Some languages, such an English and German, make a distinction between the aspirated voiced consonants pʰ
and tʰ
on the one hand and the unaspirated voiced b
and d
on the other.
Standard Chinese by contrast, makes a distinction between the aspirated voiced pʰ
and tʰ
on the one hand and the unaspirated p
and t
on the other. Native speakers of English and German are not used to the unaspirated p
and t
at the beginning of a word and when speaking Chinese tend to replace them with the aspirated b
and d
, respectively, especially since Hanyu Pinyin represents these sounds as "b" and "d" in spelling.
How do you teach the correct pronunciation of words such as "bàba" (with unaspirated p
) and "guāndiǎn" (with unaspirated t
in the second syllable)?