Kou3 “chi”? (Pronunciation variant)

“The King’s Speech,” a film about how King George VI overcame his stutter, has won four Oscars in the 2011 Academy Awards. When I look at the phrase 口吃, stutter, I wonder how most Chinese learners will pronounce it? Kou3 “chi”?

This is a typical example of how confusing those pronunciation variants in Mandarin could be. Like it is not difficult enough, not only are you unable to see immediate connections between a character and its pronunciation like you do in an alphabetic language, but the same character might have variant pronunciations in different phrases. You can imagine how many tests have we, as native speakers of Mandarin, taken since we were elementary school students to learn this part.

In this stutter case, 吃is not pronounced “chi” as in吃飯(chi fan4), eating a meal, but as “ji2” . It is the only case where 吃is pronounced this way as I know. Don’t ask me why we have such a variation that’s so troubling like sometimes my students do with their English. That’s what it is like with a language, unreasonable very often. Just learn and use it, as I told my students.

Let’s have a little test to see how good your Chinese is in terms of the pronunciation variants. Focus on the characters in red.

1.     我覺得很累，很想睡覺。

2.     你去圖書館是要借書，還是要還書？

3.     我把這個調皮學生的座位調到前面。

4.     台北和台中都是台灣的大都市。

5.     他在大廳等這個著名的作家，等著等著就睡著了。

6.     在這裏買東西又便宜又方便。

7.     你答應我的事就應該做到。

8.     她的頭髮長長了。

I know you don’t want to wait. Here I’m giving you the keys.

1. 我覺得很累，很想睡覺。(jue2  jiao4)

  覺得: feel     

  睡覺: sleep

  I feel tired and feel like sleeping.

2. 你去圖書館是要借書，還是要還書？(hai2  huan2)

  還是: or

  還書: return books

  Are you borrowing or returning books to the library?

3.     我把這個調皮學生的座位調到前面。(tiao2  diao4)

  調皮: naughty

  調到: transfer

  I transferred the naught boy to the front of the classroom.

4.     台北和台中都是台灣的大都市。(dou  du)

  都是: both, all

  都市: city

  Taipei and Taichung are both big cities in Taiwan.

5.     他在大廳等這個著名的作家，等著等著就睡著了。

(zhu4 zh zh zhao2)

著名: famous, noted

等著: wait

睡著: fall asleep

He waited for the noted writer in the hall.

He waited and waited, then fell asleep.

6.     在這裏買東西又便宜又方便。(pian2  bian4)

   便宜: inexpensive, cheap

   方便: convenient

   It’s cheap and convenient to shop here.

7.     你答應我的事就應該做到。 (ying4  ying)

   答應: promise

   應該: should

   You should do what you have promised me.

8.     她的頭髮長長了。(zhang3 chang2)

  長(zhang3): grow

  長(chang2): long

  Her hair has grown longer.

吃飯=吃饭

1.  我覺得很累，很想睡覺=我觉得很累，很想睡觉

2.     你去圖書館是要借書，還是要還書？

=你去图书馆是要借书，还是要还书？

3.     我把這個調皮學生的座位調到前面。

=我把这个调皮学生的座位调到前面。

4.     台灣=台湾

5.     他在大廳等這個著名的作家，等著等著就睡著了。

=他在大厅等这个著名的作家，等着等着就睡着了。

6.     在這裏買東西又便宜又方便。

=在这里买东西又便宜又方便。

7.     你答應我的事就應該做到。

=你答应我的事就应该做到。

8.  她的頭髮長長了=她的头发长长了