{"id":933,"date":"2011-11-22T11:15:49","date_gmt":"2011-11-22T16:15:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/chinese\/?p=933"},"modified":"2011-11-22T11:12:43","modified_gmt":"2011-11-22T16:12:43","slug":"chinesetongue-twisters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/chinese\/chinesetongue-twisters\/","title":{"rendered":"Tongue Twisters (\u7ed5\u53e3\u4ee4)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/chinese\/chinesetongue-twisters\/tonguetwister\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-6753\" aria-label=\"Tonguetwister 150x150\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-6753 alignleft\"  alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/ src=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/chinese\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2011\/11\/tonguetwister-150x150.jpg\"><\/a>On the first day of study abroad in Beijing, my Chinese teachers taught our class this little tongue twister to help us work with our tones\uff1a<\/p>\n<p>\u8001\u5e08\u662f\u56db\u5341\u56db\uff0c\u662f\u4e0d\u662f\uff1f\uff08l\u01ceosh\u012b sh\u00ec s\u00ecsh\u00eds\u00ec, sh\u00ec b\u00fa sh\u00ec\uff09<\/p>\n<p>Translation: The Teacher is 44, no (is this true\/true of false)?<\/p>\n<p>Why this seemingly innocuous sentence? Was it really all that important to repeat (over and over) how to ask a simple, age-related question to a teacher? No. It was all because of the tones and pronunciation involved. Our teachers were trying to accustom our tongues to the Chinese language.<\/p>\n<p>For a bunch of US students just arriving in Beijing, acclimating your ear was difficult enough, but speaking the language? It was like trying to talk with cotton balls in your mouth. Our teachers were providing us with standards Chinese &#8220;tongue twisters&#8221; or\u00a0 \u7ed5\u53e3\u4ee4 (r\u00e0ok\u01d2ul\u00ecng) to whip our voices into shape (like this laowai):<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=86yEZRYbUPo\">http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=86yEZRYbUPo<\/a><\/p>\n<p>All the text books and character sheets in the world will not prepare your mouth for the litany of linguistic leaps levied at your lethargic laowai larynx (try saying that five times fast) when you first start speaking Mandarin. In the first weeks abroad, I would literally find myself tongue tied, that is, able to produce the sound and character in my head, or through recognition, but utterly unable to make the conversion from brain to mouth. As I soon realized, in order to speak Chinese, I had to create my own &#8220;chinese voice&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Whether it was making sure that my tones would have the proper inflection, learning to create sounds that are non-existent within English, or finding a natural cadence and rhythm to my talk, all required practice and repetition. Language is often muscle dependent-you either use it or lose it. It takes a good amount of work training your tongue, but there are fun ways to practice. If you really want to master your spoken Chinese, try some of these tongue twisters out:<\/p>\n<p>\u5988\u5988\u9a91\u9a6c\uff0c\u9a6c\u6162\u5988\u5988\u9a82\u9a6c<br \/>\nm\u0101 m\u0101 q\u00ed m\u01ce,<br \/>\nm\u01ce m\u00e0n, m\u0101 m\u0101 m\u00e0 m\u01ce.<br \/>\nTranslation: Mother is riding a horse. The horse moves slowly. Mother chides the horse<\/p>\n<p>\u56db \u662f \u56db \uff0c \u5341 \u662f \u5341 \uff0c \u5341 \u56db \u662f \u5341 \u56db \uff0c \u56db \u5341 \u662f \u56db \u5341 \uff0c \u56db \u5341 \u56db \u53ea \u77f3 \u72ee \u5b50 \u662f \u6b7b \u7684<br \/>\ns\u00ec sh\u00ec s\u00ec<br \/>\nsh\u00ed sh\u00ec sh\u00ed<br \/>\nsh\u00ed s\u00ec sh\u00ec sh\u00ed s\u00ec<br \/>\ns\u00ec sh\u00ed sh\u00ec s\u00ec sh\u00ed<br \/>\ns\u00ec sh\u00ed s\u00ec zh\u012b sh\u00ed sh\u012b z\u01d0 sh\u00ec s\u01d0 de.<br \/>\nTranslation: 4 is 4, 10 is 10, 14 is 14, 40 is 40, 44 small stones are dead<\/p>\n<p>\u77e5\u9053\u5c31\u8bf4\u77e5\u9053<br \/>\n\u4e0d\u77e5\u9053\u5c31\u8bf4\u4e0d\u77e5\u9053<br \/>\n\u4e0d\u8981\u77e5\u9053\u8bf4\u4e0d\u77e5\u9053<br \/>\n\u4e5f\u4e0d\u8981\u4e0d\u77e5\u9053\u8bf4\u77e5\u9053<br \/>\n\u4f60\u77e5\u9053\u4e0d\u77e5\u9053\uff1f<\/p>\n<p>zh\u012bd\u00e0o ji\u00f9 shu\u014d zh\u012bd\u00e0o<br \/>\nb\u00f9 zh\u012bd\u00e0o ji\u00f9 shu\u014d b\u00f9 zh\u012bd\u00e0o<br \/>\nb\u016b y\u00e0o zh\u012bd\u00e0o shu\u014d b\u00f9 zh\u012bd\u00e0o<br \/>\ny\u011b b\u016b y\u00e0o b\u00f9 zh\u012bd\u00e0o shu\u014d zh\u012bd\u00e0o<br \/>\nn\u01d0 zh\u012bd\u00e0o b\u00f9 zh\u012bd\u00e0o<br \/>\nTranslation: If you know, just say you know. If you don&#8217;t know, just say you don&#8217;t know. You shouldn&#8217;t know and say you don&#8217;t know. And you shouldn&#8217;t NOT know and say you DO know. You know?<\/p>\n<p>Now see how you compare to Jackie Chan:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=2CxLePKlvXk\">http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=2CxLePKlvXk<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Follow Steve on twitter: @seeitbelieveit<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<img width=\"214\" height=\"320\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/chinese\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2011\/11\/tonguetwister.jpg\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image tmp-hide-img\" alt=\"\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><p>On the first day of study abroad in Beijing, my Chinese teachers taught our class this little tongue twister to help us work with our tones\uff1a \u8001\u5e08\u662f\u56db\u5341\u56db\uff0c\u662f\u4e0d\u662f\uff1f\uff08l\u01ceosh\u012b sh\u00ec s\u00ecsh\u00eds\u00ec, sh\u00ec b\u00fa sh\u00ec\uff09 Translation: The Teacher is 44, no (is this true\/true of false)? Why this seemingly innocuous sentence? Was it really all that important to&hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"post-item__readmore\"><a class=\"btn btn--md\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/chinese\/chinesetongue-twisters\/\">Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":6753,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[3,13],"tags":[8894,115659,378680,2687,7594],"class_list":["post-933","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","category-vocabulary","tag-chinese","tag-jackie-chan","tag-pronunciation","tag-tones","tag-tongue-twister"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/chinese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/933","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/chinese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/chinese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/chinese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/chinese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=933"}],"version-history":[{"count":28,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/chinese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/933\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":961,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/chinese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/933\/revisions\/961"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/chinese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/chinese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/chinese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/chinese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}