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Tonal Languages Require More Talent? | ||
Tags: Talent | Asian Languages | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| eggcluck Senior Member China Joined 4692 days ago 168 posts - 278 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin, Japanese | Message 17 of 40 01 May 2012 at 3:31am | IP Logged | ||
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After 6 months of intensive study my pronunciation is still awfull, I can not guess the correct tone 100% of the time nor can I produce them accurately. Though after hour upon hour of listening I can make out individual words though I do not understand them. Sadly given the problem I have with tones it makes it nigh impossible to look those words up.
That said I found the pronunciation module of FSI to be very usefull and has at least helped me to know what my tongue should be trying to do ^^ 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| viedums Hexaglot Senior Member Thailand Joined 4657 days ago 327 posts - 528 votes Speaks: Latvian, English*, German, Mandarin, Thai, French Studies: Vietnamese | Message 18 of 40 01 May 2012 at 3:55am | IP Logged | ||
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I would agree with Druckfehler here. When you study Mandarin with a teacher, you should be given ample practice both distinguishing and producing tones in different combinations. Eventually you may find that the tones are one of the more straightforward aspects of the language. For example, I’ve been speaking Thai for years. I am quite comfortable producing and distinguishing tones, although of course I occasionally just forget which tone to use. If in conversation you don’t catch a word’s tone, you can simply repeat that word with the tone you expect was meant, and the person you’re speaking with will say it again – this is nothing out of the ordinary.
In terms of pronunciation, the thing that gives me the most trouble in Thai is producing d vs. t and b vs. p in a clearly distinct way. Most mainland Southeast Asian languages, including Thai, have a three-way distinction in the stop phonemes – voiced, unvoiced, aspirated. This seems simple, since in English we have all three sounds, though only two are phonemes. But no, there are differences, and as a result the voiced and unvoiced ones sound very similar. I’m sure other forum members have experienced this kind of problem with certain sounds in their target language that they just can’t seem to get right. For me, contour tones don’t fall in this category. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6588 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 19 of 40 01 May 2012 at 4:28am | IP Logged | ||
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| smallwhite Pentaglot Senior Member Australia Joined 5299 days ago 537 posts - 1045 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin, French, Spanish | Message 20 of 40 01 May 2012 at 9:17am | IP Logged | ||
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Tone is not just about pitch (how high, how low). It's also about contour / shape (whether, when and how to start rising / falling).
If you're a pessimist you can see it as requiring 2 skills. If you're an optimist you can see it as a choice - even if you can't get the pitch right, as long as you get the contour right, you're close. It helps a lot to stick to one teacher or voice artist, one who has a voice very similar to yours. (based on my experience learning four L2s with tones) Edited by smallwhite on 01 May 2012 at 10:15am 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| zhanglong Senior Member United States Joined 4920 days ago 322 posts - 427 votes Studies: Mandarin, Cantonese | Message 21 of 40 01 May 2012 at 1:48pm | IP Logged | ||
This is great advice. If tones are a problem for you, don't worry. They are a problem for most of us westerners. And yet, we (eventually) learn how to do it. Think of it this way: over a billion minds have grasped this, over a billion people can do it as part of their daily lives. Included in this number are several people who learned how to do it after childhood; they do it so well, they can understand and be understood by native speakers. Certainly, you can't be so untalented that you will let a four year old child beat you? If a baby can do it, so can we. We just have to let go of any fear or frustration and go for it. Perhaps hundreds of thousands if not millions of non-natives over the years have been able to learn a tonal language. Why not us? 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| zhanglong Senior Member United States Joined 4920 days ago 322 posts - 427 votes Studies: Mandarin, Cantonese | Message 22 of 40 01 May 2012 at 1:55pm | IP Logged | ||
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My observation (however demented it may be):
I've found that I "think too much" as the Chinese say, especially when it comes to tones. If I'm consciously trying to see the written representation in my brain while I'm speaking, it's too slow and I get the tones wrong. Sometimes you can use body language to practice the motions, using your hands to approximate where your vocal intonation should be going. But I've found that the best thing to do is to forget for a moment what tone something is "supposed" to be, and just imitate as much as possible the way a native speaker is saying it. Many times I have no idea what tone something is, but can approximate how someone else said it. I avoid the stilted speech and let it go, and when I think it sounds the worst ever, others will say "THAT'S IT!" Umm...what? Most of all, be patient. When you are on the lonely language plateau, it seems that you're not getting better but you really are. You're getting better in such small increments that you may not really notice, but after a certain time, you can just DO it. Okay, end of ramble. Time to go DO language instead of writing ABOUT it. Edited by zhanglong on 01 May 2012 at 1:59pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Camundonguinho Triglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 4740 days ago 273 posts - 500 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, English, Spanish Studies: Swedish | Message 23 of 40 01 May 2012 at 6:56pm | IP Logged | ||
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I like languages where the use of tones is virtually optional (Norwegian, Swedish, Slovene, Croatian). That is, the use of tones is more cosmetic than crucial for understanding. Bergen Norwegian and Oslo Norwegian have totally different tonal patterns, so inter-dialectically they have to focus on the context : because the rising tone in Oslo corresponds to the falling tone in Bergen, and vice versa.
Furthermore, there are many dialects in Western and Northern Norway which lack the phonological tone. So, I guess, tones in Norwegian serve more to the speech melody than to semantics. Edited by Camundonguinho on 01 May 2012 at 6:58pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Beysic Diglot Newbie United States Joined 5057 days ago 20 posts - 39 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin Studies: Japanese, Korean | Message 24 of 40 02 May 2012 at 3:07am | IP Logged | ||
That's a completely different breed of 'tone' though. It's more about emphasis and stress used to express an emotion - which is pretty much the same in any language - whereas tones in tonal languages completely change the word being spoken. Tones get easier to grasp the more familiar you are with them, but it takes a very long time to be able to distinguish them when others speak and reproduce it yourself. I read a study once which concluded that tonal language speakers picked up on the tone before anything else when listening to others speak; that kind of skill takes a while to really master if one's native tongue simply doesn't have the concept to begin with. I personally found Mandarian significantly more difficult in terms of speaking and listening than either Spanish or Japanese at the beginner/intermediate levels, but once I reached a degree of fluency and grasped tones it leveled up. Edited by Beysic on 02 May 2012 at 3:10am 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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