An Analysis Of Intractable Errors Made By Native Korean Speakers When Pronouncing Chinese Vowels

Most of the vowels in Chinese pinyin have corresponding ones in Korean; for example, "ai" and "(?)". This thesis will firstly classify the vowels in both Chinese pinyin and Korean, and then compare each pair of vowels that is, vowels in Chinese and its corresponding ones in Korean. By doing this comparison, we will know how similar they are and then compare their similarity. According to the results, we speculate that the error rate is higher in vowels that are not so similar to each other, including simple vowels like e[γ], e[ε], o[o] and compound vowels like "ai((?)), ei((?)), ao((?)), ou((?)), iao((?)), uai((?)),uei((?) or (?))".Secondly, judges have graded the Korean learners according to their accuracy in pronunciation of vowels in Chinese pinyin. According to the results of the pronunciation test, we have sorted the vowels by he error rate of errors in pronunciation, and the result is, "o>ui>iu>iie>uo>ou". Except for the vowel "ue", the pronunciation and the phonetic symbols of these vowels are different. What’s more, the vowel "e[γ]" in Chinese pinyin is not so similar to the one in Korean, but students seldom make mistakes in its pronunciation. Besides, in the vowels of the corpus in this paper, "e[ε]" only appears in syllables like "ie[iε]" and "iie[yε]". It does not occur as a syllable all by itself, so we do not take it into consideration. Finally, Korean learners seldom make mistakes in some compound vowels whose pronunciation can be marked as two syllables in Korean.Finally, according to the results of the pronunciation test, in Group BSLA, BSLB and Group SLA, SLB, more than 50 percent of the students have made mistakes in the pronunciation of vowels "o", "ui" and "iu". In these three vowels, only "o" and "iu" have corresponding vowels in Korean, so we have only analyzed these two vowels in an experimental-phonetics way.The following is the results of the experimental phonetics analysis of the vowels "o":1. The simple vowel "o" can make a syllable by itself, but in fact its pronunciation is a combination of the pronunciation of "o" and "u". The stress is on the former phoneme. As a result, the sound duration of vowel "o" accounts for 80 percent of the whole duration, and vowel "u" accounts for 20 percent.2. Due to the interference of mother tongue,33 percent(2 out of 6) of the Korean students in Group SLB pronounce simple vowel "o" in Chinese pinyin as "(?)[o]" in Korean.3. When pronouncing the first half part of vowel "o" in Chinese pinyin,50 percent(3 out of 6) of the Korean students tend to have a higher tongue position and their tongues are closer to throat because of the interference of mother tongue.4. In Group SLB,50 percent(3 out of 6) of students read "o" in Chinese pinyin as the combination of "u-o" or "o-u", but they put the stress on the latter phoneme. As a result, the sound duration of the latter phoneme accounts for 70 percent of the whole duration, and the former phoneme 30 percent. And this has led to their mistakes. Luo Jierui proposes that we can hear a faint head vowel "u" between labial initials and vowel "o" in Mandarin. Vowel "o" is pronounced as "u-o" when combined with labial initials. We think that Korean students might be influenced by this way of pronunciation and are likely to put the stress on the latter phoneme, even when "o" occurs as a syllable by itself.The following is the results of the experimental phonetics analysis of the compound vowel sound "iu":1. In Group SLB, all of the Korean students made mistakes when it came to the pronunciation of the compound vowel sound "iu". This happened for two reasons. The first is the omission of the main vowels. The second is that the sound duration of compound vowel "iu" is longer than that of its corresponding vowel "(?)[ju]" in Korean("(?)[ju]" is the combination of" 1 [i]" and "(?)[u]").2. When using zero initial "you" to mark the pronunciation of compound vowel sound "iu", Korean students in Group SLB made fewer mistakes in pronunciation. However, as to the pronunciation of zero initial, all of the Korean students still had problems in dealing with the sound duration. It is mainly because in Korean, zero initial "you" is marked as "(?)[j(?)u]" or "(?)[jou]", In which "(?)[j(?)]" and "(?)[jo]" are compound vowels in Korean. "(?)[j(?)]" consists of "(?)[i]" and "(?)[(?)]", and "(?)[jo]" consists of "(?)[i]" and "(?)[o]".In the zero initial "you[iou]", the sound duration of "i" is longer than that of "(?)[i]" in in compound vowels "(?)[j(?)]" and "(?)[jo]". And "(?)[j(?)]" and "(?)[jo]" are parts of "(?)[jau]" and "(?)[jou]", which are the corresponding vowels of "you[iou]" in Chinese.3. As to the pronunciation of compound vowel "iu" and zero initial "you", all of the students in Group SLB made mistakes in sound duration. And this happens due to the interference of their mother tongue.