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From: deb5@midway.uchicago.edu (Daniel von Brighoff)
Subject: Re: Mandarin dialects [was: Re: Pinyin
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References: <E3JvCt.Bwx@midway.uchicago.edu> <19970107020700.VAA15200@ladder01.news.aol.com>
Date: Wed, 8 Jan 1997 03:39:52 GMT
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In article <19970107020700.VAA15200@ladder01.news.aol.com>,
Feiscreen <feiscreen@aol.com> wrote:
> deb5@midway.uchicago.edu (Daniel von Brighoff) writes:
>
>> 	As someone who pronounces both [v] and [w] regularly, I can't see
>>how one requires any more or less effort than the other.
[...]  
>
> To pronounce "W" in Mandarin as in "Wan3" (later, bowl,etc), one would
> have to make a sort of round lip first, blow the air and pronounce the
> "AN". To pronounce "Van3", one only need to make one's upper teeth touch
> the lower lips slightly, and pronounce the rest of "V" together with
> "AN".  

For one sound you round your lips slightly, for another you touch your
lower lip to your upper teeth.  I still don't see how one is any easier or
harder than the other, but it's a silly thing to argue about.

> This only happens in  "wan" and  "wei"  in Beijingren's Mandarin (maybe
> a few others), but  "Wo" is never pronounced as "Vo"  because "wo"
> is easier to pronounce than "vo" (I can't pronounce the latter without 
> making a hard effort).

But you say 'fo' all the time, don't you?  The only difference between
that and 'vo' is voicing--and 'o' is already voiced, so voicing the sound
in front of it should be *easier* than making it voiceless, shouldn't it.
The difficulty you have probably has everything to do with familiarity and
nothing to do with ease of articulation.


-- 
	 Daniel "Da" von Brighoff    /\          Dilettanten
	(deb5@midway.uchicago.edu)  /__\         erhebt Euch
				   /____\      gegen die Kunst!
