You separated them wrong. You need to understand that for j,q,x the position of you tongue is the same, the only difference is how much air you let past the contact between the front of your tongue and your hard palate (the very tip of the tongue touches your lower front teeth). You need to practice them, pronouncing them consiquently, not moving your tongue, just saying "j,q,x" all over. The diffenece of the amount of air you let past is the same when you pronounce t, ch, sh. Only, when you pronounce them, the very tip of your tongue is on your hard palate, while when you pronounce j,q,x it's touching your lower teeth. Zh, ch, sh is vice versa. You have similar sounds in "gym", "chick" and "sheet", but this time in English you touch your lower teeth to pronounce them, while in Chinese you need to curve you tongue up, touching your hard palate with the tip of your tongue

I think other members had already provided a good explanation. :) Actually, those sounds are actually quite different. If you found them similar, you likely have chosen a wrong book or a wrong recording. When you are practising, it is better to practise words, not symbols. A single pinyin symbol is not meaningful. And, just keep in mind the rules as below. if there is an "h", it indicates a "Chinese R" sound and you need to roll your tongue up( nearly touch the root of your mouth behind your teeth) and "a little ( very little, don't do it too much)" backward to produce the sound. To pronounce "sh", you must first learn the pronounciation of "s". The pinyin "s" is equivalent to English "s" in "Sun". Then simply curve your tongue to make the "sh" sound. There is not equivalent "sh" sound in English. Here is the example. 是 [shi], means "Yes" in English. ”X" is completely different, the similar sound in English is the CH in "machine". Here is the example. 细[xi], means "Small" in English Similarly, to pronounce "Ch & Zh", you should know "C & Z". There is no equivalent sound in English, but they are easy to pronounce, check them out on google or youtube. Here are the examples. 测[ce], means to measure. 车[che], means vehicles. 责[ze], means "responsibility". 这[zhe], means "this". J, and Q ------------ J is easy, as it is equivalent to English letter G, for example, the word "gigabyte". Q has no equivalent sound in English， but keep in mind the sound of English "CH" in "change". Here are the examples. 家[jia], means "home". 区[qu], means "zone/division" I hope it helps! Have a nice day.

You do not hear the difference because in the languages you can speak so far, these sounds do not exist, so your brain has not created separate 'boxes' for the sounds yet. To create those 'mental boxes' (categories) you first need to be shown how to position your articulators in the mouth. There are many places on the Internet where you can learn to pronounce pinyin sounds correctly. Search Youtube for the following: litao chinese pinyin FSI mandarin pinyin On https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-pinyin-chart.php there is a useful chart, which contains audio examples for all Chinese sounds written in pinyin. To practice, watch the lesson videos, listen to the pronunciation drills, and practice putting your tongue in the right place as instructed. Try hard to listen for the differences. If you do this for a couple of days, things should begin to fall into place. The next step is to have a native speaker of Mandarin evaluate and, if necessary, correct your pronunciation when you make the sounds. My experience of language learning is that you should focus ALL effort on pronunciation now in the beginning. Do not try to learn words and sentences until you can read any word in pinyin correctly. The reason I say this is because it is MUCH easier to take care of the pronunciation side first, when you have not formed so many connections in your brain related to Chinese. Language training is creating mental patterns or habits. Just like you do not want to create the habit of drinking three shots of whiskey when you wake up each morning, you do not want to create a habit of sloppy pronunciation when learning a new language, because it becomes much more difficult to give it up later on.

Basically, the position of the tongue. Zh, ch and sh are retroflex, that means your tongue feels slightly curved backwards and touching the roof of your mouth. J, q and x are alveolo-palatal, which means the tip of your tongue is touching your front lower teeth, letting a small stream of air pass through the middle of your tongue. Ch and q are aspirated, meaning you have to throw out some air while pronouncing them (kinda like the p in "paste", that kind of airy thing). Zh and j are exactly the same as the previous two, but unaspirated, without throwing out much air.