How Sri Lankan students gain the proficiency in correct Chinese pronunciation

Abstract

Correct pronunciation occupies a prominent place in the course of learning a Foreign Language as fluency of a particular language cannot be achieved only by learning its grammar. At present Chinese Language is learnt as a Foreign Language by many Sri Lankan learners due to the diplomatic relations existed between Sri Lanka and China. In the course of learning a Foreign Language numerous difficulties are congregated by the students and the problems encountered in the process of correct pronunciation claims a prominence in this study as the influence of the mother tongue of its learners affects in the procedure of learning the proper pronunciation of Chinese Language. This study mainly focuses on the aspects of how Sri Lankan students master the correct pronunciation and it analyzes the major reasons for mistakes made by the Sri Lankan students in the process of gaining its correct pronunciation. It is admitted to minimize these problems to a certain extent to achieve the expected targets in learning the appropriate pronunciations of Chinese language. The learners, representing all the academic years, who learn Chinese as a Foreign Language at the University of Kelaniya were given an opportunity to read words, sentences and paragraphs in Chinese Language and their pronunciations were recorded. These audio clips were compared with the pronunciations of the native speakers and the major mistakes made by the Sri Lankan students were observed through the comparison. The influence of mother tongue, failure to grasp the correct pronunciation, negligence, the impact of teaching atmosphere were highlighted as the major reasons for making these mistakes.