Chinese word pronunciation help?

Question

I'm a beginning student of Mandarin Chinese and am running into a disagreement with a friend over proper pronunciation. I always thought the word hen3 很 rhymes with the English word "fun," with the e pronounced like a deep "uh" in the throat. However my buddy thinks it sounds like the English word "hen." What is the correct way? I'm mainly interested in how it would be properly said in Beijing. Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

In Pinyin, the "e" normally sounds like "uh"

Since it is the 3rd tone, it would kind of sound like a deep "uh" in the throat.

很 is normally used in front of 好 (hao3) as 很好 ! Or, 很好了 ! (hen hao le)

Both meaning "very good !" or "you did great!"

the tone is a little hard to explain, but you're asking for the sound, right?

In Beijing, they do use Mandarin, so it would sound like "hun"

with the "u" sound stressed a little.

Answer 2

hen3 doesn't rhyme with "fun", but it is more likely to be "hen", although not completely the same. The key part is the letter 'e' is pronounced  'ə'. So 很 is pronounced "hən".

Answer 3

your buddy is right .

Answer 4

The "en" sound, unlike in English, is an "un" sound. It's when you have "ei" that the "e" transforms back into the "eh" sound. Your friend is just a bit confused.

I don't know anything about city dialects/pronunciations. I believe Beijing speaks standard Mandarin, so I would assume they would pronounce it this way, but again I'm not sure.

Answer 5

Fred's right, and so are you.  You can tell your buddy "I told you so!"

Answer 6

You are correct. Your buddy is not correct. His pronunciation is a common error among English speakiers. Do not let anyone tell you otherwise.