This is the most valuable ten minutes in the week. Today’s ten symbols contain a three-way contrast that Mandarin depends on and that most self-taught learners flatten into one sound, usually permanently.
Getting it right now is far easier than repairing it in two years, and this is exactly where pinyin does learners the most damage: it writes these sounds with j, q, x, zh, ch, sh, z, c and s, and almost none of those letters mean what an English reader assumes.
Today’s symbols
Tap each one to hear it. Every recording is by a native speaker from Taiwan.
Smiling sounds
Curled-tongue sounds
Flat-tongue sounds
What to notice
Smiling sounds: ㄐㄑㄒ
The tongue lies flat against the hard palate and the lips spread as if smiling. Say them with an actual smile at first; it puts the tongue in the right place without having to think about the tongue.
Curled tongue: ㄓㄔㄕㄖ
The tongue tip curls back towards the roof of the mouth. To an English ear these are the closest to "j", "ch", "sh" and a sound between r and the s in "measure".
Flat tongue: ㄗㄘㄙ
Tongue flat, tip near the upper teeth. Close to "dz", "ts" and "s".
The pairs to keep apart
ㄓ/ㄗ, ㄔ/ㄘ and ㄕ/ㄙ are the ones to drill. Native speakers hear the difference immediately even when the rest of a sentence is imperfect, and collapsing them is the single most recognisable marker of a foreign accent in Mandarin.
Practice today’s symbols
All 21 initials are now covered. The Listening Quiz on this site is a fast check, but these three pairs need repetition rather than a single test, and that is the app’s job.