Mandarin Chinese Pronunciation, Video 4: Some quirks of Mandarin's Pinyin spelling system

This is the last of a 4-part series on Mandarin Chinese pronunciation. The goal is to get familiar with the sounds of Chinese and the IPA symbols. You'll then be able to learn them faster, either through your own studies or through my pronunciation trainers. More links below:
Flashcard Designs for Teaching Yourself Pronunciation: blog.fluent-forever.com/gallery/
My Pronunciation Trainers: fluent-forever.com/product/fl...
Anki Language Learning: ankilanguagelearning.com
More Anki Decks, including Chinese Pronunciation: speakada.com
Reddit's Anki Language Learning Community: / ankilanguagelearning
A super detailed discussion of the IPA: • Pronunciation Tutorial...

[@facorread]

Fantastic lesson. Thanks!

[@ramzy-6566]

Thank you.

[@feng7691]

Nice video and good explanation. At 3:55 maybe it is noteworthy of these variants: yu, yue, yuan and yun. I've come to 4 rules which probably cover all the peculiarities.
Rule 1
When they need to have themselves as initials, then do this transformation
I - y
u- w
ü- yu
Rule 2
When they don’t need to have themselves as initials, then they are normal finals, like Li, ku, nü, chuang, juan, xian
Rule 3
-iou -uei -uen
They always drop the middle letter
So, you see:
Jiu, shui, cun
Rule 4
They can be independent finals, that's, they are real zero initial finals: a, en, ou, ang, an, o, e, ai, ei, ao, er, e

[@ramzy-6566]

Great video.

[@aldousgould222]

It is very interesting as a native mandarin speaker to watch it.

[@jaimebenito620]

Very good, as usual, but arguing that you can't say an /u/ after a Mandarin x is rather weird, because I can do it effortlessly (and my wife is Chinese and has studied phonetics, by the way). Mandarin phonetic patterns have their own unique consistent features, but it doesn't mean that they are universal: I've come across far too many times people saying that certain combinations of sounds are just too difficult or unrealistic to exist, and then finding a language where people use it all the time.

[@AnthonyFokTungLing]

True, you do have a good point there.
That said, if I am not mistaken, in most languages that uses it, /ɕu/ tends to sound like /ɕju/ or even because of the inevitable transition of tongue shape/position between /ɕ/ and /u/, though I guess native speakers do it fast enough that the /j/ is redundant.
Anyhow, since the point of the video is to learn Mandarin Chinese, I guess pointing out that it is easier (less effort or less tongue movement) to pronounce /ɕy/ than /ɕu/ is a good mnemonic, though saying that it is "too difficult" or "impossible" would indeed be a tunnel vision.

[@Ziranzhao]

It's just that this combination does not exist in the Mandarin phonology system, or shall we say, no hanzi corresponds to this combination. Other "weird" combinations include bia, piu, duang etc... It doesn't necessarily mean that Mandarin speakers cannot pronounce them. Sometimes when they try to mimic a sound, they may use these "weird" combinations.

[@Emile.gorgonZola]

But is Mandarin the only language she knows ? No ? Your argument is invalid

[@frindtlevente]

The examples are pronounced too quickly with almost no pause between them. It's hard to imitate even if you try stopping the video.

[@Emile.gorgonZola]

Levente Frindt
Maybe you're just dumb...

[@flat-earther]

what sucks about this video is that it is way too fast

[@Trunghieu-qx6xg]

where can i get the image about the sounds ?

[@planetclover2603]

wikipedia