XKIX009 Chinese Phonetics and Pronunciation (2 cr)

Course description

As a tonal language, Chinese words are distinguished by intonations; hence correct pronunciations are crucial in oral communication, speaking Chinese clearly and phonetically correctly will make one better understood. This practical course helps students improve their pronunciation in Chinese.

Main content

The course covers all the main aspects of Chinese phonetics:

• Phonemic system and Pinyin (the Chinese phonetic alphabet).
• The students will learn Chinese consonants, vowel sounds, intonation, sandhi, retroflexed tones, word stress, sentence rhythm, as well as some pronunciation differences across different areas.

On the completion of the course, the student is expected to

• gain an understanding of how the Chinese phonetic system works
• be able to distinguish between different tones and pronounce them properly
• avoid common pronunciation mistakes, adopt more natural intonation and stress patterns to sound more natural
• build a foundation to further develop Chinese pronunciation skills

• This is a minor course belonging to the Chinese introductory course package (Chinese 1 and Chinese 2). It is recommended to all levels of Chinese language students to take this course.
• Note that this course is also useful for people who travel to, work in, or attend conferences in Chinese-spoken regions, since it will help learners gain skills in pronouncing Chinese characters, such as those on Chinese travel brochures.

This course is aimed at all levels of Chinese learners with no prerequisites.

Learning materials are provided by the teacher.