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Here's an English example:

Learner: Wait, how is c-o-w pronounced?
Native: COW, like a K sound followed by ow.

But in Chinese there are no phonetic letters. So how are children taught how to pronounce something, other than to hear the difference by someone who already knows it? Unless they're taught pinyin (which didn't even used to exist), how on earth could you specify the difference between, for example, j and q, if the learner were uncertain which sound was being used in the pronunciation of a given word or character?

temporary_user_name
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    How do you know what a "K" sound is? Is that any more illuminating than saying that "cow" starts with the same sound as "kid"? Also, I disagree with your casual switch from "Learner" to "children". Learners of a foreign language need to be taught how to pronounce things. Children generally don't. – Stumpy Joe Pete May 14 '13 at 21:37
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    Hmm, I guess I wasn't clear enough. K is clear because people learning English learn the pronunciation sound of the 26 letters and handful of other combinations, and once they have them down, that's that, and you can refer to them as a standard for pronunciation-- Like a D sound, like a C-H sound. In Chinese there is no such standard for differentiation, or so it seems. – temporary_user_name May 14 '13 at 23:06
  • I think it's not proper to compare pinyin to phonetic letters (pinyin is more similar to the phonetic symbol). The most popular way to show a native learner how a complex character pronounces, is to tell him/her a very simple character that pronounces the same. For example, you may not know how to pronounce 燚, then a homophone 义/義 would be helpful. – Stan May 25 '13 at 18:44

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Nowadays schoolchildren are taught Pinyin pretty thoroughly first, so they know how to correctly pronounce Pinyin. Then when learning new words, all they have to do is learn the Pinyin. A lot of primary/elementary textbooks will have annotations like this:

Here's a typical Chinese primary school blackboard:

Here's a Taiwanese equivalent of this sort of annotation, usually used on difficult characters:

While we're at it, here's a Japanese equivalent:

congusbongus
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  • The Taiwanese equivalent is called 注音符號 or bopomofo. And the Japanese equivalent is Furigana (振り仮名) – tao Jul 02 '13 at 08:57
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If I were teaching my daughter a new character, let's say 浅, I would say it very slow: 七-----衣-----安-----, and let her repeat very slow in the same way, then increase the speed gradually to the normal speed, which makes it sound like 千, then aske her to put the 3rd tone on it to get 浅 qiǎn.

For 禁, it will be 鸡----阴----, and we get jin, then put 1st or 4th tone on it, because this character has 2 pronunciations, jīn and jìn.

孤影萍踪
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  • I find it somewhat humorous to see 浅 broken down as 七-衣-安 because the "an" in 安 doesn't even rhyme with the "an" in 浅. Of course, the point still stands that you can indicate initials and finals by comparison with other characters. – Stumpy Joe Pete May 14 '13 at 21:35
  • @StumpyJoePete 安 rhymes with 千? When we break down a pronunciation into several parts, we use the first tone always, to simplify the simulation. When we get the whole sound correctly, we put the tone needed. So maybe for you, ān doesn't rhyme with ǎn, but for me they rhyme perfectly. I think in Chinese, tones have no role in rhyme. – 孤影萍踪 May 14 '13 at 21:54
  • So is that the standard method? Comparison to other characters? – temporary_user_name May 14 '13 at 23:07
  • @Aerovistae Actually the way I described is used by teachers to show kids how to pronounce pinyin. So for qiǎn, the teach will say: q---i---an---, qian, and finally put 3rd tone on it to make it qiǎn. When students master pinyin very well, they will learn to pronounce new characters according to pinyin. If pinyin is not available for a new character, then the teacher will pronounce it very slow to reveal each individual consonant and vowel. All 声母 and 韵母 have their representative characters, except eng and ong. – 孤影萍踪 May 14 '13 at 23:31
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    @孤影萍踪 "An" is pronounced [an], while "yan" (or the "ian" in words starting with consonants) is pronounced [jɛn]. They're both spelled the same, and it's entirely possible you perceive them the same, but the vowels are different (e.g., pot = [pat], pet = [pɛt]) – Stumpy Joe Pete May 15 '13 at 00:26
  • @StumpyJoePete They are pronounced different but they're considered rhyming with each other, at least that's what I was taught all along. – NS.X. May 15 '13 at 00:37
  • @NS.X. It's entirely possible you both perceive them as rhyming; but that would be a product of your "feeling" for Chinese phonology. If you were a foreign language learner, it would not be helpful to think of 煙 as being 一 + 安. – Stumpy Joe Pete May 15 '13 at 03:28
  • @StumpyJoePete No I get it. I was trying to say many native speakers learned this way, it worked for us and will just work for you (language learners) as well, regardless of whether it's linguistically correct. – NS.X. May 15 '13 at 06:37
  • @StumpyJoePete I think you may need to swich gears from English rhyming to Chinese rhyming, when you learn/use Chinese. For Chinese rhyming, we only consider the final vowels. So for Chinese native speakers, 天 rhymes with 圆 very well, even one is ian and other is uan. See this poem: 火树银花不夜天，弟兄姐妹舞翩跹，歌声唱彻月儿圆。Here 天(tiān), 跹(xiān) and 圆(yuán) rhyme perfectly. Another poem: 黄河远上白云间，一片孤城万仞山。羌笛何须怨杨柳，春风不度玉门关。 Here 间(jiān), 山(shān) and 关(guān) rhyme perfectly. 柳 doesn't rhyme with them, because the end of the 3rd sentence doesn't need to rhyme with others in a poem. – 孤影萍踪 May 15 '13 at 18:02
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    @孤影萍踪 天(tiān), 跹(xiān), and 圆(yuán) do all end in [ɛn], while 山(shān) and 关(guān) do not. The rhyming rules for classical chinese poetry are complex and do not have much to do with Mandarin pronunciation. See this for a lengthy exposition of rhyming rules in Classical Chinese poetry. – Stumpy Joe Pete May 15 '13 at 19:33
  • @StumpyJoePete That's an awesome reference. You should ask a rhetoric question and answer it by yourself to share this knowledge:) – NS.X. May 16 '13 at 02:03