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Recognizing Mandarin Tones | ||
Tags: Tonal languages | Mandarin | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Britomartis Groupie United States Joined 5810 days ago 67 posts - 74 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Mandarin | Message 1 of 7 01 August 2010 at 10:18am | IP Logged | ||
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I'm not sure how long it takes to recognize the tones in Mandarin Chinese, but for the past few weeks, I've been working at it to no avail. While I have only a little difficulty at recognizing single tones, recognizing dual tones is killer. Are there any tips or exercises that could help?
I've been using this for practice: http://www.shufawest.us/language/dual-tonedrill.html And I've even been keeping track of my mistakes: http://linguisticwanderlust.blogspot.com/2010/07/my-difficul ties-with-tones.html I just can't break through this, so advice would be really welcome. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| TerryW Senior Member United States Joined 6358 days ago 370 posts - 783 votes Speaks: English* | Message 2 of 7 02 August 2010 at 1:37am | IP Logged | ||
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Have you done the "Pronunciation" section of FSI Mandarin?
If not, can't hurt; it's online and legally free to use: FSI Mandarin Tape 6 has some dual jobbers. Edit: Wow, that is a great site for practice, thanks. I didn't get too far with Mandarin, but I thought I was better at recognizing tones than this. I just got 1 out of 10, the easy Tone1/Tone1. For the others, I had to try about all 20 permutations before I hit it. I would think with regular practice at this, you'd have to improve. I'm gonna try 10 a day for a while and see. Edited by TerryW on 02 August 2010 at 2:02am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Britomartis Groupie United States Joined 5810 days ago 67 posts - 74 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Mandarin | Message 3 of 7 02 August 2010 at 9:21am | IP Logged | ||
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Thank for the link! Perhaps it will help.
If you liked that one, there is also these: http://pinyinpractice.com/tones.htm http://www.sinosplice.com/learn-chinese/tone-pair-drills (you don't have to download them to hear them, just continue to the next pages (I think it is easier to tell with these because they are said more clearly). 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| aru-aru Triglot Senior Member Latvia Joined 6458 days ago 244 posts - 331 votes Speaks: Latvian*, English, Russian | Message 4 of 7 02 August 2010 at 4:05pm | IP Logged | ||
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How bad are you at getting the tones right? If the problem is the ability to guess is it 3-3 or 2-3 tones, then forget about it. 3-3 will always sound like 2-3. It's supposed to be like that.
I have been thinking about this problem of yours, but no solution comes to mind. I checked the way Michel Thomas course introduces tones, but did not think it will help you much. What you should do, is maybe try getting some native speaker listen to you pronouncing tones. Maybe that might give a clue why you're having trouble. Because in my experience the kind of online tone drill like the one you gave the link to does wonders in a short time. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| luhmann Senior Member Brazil Joined 5334 days ago 156 posts - 271 votes Speaks: Portuguese* Studies: Mandarin, French, English, Italian, Spanish, Persian, Arabic (classical) | Message 5 of 7 02 August 2010 at 6:43pm | IP Logged | ||
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I have been considering creating audio flashcards to practice listening to words in isolation. To begin with there is a free database of Chinese (and other languages) word recordings at the Shtooka Project, which won't be hard to import into an SRS program.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5767 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 6 of 7 02 August 2010 at 8:30pm | IP Logged | ||
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Try to find something with minimal pairs, it's easier to learn it that way.
Not sure about the FSI Mandarin (Vietnamese does have minimal pair drills) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Britomartis Groupie United States Joined 5810 days ago 67 posts - 74 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Mandarin | Message 7 of 7 02 August 2010 at 9:25pm | IP Logged | ||
Well, I've been keeping track, but my sample size is too small to come to any conclusion about which pairs are the hardest for me. However, I do know that in a dual-tone pair, the tone that appears first is the most difficult for me to identify. I think the drill I've been using is good- I've gone from 0% accuracy to 40% on a good day, but I can't seem to get beyond that. I haven't even delved much into pronouncing the tones either, although I try to repeat the tones in the drill before I attempt to guess which is which. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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