Learning difficulties of Mandarin speech sounds for Cantonese speakers: an analysis of initials, finals, and lexical tones

This study investigates the learning difficulties faced by Cantonese-speaking students in acquiring Mandarin speech sounds, focusing on initials, finals, and lexical tones. A perception test was conducted on 388 students from Hong Kong Baptist University, including an identification task for initials, finals, and lexical tones.

The results revealed that Cantonese speakers exhibited varying levels of difficulty across different aspects of Mandarin speech sounds. In the identification test of initials, they performed significantly better in identifying /p, pʰ, m, f, t, k, x/ with over 90% accuracy than /tɕʰ, ɕ, tsʰ/ with an accuracy lower than 60%. In the identification test of finals, they achieved the highest accuracy in identifying /a/ (91.2%) and the lowest in identifying /ʊŋ, ɥɛn/ (17.8% and 11.6%, respectively). The tone test results showed that Cantonese students made more mistakes in identifying Tone 2, with the order of difficulty being /T2 > T1 > T3 > T4/.

These findings suggest that the learning difficulties of Mandarin speech sounds for Cantonese speakers may be attributed to both their native linguistic experience and the lack of systematic learning of the Cantonese phonological system in Hong Kong's Chinese education. The study contributes to a better understanding of the challenges faced by learners with Cantonese backgrounds, paving the way for developing more effective teaching strategies and methods to improve their Mandarin proficiency.