@Gray

While waiting for a knowledgeable person to contribute, here is an interpretation of the sound change that you refer to.

/t͡sʰ/ and /t͡s/ are described as alveolar, but palatalized before certain vowels. Thus, /t͡sʰ/ has allophones [t͡sʰ] and [t͡ʃʰ]. The [t͡sʰ] is the German < z > in < zehn > (ten) and the [t͡ʃʰ] is the English < ch > in < cheese >.

So you probably hear variation between "ts" and "ch" which is not noticed by native speakers because this is not a phonemic difference.

@Gray

Some languages, such as English, distinguish between voiced and unvoiced phonemes. I have taught students whose first language does not make the distinction.

I have no direct knowledge, but according to wikipedia, Chinese makes a distinction between aspirated and unaspirated but not voiced and unvoiced.

[excerpt]

Between pairs of stops or affricates, having the same place and manner of articulation, the primary distinction is not <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_(phonetics)" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(11, 0, 128);">voiced</a> vs. voiceless (as in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_language" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(11, 0, 128);">French</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_language" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(11, 0, 128);">Japanese</a>), but unaspirated vs. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspirated_consonant" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(11, 0, 128);">aspirated</a> (as in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icelandic_language" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(11, 0, 128);">Icelandic</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_Gaelic" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(11, 0, 128);">Scottish Gaelic</a>). The unaspirated stops and affricates may however become voiced in weak syllables (see <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Chinese_phonology#Syllable_reduction" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(11, 0, 128);">§ Syllable reduction</a> below). Such pairs are represented in the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinyin" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(11, 0, 128);">pinyin</a> system mostly using letters which in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romance_languages" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(11, 0, 128);">Romance languages</a> generally denote voiceless/voiced pairs (for example [p] and [b]), or in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanic_languages" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(11, 0, 128);">Germanic languages</a> often denotes <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortis_and_lenis" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(11, 0, 128);">fortis/lenis</a> pairs (for example initial aspirated voiceless/unaspirated voiced pairs such as [pʰ] and [b]). However, in pinyin they denote aspirated/unaspirated pairs, for example /pʰ/ and /p/ are represented with <em style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34);">p</em> and <em style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34);">b </em>respectively.

Hopefully someboey with a suitable background in Cantonese phonology can add to this discussion.

Hello! This is an interesting question. I am a native Cantonese speaker. Let me try to answer this:

Answer: According to a lot of dictionaries, you are right that these characters begin with the same consonant. But practically, we pronounce 只 制 走 正 with 'ts' and 再 鍾 將 狀 雀 with 'j' sound.

仔 is pronounced with 'ts' sound. In the video, the blonde girl was only trying to make it cute to say it with 'j' sound. Nothing more!

One thing to note is, people speak fast and try to say things in a 'fun' way in these kind of TV programs, so they don't mean to pronounce every character precisely as you hear in class.

Hi Gray :

Most of time the pronounce is depend on the speaker. It's hard to say which is correct.

Question: 1)

Answer:

Most of time is depend on the speaker.

Question: For the video Question:

Answer:

The video At 0:42, that girl say 仔 ("ch") is not we say, we usually say 仔 ("j")

Question 2:

("j") is corrected

Question 3:

most of time "ts" incorrect

Thanks very much for your comment, Chris. You're right -- I didn't think about the importance of voiced/unvoiced versus aspirated/unaspirated when I was writing this post, but I've read about it before. Your comment corroborates a video about Cantonese consonant pronunciation that someone linked me to after I made this post: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vy_KV0FXPTY" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vy_KV0FXPTY</a>;

According to the video, the sounds that Jyutping transcribes as "c" and "z" are actually both the same sound, /ts/, in aspirated and unaspirated forms. This is kind of a revelation to me, because teachers always say that "c" is always pronounced like the English "ch." I mean, it's true that if you pronounce it as "ch," Cantonese speakers will understand you, but I've always thought this description was slightly off. Aspirated "ts" sounds right.

But most importantly for me, the video also includes this:

"And I'll throw in a quick note about these two consonants [c and z] that I haven't seen discussed anywhere else. When these consonants show up before back rounded vowels like <em>u</em>, <em>oe</em>, and <em>o</em>, then some speakers will pull their tongues back a bit, and those two consonants, at least to my ear, will start sounding more like aspirated and unaspirated versions of /ch/ rather than /ts/."

I feel like this fully explains my confusion, because although English does use aspiration to distinguish pairs like p/b and t/d, I feel like the difference between ch/j is more about voicing than aspiration. At least, to me, a voiceless but unaspirated "ch" sounds about as similar to aspirated "ch" as it does to "j."

I'm thinking it might be best if I just forget about the English letter "j," and focus on the idea of aspirated "ch" versus unaspirated "ch" (and "ts") if I want to consistently tell these sounds apart!