Abstract
The goal of this paper is to provide the linguistic groundwork for future advances towards more effective ways of teaching the pronunciation of MandarinChinese to Hungarian learners. It builds on earlier work by the authors on this subject, expanding their coverage, and sharpening the analyses therein. After a brief general introduction of the two languages, the paper offers an in-depth comparison between their segmental and suprasegmental phonetic systems, systematically going through the major subsystems, pointing out system-level similarities and differences. The paper then continues with an evaluation of the likelihood of the identified differences causing difficulties for learners of Mandarin with Hungarian as their native language both in learning and in communicative efficiency, concluding that suprasegmental features (tone, intonation) are the areas with the greatest discrepancy between the severity of the problem and the awareness of teachers – largely due to the cognitive ‘novelty’ of the feature for the learners (tone), or the seriously understudied nature of the feature (intonation).
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