Phonetics Laboratory: Mandarin Speaker from Nanjing - Essay Example

Although she did use /r/ in some words such as [frʌm] ‘from’ that should be [frɒm], [brʌzɜ] ‘brother’ that should be [brʌðə], [rɛz] ‘red’ that should be [rɛd], and [tren] ‘train’ that should be [trein], she left it out in the words above. So she has trouble pronouncing the alveolar trill /r/ and leaves it out many times.She has trouble using the alveolar, lateral approximant /l/ and leaves it out in these words. She can use it in some places such as [slæbs] ‘slabs’ that should be [slæbz], in [smal] ‘small’, and in [wil] ‘will’ that should be [wɪl].

Same as the Mandarin speaker, the Thai speaker has trouble saying the front, close-mid vowel /ɪ/ and say /i/ instead. /i/ is a front high close vowel. So the speaker raising the front, close-mid vowel /ɪ/ to a front high close vowel /i/. The vowel chart for Thai also shows that there is no /ɪ/ in the language.