Introduction to Linguistics Section II How to Learn Phonetics

I don't know which version of Introduction to Linguistics you are using, but it's not too difficult to learn an introduction to phonetics.

In fact, the International Phonetic Alphabet is just a set of phonetic symbols, which can be remembered, but Chinese language and literature will not involve much, mainly the expression of the International Phonetic Alphabet of Chinese Pinyin.

I have two suggestions:

First, the part about "vowels and consonants" is very important, especially the explanation of pronunciation parts and methods. The "vowel tongue bitmap" which is a bit like a trapezoid must be mastered.

Second, you should take a look at the phonetic part in the textbook Modern Chinese (recommended by Huang Borong and Liao Xudong), and pay attention to the phonetic expression of Chinese pinyin, which needs to be mastered.

the other part is "phoneme variation", which may be a bit difficult, but it is easy to understand its principle. For example, in Putonghua, it is necessary to distinguish between flat tongue and upturned tongue, but in some dialects, it is not necessary to distinguish. What we want to distinguish is different phonemes, and what we don't distinguish is the same phoneme.

I hope I can help you. Welcome to ask.