a retroflex sound just like English

My understanding is that English "r" uses the tip of the tongue much more, and Mandarin uses the
sides (edges) of the tongue, with tip relatively relaxed.










melop -

em... Yeah, that's right. Actually the English r is follow by a lighten "w" sound, [rw]. Anyway, I
remember these two sounds are written the same in IPA method.

But compared to Rs in other languages, the mandarin r and English r are very similar I think.










in_lab -

Are there some words that are never pronounced with a "v"? When I imagine someone saying "ven yi
ge venti" I imagine a german or a transylvanian.










melop -

I haven't noticed much people pronounce "问一个问题" as "ven yi ge ven ti", usually we use
the "w" sound here. But since there's no "v" sound in Mandarin, maybe some people would prefer to
say a "v" sound I guess.










Roee -

The "w" and "v" pronunciation issue is definitely caused by influence of the local dialect, very
similar to mixup of "zh" and "z" in many areas of China.












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