PERCEPTION OF KOREAN CONSONANTS BY CHINESE SPEAKERS

Both Korean and Chinese are abundant with fricatives and affricates. Korean distinguishes between lax, tense, and aspirated consonants, whereas Chinese uses place and aspiration for distinctions of similar sounds. This study examines perception of Korean affricates /tʃ, tʃ*, tʃʰ//and fricatives /s, s*/ by Chinese listeners, aiming at how the native sound system affects perception and learning of sounds from a different language. It is predicted that a) tense and lax affricates and alveolar fricative may pose difficulty for Chinese listeners; b) alveolar fricatives may be perceived as the aspirated alveolar fricative by Chinese listeners.