Does it really matter that he has an American accent when speaking Chinese? He speaks fluently and confidently and his interlocutors clearly have no difficulty understanding him.
Difficult, but not impossible. It's definitely difficult for the average native English speaker, especially given that Mandarin has quite a bit of "sh" and "ch" sounds. As a native Persian speaker, I had very little to no difficulty pronouncing words once I got the hang of it.
In China, no one has perfect Mandarin pronunciation because each province/region has its own distinct tones that affect how Mandarin sounds. Beijing people have a northern accent, Shanghai people have its own distinct accent, Cantonese people speak softly so the Mandarin tones don't come out the right way but when heard, everyone understands. Just like English in UK where Scottish and Irish English can be understood by Londoners.
@@rcbrascan in the real world yes, like all languages there's a lot of variance, however "perfect Mandarin" does exist specifically for broadcasting on TV and radio. This is because of the large regional differences, a set standard was created that everyone could at least learn to understand.
Back of throat/front of mouth explanation is on point. I'm fluently bilingual and I can actually feel the difference in the positions of the resonance.
It's really cool to see the tattoo artist instantly light up when he realized xiaoma speak Mandarin, let alone Fujian dialect, which makes him like a brother and feel more familiar. I grew up in Hong Kong and only spoke standard Cantonese (based on Guangzhou). My grandparents on my father's side were originally from Guangdong (廣東台山and 恩平) then moved to guangzhou , Hk, and US, could speak the dialects from their own counties and also Cantonese with a provincial accent. I probably understood my grandparents around 70 to 80%. Imagine if grandparents or parents can't talk to their kids. So both putonghua/guoyu and preserving one's family dialect is important for communication. So he has a Chinese wife, that explains it. No better language teacher than a spouse. I was not good at mandarin when I was young, but have improved a lot over the years practicing with friends and coworkers from China and Taiwan. Dating women from China was a great motivator lol. Now I'm still learning Cantonese, mandarin, Japanese, and English everyday, it's a non stop process. I'm lazy with my zh ch sh so I sound more like a Taiwanese, and I probably still mess up the 1st and 4th tone lol So basically xiaoma's pronunciation is slightly off since he's too focused on pinyin like the eng letters like most ABCs, which might be preventable if studying mandarin in zhuyin used by Taiwan
Interesting advice , i will give it a go i want to get better at chinese, because of my native language i dont feel the pronunciation of tones to be that hard? By the way your english is flawless , great job
@SieMiezekatze Thanks. Learning any foreign language is no small task. But if you like their culture and history, it helps a lot since it becomes more like a hobby, rather than studying for a test. Mandarin's 4 tones aren't that hard per se, but a lot of memorization, Cantonese has 6 tones. It comes naturally to native speakers, but I imagine it could be quite overwhelming for foreigners, especially adults. Just like foreign students focus on learning English grammar, but American schools don't really teach their kids grammar in any technical way, it's assumed one knows it. It's fun to learn diff languages as long as you enjoy it, and don't be afraid to make mistakes as it's part of the process. For me learning Mandarin and English were more of a necessity, so I was much harder on myself. Japanese is my life long hobby, I can read and listen with no problem, I could manage writing and speaking but I'm not fluent, it requires more thinking as I haven't lived in Japan and forced to practice it everyday.
@@aoshi000 thanks for answering, i couldn't agree more , to study a language is to be immersed and to think in that language, i myself feel like i am losing my native tongue , chinese standard i want to be able to read it and to speak it freely , Japanese language since i learned it so young it was quite intuitive , i personally love listening to japanese youtubers , i love how there are different words and phrases that are unique to the city they live in , and that is what is so lovely about learning languages that is always moving and evolving , have a great day/ night
Not much to say here, except that I would like to hear him deliver a formal speech on the current political or economic issues of China. You cannot fool me there with kitchen Chinese. The buck stops there. In all his videos this guy simply latches on with one or two-sentence reactions to what his Chinese counterparts are saying. This is no skill and no display of fluency and proficency on a high level...
Wow, I also learnt a lot today! I learnt about the tone of the mouth vs throat. I realise now that why people say my voice is very meditative sctually has a lot to do with the vibration im making in my throat when I speak. Also it shed light for me for why Chinese natives often find it hard to pronounce engkish words corectly, the reason being mainly that they are used to just talking with the mouth. This helped me to gain a new perspective, thank you :)
The speaker in the movie clip around 3:30 is speaking English in a Singaporean/Malay accent, not a Fujian accent. Of course, there are many Fujianese people in Singapore (Hokkien), but that English accent is more influenced by Malay intonation.
I've heard native Cantonese, Thai, Korean speakers that speak mandarin fluently. The most interesting one was definitely a Korean from Jilin province (they reside in Yanbian and Changbai). Their pronunciation is just fine. It just has a unique accent. The mandarin and Korean they speak sounds like neither country's.
Don't (pinyin)zh, ch, sh, and r all have retroflex pronunciation? It's nearly impossible to make these sounds without moving your tongue backwards as you say them.
yeah he got them mixed up. the "sh" and "zh/j/g" sounds in English are not the retroflex sibilant fricatives, but palato-alveolar sibilant fricatives. He is correct about not curling the lips though.
@@gappleofdiscord9752 yeah good point. thx.I forgot that shit haha. That's why I don't consider myself as a language taecher or something. Just for reference.
Thanks- it’s really useful to hear about how to position sounds in the mouth, not something that comes naturally from just listening to native speakers.
This comment section is littered with fanboys (that 100% DO NOT speak chinese) blindly defending xiaoma like homeless begging for money is CONSTRUCTIVE CRITISIM that foreign to you? grow up already...
@chinaexplained Can you explain more / point me to some help about your comment “Mandarin pronunciation isn’t in the throat, it’s towards the front”? Early stages of learning Mandarin, I’m very curious about the hows and whys of this! Thanks and for the interesting vid!
the comment on english being throat pronounce confused me a little because it made me think of front/back pronounce. i think a better way to describe it is in english you pronounce lower in the throat and in mandarin you pronounce higher one weird way i figured this out is saying 俄罗斯 and then russia over and over 😂 you can definitely hear the difference
Xiaoma speaks very good Chinese don’t get me wrong but it’s always jarring when Chinese people go 你中文很標準 or 聽不出來你是美國人 like he clearly has the american accent Good but FAR from flawless or perfect he even stated it himself
That's not the problem. They're only saying this out of politeness. The problem is that he makes videos and the title is something like 'Westerner surprises Chinese people by speking perfect Chinese'. It's very good but far from perfect.
@@pbworld7858 You're being a bit harsh there; from the videos I saw most of the people in our Chinese communities are not native speakers of 普通话, so to them it might as well be amazing Chinese skills. That sounds plausible to me, just different priorities.
@@pbworld7858thx for speaking the damn obvious of course it’s politeness and also algorithm no shit Sherlock But when Xiaoma literally hired 3 Chinese teachers and SPECIFICALLY told them to be brutally honest the second one still said you sound native like seriously
@@janswhatsupdoc Native my ass. I think you need a reality check. You still don't understand Chinese politeness. And you need to learn Chinese yourself, Sherlock.
@@janswhatsupdoche sounds like a native white person speaking Mandarin. Yes, good effort, good grammar, but very obviously doesn't sound like a native Mandarin speaker.
yeah its basically just barely passable in basic conversation but he has no clue as to body language, accent, or anything cultural. He mine as well be a monolingual american saying "hola! yo quiero taco bell" in a thick accent and claiming that makes him a legit spanish speaker.
Xiaoma's Chinese is good but I wish he wouldn't use video titles like 'white guy surprises people by speaking perfect Chinese'. It's not perfect. Just say 'speaking Chinese'.
yeah he's not a bad guy and his chinese is somewhat decent but all the clickbait titles make him sound like an absolute d*ck, in addition his videos have limited interest, they have no real purpose beyond showing off his language skills, which for some languages are good, some others are ok or subpar...
He pronounces the "j" sound wrong, basically the way an English native speaker says Beijing that's the way he pronounces the "j" sound. It makes me get used to the bad pronunciation and quite frankly the "j" sound is the hardest sound for me to replicate in Chinese so Xiaoma's pronunciation messes me up a little bit 😅 I hate the "j" sound actually, wanted to order beer in my local Chinese restaurant the other day and my Chinese friend didn't understand me at all 😂 I was saying pijiu pijiu and he was completely clueless! 😂 He said I pronounce it as "Pikachu". Well, I guess I need to concentrate more next time. Funnily enough, the similar sounds "q" and especially "x" don't make me problems at all. Maybe just the "x" sound, the "q" sound is hard too.
"你太厉害了！“ should be interpreted with about the same level of sincerity as "This soufflé is really... different! How did you get the texture to be so... I mean...yeah, really quite different!". It's polite, it's face-saving, but you didn't impress anybody 😆
Well made video from a production standpoint and I enjoy the way you present information. Also this is a good topic, because it can be hard to tell if, "foreigner impresses locals," language videos are staged or not.
Oh, in the languages other than Chinese, he is just mostly memorizing lines. But in Chinese he actually is taking/taken the time to learn. He would never be able to do videos in other languages like he does on Chinese. Hence, why the rest are shock value click bait titles in New York
7:02 If we analyze xiaoma's pronunciation of shang, we see he used [a], whereas a Mandarin speaker would use [ɑ]. His pronunciation of jing is also apparent of a foreign accent [ʧʷɪŋ], with his apparent rounding of lips. Mandarin uses [tɕiŋ] instead, the vowel is closer, never rounded, and the consonant is a palatal sound. I disagree with your analysis of "Chinese is pronounced more in the front not in the throat" statement. This is not what phonetics tell us. You are likely talking about voiced/unvoiced consonants. e.g. Mandarin b/d/g/j/zh/z are all unvoiced, meaning the vocal folds don't vibrate when producing the consonant sounds. But there are still voiced consonants, like n/r. "Vowel/consonant fronting" is a phonetic term describing sounds migrating to the front of the mouth, but this is not what's happening in Chinese compared to English, as evident as the shang example, English prefers "fronting" the a [a], whereas Mandarin pronounces the sound with the tongue at the back [ɑ]. Mandarin uses retroflex for zh/ch/sh/r. This is recognized by linguists. When comparing sh in Mandarin vs in English, English puts the tip of the tongue further to the front. Comparing 書 shu and the English shoe, besides English commonly fronts the /u/, the placement of the tongue for the consonant should also be different.
I was going to comment something similar, but you said it better than I could. It’s annoying when people make comments about linguistics (or anything really) when they obviously have no idea what they’re talking about.
This China Explained guy has no knowledge of linguistics and his comments on the retroflex sh were just plain wrong. Xiaoma tends to have US affricates instead of Mandarin retroflexes, but he does have some retroflexes, and they are not wrong where he uses them. Honestly, given the large number of Chinese people who don't have retroflex consonants at all, and say sang for shang, maybe China Explained shouldn't be making these types of comments at all.
@@disappointedenglishman98 The retroflex bit I experienced myself with people from Taiwan. Taiwanese has a saying "z/zh 不分" I don't know the Bofomofo symbols for those though. Rarely they cause problems understanding the speaker, but when it does get confusing, the speaker would need to explain themselves. It's also evident that this ambiguity is used as puns in the online community. This is much less of a problem for Mainland speakers though I think.
Native English speakers almost never get 智, 字, 刺 differentiated cleanly while trying to pronounce them at normal conversational speed. They also never get 頭 cleanly. They can never completely purge the tendency to use the long "o" vowel sound. When they try to pronounce 山 and 傷, (shan vs shang), it will almost always tend to sound more like the latter when pronouncing either of them except when making a conscious effort. It's just a function of which parts of the mouth, throat, nose that your native language engages and is a struggle to overcome. Xiaomanyc and his friends are no exception. He's fluent, but he'll never be able to sound like a native speaker.
Xiaoma is one of the best in the west for non-native chinese speakers. But I've definitely heard westerners with almost perfect mandarin on 抖音. They basically don't exist on western internet though
It‘s true.English，French or German are all from Latin language system. Chinese is originated from hieroglyph. As a result,you are not able to read it from its spelling.
@@ChinaExplained Hmm, those are just the alphabets. English and German are related as they both come from Proto-Germanic, whereas French comes from Latin. However, they are all definitely more related to each other than they are to Chinese.
many native Chinese speakers don't speak flawless Chinese. Each region's definition of flawless is different. Still, Xiaomanyc definitely still sounds like a westerner. You definitely can tell.
I don’t get the criticism of Xiaoma, its not his native language and as a foreigner he speaks close to perfect. It’s like saying the guy in this video is not a good english speaker because he has an accent and pronounces words incorrectly. If you understand what Xiaoma says that’s all the matters. It’ll never be this imaginary perfect so people need to drop it.
Really interesting. Thanks for doing this. Talking about pronunciation, your english pronunciation is actually fantastic except one word that you said a lot in the video- tongue. It's a weird one, I know. We pronounce it 'tung'. in pronouncing it, you need to also swallow the 'ng' part of the word with an almost glottal stop.
you pronounce your NG like a glottal stop?? I don't think that's common. Most people pronounce it same as N, and some pronounce it as a more throat oriented N. (not trying to be pedantic here lol.)
@@yomama...isaverynicelady No, I said an almost glottal stop. There is a slight break due to pronouncing the 'ng' at the back of the throat. No one pronounces it 'tun'! Some people in the midlands of the UK also pronounce it 'tong', but they are in a tiny minority
@@andymurray3516 Many Americans, especially in the Midwest and the South do indeed pronounce the NG the same as the N. But think what you want. I aint trying to argue. I was trying to be polite about my question and my opinion but people gotta take everything the worst way possible, smh.
it is like in Ukraine before Russia invasion, - many spoke Russian without any issues. I would say more than 50% probably. Despite one country one language, - people still want to speak the way whey want and nobody gonna stop them.
No, this is not correct. Maybe because you are from Fuzhou, you don't know yourself. In Standard Mandarin, zh, ch, sh and r are all retroflex consonants. Maybe you should attend classes yourself?
This guy has extreme and obvious american accent
Does it really matter that he has an American accent when speaking Chinese? He speaks fluently and confidently and his interlocutors clearly have no difficulty understanding him.
@@bertsanders7517They didn’t say weather it mattered or not, just simply that he has a strong accent
@@bertsanders7517doesn't matter, but he puts titles in his video suggesting he doesn't has an accent.
@@bertsanders7517nobody’s saying his mandarin is dog 💩 just that he’s not native 🙄
@@janswhatsupdoc The problem was his clickbait titles.
Broh, he has a very strong American accent in Chinese, why is everyone pretendings he hasn't?
I guess cause people who don't speak Chinese or don't speak it well can't tell. That and most humans are easily duped, lets be real.
Nuh-uh
I forget which video but in one a chinese lady actually comments that he has a strong northern chinese accent lol
@@minor1822 She totally lied.
@@minor1822 He has litterally become famous because all of you know nothing about the Chinese language or China.
You're right, it is extremely difficult for foreigners to get to 'flawless' Chinese pronunciation.
Difficult, but not impossible. It's definitely difficult for the average native English speaker, especially given that Mandarin has quite a bit of "sh" and "ch" sounds. As a native Persian speaker, I had very little to no difficulty pronouncing words once I got the hang of it.
@@zee-ws8px same for Polish people
it is all about muscles, mouth shape and practice practice practice. but once you nail Chinese pronunciation, - you might forget your native one.
In China, no one has perfect Mandarin pronunciation because each province/region has its own distinct tones that affect how Mandarin sounds. Beijing people have a northern accent, Shanghai people have its own distinct accent, Cantonese people speak softly so the Mandarin tones don't come out the right way but when heard, everyone understands. Just like English in UK where Scottish and Irish English can be understood by Londoners.
@@rcbrascan in the real world yes, like all languages there's a lot of variance, however "perfect Mandarin" does exist specifically for broadcasting on TV and radio. This is because of the large regional differences, a set standard was created that everyone could at least learn to understand.
He has a very American accent. He also uses phrases repeatedly that help him sound authentic.
Back of throat/front of mouth explanation is on point. I'm fluently bilingual and I can actually feel the difference in the positions of the resonance.
It's really cool to see the tattoo artist instantly light up when he realized xiaoma speak Mandarin, let alone Fujian dialect, which makes him like a brother and feel more familiar.
I grew up in Hong Kong and only spoke standard Cantonese (based on Guangzhou). My grandparents on my father's side were originally from Guangdong (廣東台山and 恩平) then moved to guangzhou , Hk, and US, could speak the dialects from their own counties and also Cantonese with a provincial accent. I probably understood my grandparents around 70 to 80%. Imagine if grandparents or parents can't talk to their kids. So both putonghua/guoyu and preserving one's family dialect is important for communication.
So he has a Chinese wife, that explains it. No better language teacher than a spouse. I was not good at mandarin when I was young, but have improved a lot over the years practicing with friends and coworkers from China and Taiwan. Dating women from China was a great motivator lol. Now I'm still learning Cantonese, mandarin, Japanese, and English everyday, it's a non stop process. I'm lazy with my zh ch sh so I sound more like a Taiwanese, and I probably still mess up the 1st and 4th tone lol
So basically xiaoma's pronunciation is slightly off since he's too focused on pinyin like the eng letters like most ABCs, which might be preventable if studying mandarin in zhuyin used by Taiwan
Interesting advice , i will give it a go i want to get better at chinese, because of my native language i dont feel the pronunciation of tones to be that hard? By the way your english is flawless , great job
@SieMiezekatze Thanks. Learning any foreign language is no small task. But if you like their culture and history, it helps a lot since it becomes more like a hobby, rather than studying for a test. Mandarin's 4 tones aren't that hard per se, but a lot of memorization, Cantonese has 6 tones. It comes naturally to native speakers, but I imagine it could be quite overwhelming for foreigners, especially adults. Just like foreign students focus on learning English grammar, but American schools don't really teach their kids grammar in any technical way, it's assumed one knows it.
It's fun to learn diff languages as long as you enjoy it, and don't be afraid to make mistakes as it's part of the process. For me learning Mandarin and English were more of a necessity, so I was much harder on myself. Japanese is my life long hobby, I can read and listen with no problem, I could manage writing and speaking but I'm not fluent, it requires more thinking as I haven't lived in Japan and forced to practice it everyday.
@@aoshi000 thanks for answering, i couldn't agree more , to study a language is to be immersed and to think in that language, i myself feel like i am losing my native tongue , chinese standard i want to be able to read it and to speak it freely , Japanese language since i learned it so young it was quite intuitive , i personally love listening to japanese youtubers , i love how there are different words and phrases that are unique to the city they live in , and that is what is so lovely about learning languages that is always moving and evolving , have a great day/ night
I can hear his American accent. His Chinese is good but NOT flawless.
Dashan’s Mandarin is flawless. He actually sounds like a Chinese person.
Not much to say here, except that I would like to hear him deliver a formal speech on the current political or economic issues of China. You cannot fool me there with kitchen Chinese. The buck stops there. In all his videos this guy simply latches on with one or two-sentence reactions to what his Chinese counterparts are saying. This is no skill and no display of fluency and proficency on a high level...
Wow this is a great breakdown. I know nothing about the Chinese language outside of XiaomaNYC videos. What an amazing language.
his mandarin is bad
Wow, I also learnt a lot today! I learnt about the tone of the mouth vs throat. I realise now that why people say my voice is very meditative sctually has a lot to do with the vibration im making in my throat when I speak. Also it shed light for me for why Chinese natives often find it hard to pronounce engkish words corectly, the reason being mainly that they are used to just talking with the mouth. This helped me to gain a new perspective, thank you :)
I love the way you do this review by including history and Chinese language trachings ❤️
The speaker in the movie clip around 3:30 is speaking English in a Singaporean/Malay accent, not a Fujian accent. Of course, there are many Fujianese people in Singapore (Hokkien), but that English accent is more influenced by Malay intonation.
I've heard native Cantonese, Thai, Korean speakers that speak mandarin fluently. The most interesting one was definitely a Korean from Jilin province (they reside in Yanbian and Changbai). Their pronunciation is just fine. It just has a unique accent. The mandarin and Korean they speak sounds like neither country's.
Don't (pinyin)zh, ch, sh, and r all have retroflex pronunciation? It's nearly impossible to make these sounds without moving your tongue backwards as you say them.
yeah he got them mixed up. the "sh" and "zh/j/g" sounds in English are not the retroflex sibilant fricatives, but palato-alveolar sibilant fricatives. He is correct about not curling the lips though.
@@jonathan8669 that's good to hear, I was hoping I wasn't pronouncing everything wrong this entire time😅
@@gappleofdiscord9752 yeah good point. thx.I forgot that shit haha. That's why I don't consider myself as a language taecher or something. Just for reference.
@@ChinaExplained nah bro you're good, it can't be easy doing youtube in a second language.
Thanks- it’s really useful to hear about how to position sounds in the mouth, not something that comes naturally from just listening to native speakers.
This comment section is littered with fanboys (that 100% DO NOT speak chinese) blindly defending xiaoma like homeless begging for money
is CONSTRUCTIVE CRITISIM that foreign to you? grow up already...
Awesome insightful video! definitely subscribing
@chinaexplained Can you explain more / point me to some help about your comment “Mandarin pronunciation isn’t in the throat, it’s towards the front”?
Early stages of learning Mandarin, I’m very curious about the hows and whys of this!
Thanks and for the interesting vid!
Thank you NO problem. Maybe another video in the future will be better for further explanation. I will start researching for this topic.
the comment on english being throat pronounce confused me a little because it made me think of front/back pronounce. i think a better way to describe it is in english you pronounce lower in the throat and in mandarin you pronounce higher
one weird way i figured this out is saying 俄罗斯 and then russia over and over 😂 you can definitely hear the difference
Yeah
Xiaoma speaks very good Chinese don’t get me wrong but it’s always jarring when Chinese people go 你中文很標準 or 聽不出來你是美國人 like he clearly has the american accent
Good but FAR from flawless or perfect he even stated it himself
That's not the problem. They're only saying this out of politeness. The problem is that he makes videos and the title is something like 'Westerner surprises Chinese people by speking perfect Chinese'. It's very good but far from perfect.
@@pbworld7858 You're being a bit harsh there; from the videos I saw most of the people in our Chinese communities are not native speakers of 普通话, so to them it might as well be amazing Chinese skills. That sounds plausible to me, just different priorities.
@@pbworld7858thx for speaking the damn obvious of course it’s politeness and also algorithm no shit Sherlock
But when Xiaoma literally hired 3 Chinese teachers and SPECIFICALLY told them to be brutally honest the second one still said you sound native like seriously
@@janswhatsupdoc Native my ass. I think you need a reality check. You still don't understand Chinese politeness. And you need to learn Chinese yourself, Sherlock.
@@janswhatsupdoche sounds like a native white person speaking Mandarin. Yes, good effort, good grammar, but very obviously doesn't sound like a native Mandarin speaker.
My mom said his mandarin was terrible
yeah its basically just barely passable in basic conversation but he has no clue as to body language, accent, or anything cultural. He mine as well be a monolingual american saying "hola! yo quiero taco bell" in a thick accent and claiming that makes him a legit spanish speaker.
but is your mom from beijing ? the only people that speak perfect mandarin are from beijing
awesome video, captures what I found strange about his accent.
Xiaoma's Chinese is good but I wish he wouldn't use video titles like 'white guy surprises people by speaking perfect Chinese'. It's not perfect. Just say 'speaking Chinese'.
yeah he's not a bad guy and his chinese is somewhat decent but all the clickbait titles make him sound like an absolute d*ck, in addition his videos have limited interest, they have no real purpose beyond showing off his language skills, which for some languages are good, some others are ok or subpar...
Or just say non Asian speaks Chinese it low key comes off as bigotry even if it is for algorithm
He stole is from laoshu something something who passed away
He pronounces the "j" sound wrong, basically the way an English native speaker says Beijing that's the way he pronounces the "j" sound. It makes me get used to the bad pronunciation and quite frankly the "j" sound is the hardest sound for me to replicate in Chinese so Xiaoma's pronunciation messes me up a little bit 😅 I hate the "j" sound actually, wanted to order beer in my local Chinese restaurant the other day and my Chinese friend didn't understand me at all 😂 I was saying pijiu pijiu and he was completely clueless! 😂 He said I pronounce it as "Pikachu". Well, I guess I need to concentrate more next time. Funnily enough, the similar sounds "q" and especially "x" don't make me problems at all. Maybe just the "x" sound, the "q" sound is hard too.
"你太厉害了！“ should be interpreted with about the same level of sincerity as "This soufflé is really... different! How did you get the texture to be so... I mean...yeah, really quite different!". It's polite, it's face-saving, but you didn't impress anybody 😆
great tip about using the front of the mouth for Chinese pronunciation. thanks
Well made video from a production standpoint and I enjoy the way you present information. Also this is a good topic, because it can be hard to tell if, "foreigner impresses locals," language videos are staged or not.
Oh, in the languages other than Chinese, he is just mostly memorizing lines. But in Chinese he actually is taking/taken the time to learn. He would never be able to do videos in other languages like he does on Chinese. Hence, why the rest are shock value click bait titles in New York
keep posting, great content. And your English is great despite my native languages are russian and ukrainian
7:02 If we analyze xiaoma's pronunciation of shang, we see he used [a], whereas a Mandarin speaker would use [ɑ]. His pronunciation of jing is also apparent of a foreign accent [ʧʷɪŋ], with his apparent rounding of lips. Mandarin uses [tɕiŋ] instead, the vowel is closer, never rounded, and the consonant is a palatal sound.
I disagree with your analysis of "Chinese is pronounced more in the front not in the throat" statement. This is not what phonetics tell us. You are likely talking about voiced/unvoiced consonants. e.g. Mandarin b/d/g/j/zh/z are all unvoiced, meaning the vocal folds don't vibrate when producing the consonant sounds. But there are still voiced consonants, like n/r. "Vowel/consonant fronting" is a phonetic term describing sounds migrating to the front of the mouth, but this is not what's happening in Chinese compared to English, as evident as the shang example, English prefers "fronting" the a [a], whereas Mandarin pronounces the sound with the tongue at the back [ɑ].
Mandarin uses retroflex for zh/ch/sh/r. This is recognized by linguists. When comparing sh in Mandarin vs in English, English puts the tip of the tongue further to the front. Comparing 書 shu and the English shoe, besides English commonly fronts the /u/, the placement of the tongue for the consonant should also be different.
This is such an impressive comment! Do you tutor?
Someone who knows what he's talkin about. How refreshing.
I was going to comment something similar, but you said it better than I could. It’s annoying when people make comments about linguistics (or anything really) when they obviously have no idea what they’re talking about.
This China Explained guy has no knowledge of linguistics and his comments on the retroflex sh were just plain wrong. Xiaoma tends to have US affricates instead of Mandarin retroflexes, but he does have some retroflexes, and they are not wrong where he uses them. Honestly, given the large number of Chinese people who don't have retroflex consonants at all, and say sang for shang, maybe China Explained shouldn't be making these types of comments at all.
@@disappointedenglishman98 The retroflex bit I experienced myself with people from Taiwan. Taiwanese has a saying "z/zh 不分" I don't know the Bofomofo symbols for those though. Rarely they cause problems understanding the speaker, but when it does get confusing, the speaker would need to explain themselves. It's also evident that this ambiguity is used as puns in the online community. This is much less of a problem for Mainland speakers though I think.
Native English speakers almost never get 智, 字, 刺 differentiated cleanly while trying to pronounce them at normal conversational speed. They also never get 頭 cleanly. They can never completely purge the tendency to use the long "o" vowel sound. When they try to pronounce 山 and 傷, (shan vs shang), it will almost always tend to sound more like the latter when pronouncing either of them except when making a conscious effort. It's just a function of which parts of the mouth, throat, nose that your native language engages and is a struggle to overcome.
Xiaomanyc and his friends are no exception. He's fluent, but he'll never be able to sound like a native speaker.
Fantastic video thankyou
Xiaoma is one of the best in the west for non-native chinese speakers. But I've definitely heard westerners with almost perfect mandarin on 抖音. They basically don't exist on western internet though
英文母語者無論講什麼外語都有很重的口音 😅 不過小馬的中文真的很不錯了，只是一聽就知道是美國人哈哈 (我來自波蘭)
你的中文很棒！
那也能听出来他是美国佬啊，英语国家他们的口音很特别，非常明显，跟我们欧洲其他国家有一定的差异。这就跟英语音系有很大的关系。
@@ChinaExplained 你的英文水平還凑合。譬如說語法上問題很多。
@@1969mmoldovan 我认同，我的英语一般
Tough language to learn, German and Russian are way easier.
It‘s true.English，French or German are all from Latin language system. Chinese is originated from hieroglyph. As a result,you are not able to read it from its spelling.
@@ChinaExplained Hmm, those are just the alphabets. English and German are related as they both come from Proto-Germanic, whereas French comes from Latin. However, they are all definitely more related to each other than they are to Chinese.
@@nuansd Oh I see.
it depends on what is your native one. For someone Chinese might be easier than English
I find Russian to be much more difficult than Chinese, as a native english speaker
What a toxic comment section. It's not like all Chinese people are speaking accent-free English. Appreciate his efforts and move on, wtf.
except chinese people aren't claiming they speak perfect english, he needs to go back to the pinyin and master his consonants first
@@i_am_a_toast_of_french There are only two genders though.
XiaomaNYC is still AWESOME! )
That tattoo artist claims to have met Biden in person in 1997 ?!?!
Haha， I think he was bullshitting. Fujianese are really good at 吹牛， blow a cow, which means bluff.
@@ChinaExplained Lol, must be something cultural then. That guy seemed very adamant so that thew me off a little I guess xd
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Does the Beijing accent not sound as if using the throat?
This point is interesting. Considering that Chinese includes a lot of accents, which would use different positions, I mainly focus on Mandarin.
反正那小马有相当农的美国口音，还是挺明显的，一听就知道他是美国佬。。😉
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tag xiaoma everybody send this to xiaoma
@@11ook18 Haha maybe he already fixed the problem. The clip I used was from 2 years ago.
I’m don’t speak but and I hear his American accent
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many native Chinese speakers don't speak flawless Chinese. Each region's definition of flawless is different. Still, Xiaomanyc definitely still sounds like a westerner. You definitely can tell.
I don’t get the criticism of Xiaoma, its not his native language and as a foreigner he speaks close to perfect. It’s like saying the guy in this video is not a good english speaker because he has an accent and pronounces words incorrectly. If you understand what Xiaoma says that’s all the matters. It’ll never be this imaginary perfect so people need to drop it.
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问题是小马会用美式英语的口音去说中文。 我中文学了很多年，仔细地听中国人说的中文，怎么感觉他们说话会更往鼻子里产生共鸣，而我们英语母语者不会这样。 所以，我估计小马是还没有这种意识的，是说你可能声调，抑扬顿挫和发音大概没有问题，但是你说话哪里产生共鸣也是个重要的因素。
你的中文很不错bro
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Really interesting. Thanks for doing this. Talking about pronunciation, your english pronunciation is actually fantastic except one word that you said a lot in the video- tongue. It's a weird one, I know. We pronounce it 'tung'. in pronouncing it, you need to also swallow the 'ng' part of the word with an almost glottal stop.
Thank you！Very informative！
you pronounce your NG like a glottal stop?? I don't think that's common. Most people pronounce it same as N, and some pronounce it as a more throat oriented N. (not trying to be pedantic here lol.)
@@yomama...isaverynicelady No, I said an almost glottal stop. There is a slight break due to pronouncing the 'ng' at the back of the throat. No one pronounces it 'tun'! Some people in the midlands of the UK also pronounce it 'tong', but they are in a tiny minority
@@andymurray3516 Many Americans, especially in the Midwest and the South do indeed pronounce the NG the same as the N. But think what you want. I aint trying to argue. I was trying to be polite about my question and my opinion but people gotta take everything the worst way possible, smh.
@@yomama...isaverynicelady They say 'tun'? If that's true, which I very much doubt, that's just mispronouncing it.
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I thought 是 was pronounced with a curl of the tongue?
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it is like in Ukraine before Russia invasion, - many spoke Russian without any issues. I would say more than 50% probably. Despite one country one language, - people still want to speak the way whey want and nobody gonna stop them.
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I think Xiaomanyc’s Chinese is still a lot more better than your English.
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CHANNIS
4:25 Chinese isn't worth bothering to learn.
your own language*, dialect is a western concept meant to denigrate chinese languages
No, this is not correct. Maybe because you are from Fuzhou, you don't know yourself. In Standard Mandarin, zh, ch, sh and r are all retroflex consonants. Maybe you should attend classes yourself?
Imagine judging a native Chinese speaker when you DONT even speak chinese yourself
Maybe you should think before you send comments
You're a cute guy but it's hard to fal in love with a secret chzinesseee spy
bro
liked your input, subbed b(￣▽￣)d
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