Chinese pronunciation (for English speakers)

[xtremixt1]

very good. It's surprising to see westerners learn Chinese and are good at it. I wonder if this is how westerners think

when they see Chinese people speaking good english

[stefie01]

I've been trying to find a way to remember the tones. This totally helps me out!

[Mansfassade]

haha Im Chinese and u did a really good job here! How did u learn chinese?

[edwebo]

I decided today to learn Chinese. I'm getting help from this chinese girl I know, but she doesn't speak english, so we have to communicate in Japanese, which im pretty average at. anyway, what do people suggest is the best way to start to get some good foundations?

and btw, clearly i don't know chinese, but your pronunciation is badass. fully legit sounding. this helped heaps too, thanks

[BlancaamezcuaAMWAY]

By the way,you saved me $300 worth of a private classes, YOU ARE AWESOME!

[BlancaamezcuaAMWAY]

GENIUS! Very very usefull.

[kite90fly]

Mr Julien, it was great. Could you do the pinyin chart as well?

[anthonycotillo]

so helpful is scary

[anthonycotillo]

ok i have a theory you are a C.I.A. undercover agent who was born chinese brought up in america, taught chinese then went through severe plastic surgery to look american and are a sleep agent awaiting orders from president obama on how to deal with the chinese problem

[EdwardinTaiwan]

I am a Chinese native speaker and about to teach my American friends some conversations. I appreciate your tutorial. Your examples are perfect since they are from the perspective of native English speaker.

[Tifferz1517]

Wo~w~~ Thank you for this^^ I'm taking Mandarin next semester and I've always had a little problems with the tones and this is VERY helpful~ Especially the examples with the english~~^^ You are an awesome person^^

[midiot2005]

As a professor trying to learn some courteous Chinese for a large contingent of incoming Asian students, I found this totally delightful. Thank you so much! Xiexie!

[cftube]

I always have problems teaching my English friends the tones. I think you've done great associating English words with Chinese tones. Good job.

[AntW11]

Excellent explanation. Well done. Thanks

[nemsty12]

Im going to china in Aug and this is a great little snip of a starter...fantastic...thankyou

[tmbg999]

this is really interesting. i had no idea that the chinese language was so intricate with all the tone changes. no wonder it sounds so strange to english-speakers.

[Bissen]

That was really educational! Thank you - now I may have an idea of how to actually pronounce Chinese, while reading it. Awesome!

[annouk1987]

Thanks you are great,and this video is very helpfull

[kukure20]

Thanks for your good explanation!! Although I'm Japanese, I understand the difference among each syllable well!

[Aintnerd]

这个教一声的例子很有意思， oh man=ma，有意思，加油！

[zak620]

tanks man

[DavidLS888]

Xie Xie! I really like your English examples, especially "Maaaaan!" for the first tone. I hope you make more Chinese pronunciation videos, ex. tricky sounds like X, CH, & Q.

[CyberellaLavigne]

WOW, awesome! nice job

[rhcp4565]

thanks man! This vid made it so clear for me like we use all 4 of these pitches in English language thats what helped me!

[shouryuuken100]

This dude sounds like Milton from 'Office Space'

[Weissman75]

good job! But do note that sometimes when 2 characters are used together, the tone of one of the characters may need to be modified to sound more natural. For e.g. yi4 dian3 instead of yi1 dian3.

[gallyhoshi]

thank you! this was very helpful!

[petralovessoccer]

dang, i'm a native mandarin speaker and MAN YOU DID GREAT! :)

[oldbay2]

you need to post more lessons,Great job

[yynirvana]

the graph is reeeeealy brilliant !!!! good job!

[ynj1]

thats fun !!!!! i love it !!!!!!!!

[abc123cura]

Very good!! =]

[blueyippie]

briliant! as a chinese, i have to say you master the tones very well.

[tabaribuki]

This is really very useful. Thanks a lot !

[MasterOfWin]

This is excellent, i just can never quite remember how to pronounce the tones, it really helps to connect them to pre-existing English.

[toilycallsmonchou]

Good explanation!

[TatsukiHyuuga]

u rock!

[ikachanusa]

You are such an awsome tutor!

I have so many Chinese (&Taiwanese) friends,but I cannot speak Manderin at all.

I know different piches and practiced a lot, but I cannot memorize the words！LOL

漢字 is OK to me, but I just cannot memorize, how sad...!

[Chiyo2010]

LOL I enjoyed watching ur vid. You taught me English instead of Chinese, bc I'm myself a Chinese native speaker. As for me, I never find the four pitches difficult, bc when it's ur first language, it's a piece of cake XD. On the contrary, I never ever take note of the different tones in English like when u ask a qs "why" it sounds like the third pitch in Chinese. I never made that connection before XD....

[VIELLEofLONDON]

it's kinda difficult, i was thought the exact way by my taiwanese colleague....

[Chiyo2010]

@VIELLEofLONDON I still wonder why foreigners find the four pitches difficult, although I know that they do as a fact. lol. From Americans to Spanish speakers to Koreans and virtually anyone who doesn't speak Chinese as their first language have difficulty specially with the pitches. I never could understand. I find many pronounciation of others languages extremely hard, but the pitches in Chinese incredibly easy. I find this phenomenom incredible. XD LOL

[aconitine182]

Awesome! I finally see what people are talking about when they tell me about tones!

Thanks.

[futurologist]

cheers!

[69KillaKungfu69]

i will say that is a very good explanation of tones!

[Chiyo2010]

@69KillaKungfu69 me too.

[venesaw10]

You have helped me.

[speedjounetsu]

あ

[Veo77]

This guy is chinese with an American face. Very good tutorial.... I am asian and I can never speak chinese that well.

[yanggx]

@Veo77 American face? can u hear his european accent?

[Veo77]

@yanggx I am talking about the face. Not accent.

[mywifelikesme]

thanks for the visual!

[speedjounetsu]

あ

[StudyCom]

dude, best explanation of tones EVAH! Thanks.

[kitty6682002]

我是中國人但不知國語怎樣說^^ 你的比我還要準 我會三種語言 粵語 國語 英文 但是國語和英文都不好的

[mineowyn]

Your 3rd tone could do a little more practice. The pitch is too similar to the 2nd tone. The pitch needs to be a little more deeper when you go down.

[templje]

That is the single best description of the 4 tones I've ever seen! Hope u are having fun here in the US, J

[jinyahuang]

Fantastic. Thank you very much

[Sue1551]

你說中文好好喔還很帥!!

your chinese is so good..., and your very handsome...

tu chino es bastante bien.. y eres guapo...

I know 3 language... CHINESE, ENGLISH AND SPANISH.. AND A LITTLE TAIWANESE...

Your language knowledge impressive a lot!.. It looks like i need to learn one more to be even :D haha...

[Chiyo2010]

@Sue1551 LOL Me too. I speak the exact same 3 languages as u XD.

[hermesrico]

ahaha , you are gorgeous

[Sue1551]

he is gorgeous!.. haha

[wangstick]

are there any videos with a native speaker pronunciation?

[slopeslider90]

Japanese pronunciations are ininitely easier. I dont feel so special knowing some japanese now hehe. This chinese hurts mah brain, its like my brains protesting:

"whoa whoa buddy, you already made me learn one crazy asian language, now you're pushing it!"

kudos to you guys learning the most useful language on earth IMO as 1 in 6 people speak it.

Dont forget the golden rule of foreign languages: USE IT OR LOSE IT.

[hugop91]

The way you explain the tones is great.

Five stars

[wtylegend]

oh...I think your pronunciation of the second tone is not perfect.

[SaveThyEarth]

aaaah

我很不喜歡說中文！太難了！！！我的發音不好！！！

[0hdodgy]

thanks so much but ....lol!!! it was entertaining 2 =]

[decembear7]

I enjoyed the chart explaining the tones. Very helpful to a newbie like myelf.

[effmeralda]

:-)

[okaw01]

i give you 4

[darkstrawberrys]

Julien du bist so süß <3

[mitil16]

Wow, thank you! To tell you the truth I'm Hungarian, but I feel, I really was able to understand this whole video about the stresses in the Mandarin. So perhaps this is not only English speakers ;) I'm extremly grateful, it helped me a lot! ^^

[sungl0]

great job man. easy to remember

[johnrox111]

chinese accent? isnt he english

[metulj227]

very helpful indeed. thanks

[ZGKBFZ]

hey

ur Chinese is pretty good.....

加油

[Fangfangcat]

This is very smart!

[BMFRBH]

aren't there many chinese languages???????

[earring]

"aren't there many chinese languages???????"

BMFRBH - If you mean many Chinese dialects, then yes. They are mostly classified into seven large groups: Cantonese, Gan, Hakka, Mandarin, Min, Wu, Xiang. However, from those groups are several dialects. Some sound alike, some don't. Luckily, many Chinese people have learned Mandarin, the official language in China, as well as their first Chinese dialect.

[littlerayray77]

now what?!!! i need more!! fricken awesome.

[coolsteven2]

THIS IS AMAZING!!!

[onlyagame77]

that was really helpful how you picked examples in english where we use intonations to represent a question, incredulity, surprise, etc. it makes it much easier to remember for me. starting to learn chinese having studied japanese for years makes reading it very easy but speaking is still way over my head haha

[xingfenzhen]

his 2nd tone is off, but the rest is right now. You can tell when he's speaking too, all the words 2nd tone is off. It seems to me that he started pitch a little lower than he should be when going up. But still great job, keep up the good work. The other three tones are right on.

[Crapidiot]

lol as a chinese im so used to speaking mandarin and english i forgot that mandarin when me and ppl speak have tones!

i just realised

LOL

[zzajizz]

I never thought of the tones in such detail, kinda took them for granted. Good effort!!!

[ffbgeorge]

very easy to understand. the 2nd and 3rd is harder

[sshuang90]

very good

[s0undch4s3r]

Julien!!! Thank you so much!!!

I just recently went to Shenyang and married my sweetheart. Now I really need to learn to speak Chinese and speak it good and not hack it to death...lol

Cheers!!!

[skyming2008]

加油喔~~~

[PassionateJulien]

Wow! So much positive feedback! Haha, that's great!! The thing that made me the happiest: Reading that people actually found this video useful.

All it took (for me) was living one year in Shanghai and going out a lot with Chinese people, who, by the way, make great friends.

[tougefreak]

I feel sad as I watch this video, not because you did anything wrong but you speak a lot better than most American born Chinese. lol. Good job btw.

[Lunalix]

THANK YOU SO MUCH !!!!

[stoliker]

:P im sure this will help me when i find a goddamn chinese teachre ffs where can i go??? GRRRRR inside of canada would help im broke can't travel.

[naisid]

Your tone is very clear and accurate:)

再见

[sasstron]

this is SO helpful!

[Robotman]

uwhaaa thank you PassionateJulien!! your video helps me so much!!!

[EmmChan]

Very good lesson! You are good at chinese!

Emmanuel Chan

[handurufavo]

xie xie

[FuturisticXXL]

xie xie!

[r000nin]

no1 wanna learn chinese die

[FuturisticXXL]

no1? - or is that just YOU don't wanna learn chinese???

[biantai888]

Suggestion: Have pinyin subtitles.

[biantai888]

Oh maan.

Perfect! Thanks you!

[1616ho]

i am a native mandarin speaker

your video is not bad i think

keep learning mandarin