How to Nail Chinese Pronunciation

One trick for learning to speak Chinese fast and efficiently is to focus on pronouncing the initials and finals separately first, rather than focusing on all aspects of pinyin spelling. Mandarin consists of hundreds of different syllables if you include all the tonal variations, but there are only around 20 initials, many of them effectively the same in sound as English, and around 40 finals. 

First step, make sure you can say all of the sounds, initials plus finals, regardless of the tones and meanings or of the combined sounds used to make words. 

Second step, focus on combinations – two-character words and phrases where you can practice how the sounds of two syllables work with each other. Again, do this without any consideration to tones and meaning. 

Third step – add in the tones, and start getting familiar with the emphasis ups and downs of how different sound and tone combinations work together. Do this without any consideration for the meaning. it’s still just sounds. Do this while listening to the recording of a mother tongue speaker, which is easy to do – one way is using Google Translate. Type in an English word into the English box, then click on the Chinese combination that appears and you will be presented with a little speaker button that broadcasts a lady repeating the word. Click and click again, she is endlessly patient.

The point is to focus on the pronunciation, on the sound the words, and not on the pinyin.