Pronunciation

Thanks to John over at sinosplice and The practical Chinese reader volume I, I am reworking my Chinese pronunciation. Thankfully I haven't been speaking it for ten years so I have less to learn. The Sinosplice page has a great easy to understand description of how to make the sounds. The thing that gets me is that I'd figured out how to do the retroflex R all on my own (The tip of your tongue points towards the back of your throat) But not applied it to other syllables. Come to learn that's the solution to several problem sounds. Mandarin has a few sets of sounds that we don't differentiate. We just don't make them. And most folk give you the one sound as an approximate of the other so you're left with these two sounds that you're pronouncing the same but obviously they're different because they're romanized differently. Pain. Check it out if you care.