Re: CHAT: Zhongwen (Chinese) Question

On Fri, Jan 04, 2002 at 05:35:53PM -0600, Patrick Dunn wrote:
> Okay, so I have a pile of Chinese grammars, dictionaries, and phrase
> books, and roughly half of them say that
[snip]
> Listening to Chinese, it seems sometimes these are voiced, and sometimes
> simply unaspirated.  So my question is -- how do I know if they're going
> to be voiced, and how do I know if they're going to just be unaspirated?
The answer is, Mandarin does not differentiate between voiced/unvoiced in
those consonants. I.e., you don't have to consciously voice or devoice
those consonants. On a more practical note though, *I* usually think of
them as unvoiced, and pronounce them as such.

In fact, I'm quite unhappy about the "standard" transcription scheme that
uses "b", "g", and "d" for these consonants, since English speakers tend
to voice them heavily, which sounds totally wrong. They should be thought
of as voiceless consonants, although they may be slightly voiced (but
never to the extent we voice the English "b", "g" and "d").


T

--
MAS = Mana Ada Sistem?