Data Sets

Brunei

ASEAN

Hong Kong + Taiwanese — HK2 : 741

S1 = Taiwanese female
S2 = Hong Kong male

Context: S2 is talking about different religions.

S2 : ... in ja- japanese they w- they call zen you know yeah (.) but you know in chinese is chan you know (.) you know it’s kinds of buddhism

S1: chan?

S2: yeah it’s you know

S1: zen did you say zen?

S2: zen yeah you know

Intended Words : zen, chan

Discussion : There are two problems with zen: first it has [s] rather than [z] at the start; second, it has a open-mid vowel that sounds like [ɛ]. This is why S1 asks to confirm that zen is the word he intended.

There is also a problem with the Chinese word chán (禅). S2 pronounces it as [tʃɛn] with the same vowel as in zen, perhaps because his first language is Cantonese. S1 asks if he means [tʃan], using the fully open vowel that would be expected in Mandarin, and S2 confirms it.