Did you know- Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On" was and is the most downloaded ring tone in China.

哈哈哈。。。。

I'm just wondering about the pronounciation of 熟 as all my dictionaries say shu2, also the online dictionary nCiKu...

@schwegler_hans,

David has the point.shú and shóu are both correct. For informal words such as 苹果熟了。we can see both shú and shóu, however, for formal words, such as 成熟，熟睡etc, we have to say shú.

@trevelyan,

by the way the pronunciation of 谁 is shei2, or shui2, not shui3. actually nobody will say shui2 these days because it seems odd and old and not natural, and not comfortable...

First off, I have just started studying with your method (I have also studied otherwise, of course) and I have already learnt an important detail - as we know details matter - with the the pronunciation of this 熟 so I might have saved a couple of years of unawareness. I'm saying this because I'm multi-lingual - Chinese is hopefully going to be my 8th usable language (I'm Swiss and living in the French-speaking part, but my mother tongue is the fourth and dying language of Switzerland - called Romansh - whereas my father tongue is German), and now comes the point: although I've used English professionally and personally for the last 40 years (I'm 63), sometimes I was so shocked when hearing - after many years of having read a word - its pronunciation for the first time but in a way quite contrary to what I had assumed in the first place.

I'm dreaming of (Chinese is an excellent dream to have at my age, it keeps my brain working) being able to spend some time in China, but for the moment that's not quite possible, but I know a couple of Chinese people with whom I communicate regularly, and I have also asked them about 熟, of which some answers:

浙江人：你问的问题问得十分insight。这个发音你应该也大体查过资料，有shu 2，和shou 2 两种读音。shu一般偏向familiar的意思 一般中国人读两个音的都有。但是shou有点偏向口语，当东西煮熟或者成熟的时候读shou，其他一般都读shu。还有就是中文读的时候，有个变音现象，尤其是口语的时候。有时候，为了读大声一点，或者发音洪亮一点，喜欢发成带o的音，因为这样嘴巴会比较大，声音会会大一点。尤其是唱歌的时候，啊有时候会唱成o，尤其是美声的时候。就像鹏程pengcheng，有时候我们也读成pongcheng。总而言之，在口语的时候发哪个音都可以。苏伟

武汉人：“熟”的标准发音是shu2，但是在很多方言，包括北京方言，它也读shou2，而且shou2听起来更口语化，shu2就显得比较正式。台湾人都读shou2。如果你看新闻节目，肯定是shu2，但是电视剧里面有可能读shou2。我的解释清楚吗？如果还有问题，请随时告诉我！

上海人：中国人发音一般有2种，一个是shu2(2表示第二声），另一个是sho(2)u。据我所知，一般口语用shou比较多，而书面文字的朗读大多用shu。基本上就这点区别，2个读法意思都是一样的。

@schwegler_hans -- Great comment! Welcome to the site -- hope we can help you get control of language number 8.

@Gail (or any other native speakers): My impression is that there are some words where the readings shú and shóu are interchangeable, and some words where they're not -- that is, shúxi and shóuxi are both fine, but that saying something is "yǎnshú" would be odd-sounding. Then again, one of my dictionaries has 耳熟能详 as both ěrshúnéngxiáng and ěrshóunéngxiáng -- but gives only the reading shú for other expressions like 驾轻就熟. Is this another case where the colloquial reading is used mostly for colloquial terms like 眼熟 (incidentally, my 输入法 only accepts yǎnshú for that) and the formal reading is used more for literary terms, or are these readings more interchangeable than I think?

片儿 is listed as 4th tone in dialogue, 1st tone in vocabulary list. Seems to be first tone in spoken dialog. I know this has come up before.