By Vladimir Skultety MA. , BC
Pronunciation
Mandarin pronunciation is difficult and important at the same time. Mandarin is a syllabic language. Every syllable is a morpheme, so simply put every syllable has a meaning (please see typology of Chinese for further info). But what makes Mandarin pronunciation so difficult and important? It is difficult, because almost every sound in Mandarin within the syllables is different from the sounds we have in our European languages so you have to learn how to pronounce and recognize a whole deal of new sounds. Some sounds differ only slightly, some I cannot get down until the present day. And why is pronunciation important? Because as I mentioned since every syllable in Mandarin is a bearer of information and words usually consist of only one or two syllables, even a slight change in sound that you might not notice as a beginner might make others not understand you. It is not the problem of not being able to get your point across, it is the problem of not being understood at all. If you mumble a word in a western language or mispronounce a great deal of it, because of the fact, that western language words are usually pretty long and not every syllable is a bearer of information, you have a very high chance of being understood, but since Mandarin words are so short, every sound counts.
Vast unknown vocabulary
