華語中的前、高、圓唇元音/y/是個極為特殊的元音，根據Lado(1957)的對比分析理論認為目標語與母語有相似之處對二語學習者來說較為容易習得，反之，與母語不同之處則較難習得。本文便以法語為母語及英語為母語的華語學習者為研究對象，先是透過聽辨測驗來測試這些華語學習者的聽力能力，接著再讓他們朗讀華語雙音節詞組和句子以取得他們的發音，並在之後使用語音軟體praat分析他們的語音檔案。研究者期盼能透過此研究了解不同母語背景及不同程度的華語學習者對於/y/音的聽辨及發音情形。
Front, high, rounded vowel /y/ is quite a unique vowel in Mandarin. Lado(1957) in Linguistics Across Cultures claimed that “those elements which are similar to native language will be simple for learners, and those elements that are different will be difficult.” This thesis takes /y/ as the target sound and let 24 second language learners of Mandarin with two different native languages and at different levels do a listening discrimination test first, and then record their speech sound and analyze their sound files with praat to see their performance on perception and production toward /y/.
