In Malaysia, Mandarin has also become a favourite third language subject among university students. However, many non-native speakers of Mandarin often encounter problems in pronunciation. Identifying the pronunciation errors is essential to avoid misunderstanding and communication breakdown. This study aims to investigate the perspective view of factors causing undesirable pronunciation problems faced by the students as non-native speakers based on the phonetic system of Hanyu Pinyin. A survey was conducted by distributing questionnaires to undergraduates from Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) Engineering Campus to identify the underlying factors of pronunciation problems in Mandarin. The findings from the data analysis show that mother tongue interference was the main problem since some consonants and vowels are missing from the students’ first language. Besides, other factors such as time constraint, psychological problems, and learning environment were among the distracting factors.
Citation (APA 6th ed.):
Khor, G. S., Mah, B. Y., & Thomas Chow, V. F. (2016). Factors affecting Mandarin pronunciation among engineering undergraduates in Universiti Sains Malaysia: A perspective view. UPALS Language Colloquium 2016 Proceedings (pp. 29-33). Penang, Malaysia: Universiti Teknologi MARA Penang Branch.
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