Archive for the ‘Pronunciation’ Category

Banana Shoes

Sunday, May 18th, 2008

A few weeks ago in my English classes, I was doing lightning safety (it was stormy here, ok?). I ended up using the following joke in each class. One of the tips from the students would inevitably be: "Always wear shoes if you're outside." I would follow that up ...

Funnest Things to Say

Thursday, April 24th, 2008

DISCLAIMER: In case I have a Chinese reader, I should tell you "funnest" isn't a real word. This post started out innocently enough as a fun way to test the new audio plugin (thanks to Beijing Sounds for the tip) and celebrate the joy of speaking a foreign language. But ...

Tone Changes

Thursday, August 23rd, 2007

Let's face it people: Those 4 (actually 5) tones in Mandarin Chinese don't really play by their own rules. Sure, if Chinese people are saying one word by itself, and if they're saying it really slowly, then the tone will probably sound like the textbook says it should. But ...