Is Mandarin becoming less tonal? (Specific Languages) Language Learning Forum

Is Mandarin becoming less tonal?
Tags: Phonetics \| Mandarin
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Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages

17 messages over 3 pages: 1 2 3

Spasty
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92 posts - 113 votes

Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Mandarin, French

Message 17 of 17

18 December 2013 at 2:40pm | IP Logged

audiophile wrote:

I don't know if Chinese becomes less tonal. But I do know that
tones are really not that important. As long as you can speak with the correct stress
and rhythem, you will be understood.

In the example above 你给我过来 can be spoken as ni(4)gei(4)wo(4)guo(3)lai(4) with no
problem (although all the tones are wrong). In fact, that's how local people would
speak if they want to imitate and make fun in a foreigner's tone. Many prononciations
in Chinese dialects don't match the correct Mandarin tones. In other words, if you can
somehow maintain a "fluency", then you will be understood even if most of your tones
are being wrong. Basically, if you can somehow develop your own "dialect", then
mastering conversational Chinese is a pretty easy task.

That's not really a fair example. It more depends on the predictability of what you're
saying. If I horribly mangle "How are you?" but say it in a culturally obvious
situation (e.g. it's the first thing I say to someone), then everyone will still
understand me. However, if I say "My research deals with many linguistic phenomena"
with just a heavy accent, it'll be much harder to decipher.

Beyond that, most Chinese people don't understand dialects very well in my experience.
They understand their own, dialects similar to their own, and Mandarin.

A lot of foreigners I meet in China tell me that tones don't matter... and a lot of
foreigners I meet in China have really hard to understand Chinese. A good friend of
mine speaks Chinese MUCH better than me, but in public I always have to repeat what he
says because his tones are all over the place. His grammar is usually spot-on, though,
and his vocabulary is much larger than mine.

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