Factors Influencing the Acquisition of Mandarin Chinese as a Second Additional Language Focusing on Phonetics

Mandarin has been added to the list of second additional languages (SAL) that South African learners can choose from. The researchers proactively conducted research pertaining SAL (Mandarin) since it is a dynamic phenomenon in Africa. question was formulated as follows: Do factors such 1) phonemic differences between learners’ mother tongue and Chinese, 2) cognitive styles 3) abilities singing tone imitation, influence non-native (as SAL) Africa learn Chinese phonetics? We foresee our findings will contribute learning teaching schools. This article serves series three articles, mixed method (quan-qual) design called for. Hypotheses were statistics presented either accept/reject them. gleaned conclusions quantitative part springboard focused on qualitative derived from interviews, observations literature review, which enabled us identify arrange data according categories themes. revealed there no significant correlation preferences phonetics performances; imitation contributed initial consonant pronunciation 3 pronunciation; with musical performed better at reading Pinyin phonics table; identified consonants, multi-vowels whole syllables challenging read; most challenging, 1 easiest tones 2, 4 mispronounced 1. From two themes emerged, namely challenges phonetics, aspects consider when phonetics. Based integrated quan-qual findings, we able existing body knowledge this topic.