On Improving the Pronunciation of French /r/ in Chinese Learners by Using Real-time Ultrasound Visualization

Abstract : Chinese natives are known to perform poorly in /r/ pronunciations when learning French. They tend to produce their native /x/ sound. In this study, we compare two learning methods of French /r/: the traditional method using colloquial explanations of the pronunciation and a newly developed method using ultrasound images to demonstrate tongue movements in real-time. Two distinct groups including 10 Chinese learners participated in the experiments. A preliminary perceptual experiment confirmed their weak discrimination capacity between French /r/ and Mandarin /x/. Acoustic HNR and COG measures on pre-and post-training productions allowed us to quantify their progress in productions. The proposed ultrasound technique is shown to be efficient for foreign language pronunciation learning. By using real-time ultrasound visual feedback, Chinese learners have speeded up their ability to depart from Mandarin /x/ towards French /r/ articulation and to produce a better French /r/ at the end of the training.