How do you pronounce this: Tso--- as in General Tso chinese chicken??!
How do you pronounce this: Tso--- as in General Tso chinese chicken??
Answers: Something like " SOW". The Chinese manage to get a little of the T sound before the S, but with Americans lazy accents, sow will do. Source(s):
chef like sow sow Zuo Zongtang's surname is properly pronounced in Chinese as zu? (pinyin) (IPA: /tsu?/). The "Tso" in General Tso might be approximated as "so", but correct pronunciation of Mandarin is not necessarily intuitive for English speakers. Being southern, and black american indian, people around here always go into places like, "can I get some general '"too-soo" chicken?" But its really like "so"...General "So" Chicken. Actually, it's quite east. Everyone pronounces the 'ts' combination all the time: lots, its, eats. All you have to do is pronounce these words paying attention to how you say the 'ts'. Then put it in front of 'o'.
Americans THINK they can't say words like 'Tso' and 'Tsunami' correctly. Try it and you'll see that it is really quite easy. I've heard it pronounced both "so" and "tso," like the ts in tsunami. Whenever I say it I say it like 'saw' with a hint of 't' in the front. Like t'SAW.