8. The Glottal Stop
The glottal stop is defined as closing and suddenly opening the windpipe to produce a sound, which means, unlike English, you have to pronounce every word anew by forcing the air out of your windpipe. Since Chinese is monosyllabic, each character must be read this way.
If you have a German-speaking friend, he sure can tell you what a glottal stop is.
The separation of Chinese characters in pronunciation is most clearly exemplified by reading certain two syllable combinations together quickly, as follows:
Chinese habit - yin wei, yin an
English habit - innuendo, inane
As you can see, the Chinese sounds, even when pronounced successively, are distinct from each other; while the English sounds tend to run into each other to form liaisons.
To practice the glottal stop with two syllables, inserting a w or y where appropriate may help, like in English: www, in Europe, a university, a whisper etc.
