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A question regarding tonal languages | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| ChristopherB Triglot Senior Member New Zealand Joined 6316 days ago 851 posts - 1074 votes  2 sounds Speaks: English*, German, French | Message 1 of 17 25 September 2009 at 11:23am | IP Logged | ||
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I have a question for native speakers of tonal languages: are you able to discern the tones of individual words in your language without working it out, or do you tend to speak sentences based on the rhythm of the tones instead?
There's a comment Stu Jay Raj made on the Antimoon forum a while ago about native Thai speakers:
Does anyone here agree or disagree with the above statement? How many Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai etc. speakers on the boards here think they could tell the individual tones of each word in a sentence? Edited by ChristopherB on 25 September 2009 at 11:23am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| quendidil Diglot Senior Member Singapore Joined 6312 days ago 126 posts - 142 votes Speaks: Mandarin, English* Studies: Japanese | Message 2 of 17 25 September 2009 at 1:55pm | IP Logged | ||
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I think he's right. I cannot tell the tone of a word immediately without pronouncing the four different possibilities and checking.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tarojoseph Tetraglot Newbie Hong Kong Joined 5562 days ago 5 posts - 5 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, Japanese, English, Mandarin Studies: German | Message 3 of 17 25 September 2009 at 2:39pm | IP Logged | ||
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I am native Cantonese speaker and found it 100% right.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| karaipyhare Tetraglot Groupie Paraguay Joined 5585 days ago 74 posts - 150 votes Speaks: Portuguese, Spanish*, English, Guarani Studies: German, Italian, French, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 4 of 17 25 September 2009 at 3:15pm | IP Logged | ||
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A mandarin speaker friend couldn't answer haw many tones Mandarin has. Nor was he aware
of the tone sandhi of "bu". He didn't noticed that "bu" changed its tone. He just instinctively knew how it was supposed to sound. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| quendidil Diglot Senior Member Singapore Joined 6312 days ago 126 posts - 142 votes Speaks: Mandarin, English* Studies: Japanese | Message 5 of 17 25 September 2009 at 4:23pm | IP Logged | ||
That really depends on whether he was educated in Chinese at school. I don't know about the situation among heritage speakers in countries where Mandarin isn't used, but like Stuart said, Mandarin speakers are educated in the basic 4 tones at an early age. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Lizzern Diglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5909 days ago 791 posts - 1053 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English Studies: Japanese | Message 6 of 17 25 September 2009 at 4:51pm | IP Logged | ||
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I would say that most Norwegians don't even know that Norwegian has tones. I didn't know until I took a linguistics class at uni - I told my mother and she hadn't thought of that at all. If you ask native speakers to explain it to others, or read them one of the grammar book explanations, it sounds pretty nonsensical. It's just how things are supposed to sound. It's instantly noticeable if a mistake it made (we're not above making a mistake in the context of a sentence) and it would be described as an error of tone, but the existence of it isn't discussed much, and it's certainly not something we go around thinking about while speaking or listening.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Qinshi Diglot Senior Member Australia Joined 5753 days ago 115 posts - 183 votes Speaks: Vietnamese*, English Studies: French, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 7 of 17 27 October 2009 at 6:24am | IP Logged | ||
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When I speak in Vietnamese. the tones just come naturally as if they are indented into the word. I don't need to stop and analyse each word by their tones.
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| Heinrich S. Groupie Germany Joined 6936 days ago 63 posts - 85 votes Studies: French | Message 8 of 17 27 October 2009 at 7:40am | IP Logged | ||
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In non-tonal languages where syllable stress can vary, most speakers would have to think to tell you that too.
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