i didn’t see any video on ‘r’, except the ‘e’ ‘er’ video, but i have trouble with ‘r’ as an initial, in words such as, 人，肉，热,rén,ròu,rè.
谢谢，
肯永信。
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I had the same concern. Hopefully it can be addressed. I’ve heard from some video it’s just like the French ‘J’ (which is the way you pronounce the ‘S’ in measure, in English), but in practice it’s rarely what I hear…
Do some googling on the term “retroflex consonant”. In mandarin, the r, zh, sh, and ch sounds are all retroflex, once you learn how to do that with your tongue, you should be set
I have such experience too. It really confuses
I can hear jen, but ren is written.
Please, can you explain?
Hi Phillips,
Yes, it’s a tricky pronunciation, especially for non-native speakers. My trick is to try to curl your tongue as much as possible when pronouncing the ‘r’ initial. If you stretch out pronouncing the letter ‘r’ in English, you will find your tongue curling up at the very end. That’s similar to how we pronounce the intial in Chinese.
Here I’ve linked some previous lessons that touch on the pronunciation and vocabs. Feel free to check them out!
https://www.chinesepod.com/lesson/what-meat-is-this#dialogue
https://www.chinesepod.com/lesson/im-hot
Hope this helps!
Cheers.
Betty