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Do tones really matter in Mandarin? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Nature Diglot Groupie Canada Joined 5018 days ago 63 posts - 80 votes  Speaks: English*, French | Message 1 of 28 24 July 2010 at 7:58am | IP Logged | ||
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When watching videos posted in Mandarin, I noticed that the tones are not as enunciated as teachers expect you to pronounce it. They pronounce their words very quick pitched, and short that I don't even hear the tones! Could one get away with speaking this way? Even a beginner?
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| ChristopherB Triglot Senior Member New Zealand Joined 6097 days ago 851 posts - 1074 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English*, German, French | Message 2 of 28 24 July 2010 at 8:53am | IP Logged | ||
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I can assure you the tones most certainly matter. If you're still in the beginner's stage, you may simply not have heard enough homophones to need to pick up on tone yet. In other words, if you're still acquiring basic, core vocabulary, many words may appear distinct to you more or less by pronunciation alone, not by tone. Later on, you will come across more and more combinations of syllables that may have similar pronunciations but which differ in tone and you will need to fine-tune your ear to pick up on these distinctions.
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| Derian Triglot Senior Member PolandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5089 days ago 227 posts - 464 votes Speaks: Polish*, English, German Studies: Spanish, Russian, Czech, French, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 3 of 28 24 July 2010 at 10:00am | IP Logged | ||
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I've had a similar idea back when I was studying Italian. Italians spoke so fast that I couldn't understand anything, it just felt like some random babble. So I thought to myself: Maybe I'll try babbling words as fast as I can as well, without paying attention to what words I'm actually using? Could one get away with speaking this way? Even a beginner?
Do words really matter in Italian? PS. Well it turned out that... YES, they do! Edited by Derian on 24 July 2010 at 10:02am 13 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| aru-aru Triglot Senior Member Latvia Joined 6238 days ago 244 posts - 331 votes Speaks: Latvian*, English, Russian | Message 4 of 28 24 July 2010 at 11:53am | IP Logged | ||
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They matter, and way much more than you would think. It's not even that much about homophones. It's just that for Chinese speakers the correct tone needs to be there, otherwise the words sound so weird, they just don't understand. The word will not come out as anoter word with the same pinyin, it will just come out impossibe to understand. The tone is not and added extra, like it seems to us, it's as much a part of the word as letters are.
Sounds a bit strange maybe, but please, trust me on this one. I've seen people who have studied Chinese in their home countries, and come to China with a large vocabulary, good grammar, great reading skills and what not, but apart from the teacher and other foreigners, noone understands them (Even saw a case when a guy with otherwise good Chinese skills was not understood by the teacher, though he was a smart guy and improved his pronounciation really fast). Even when you've worked on your tones, you'll get things wrong once in a while. I've complained myself, and heard others with various levels of Chinese complain about a situation that goes roughly like this: I say something to a Chinese person. "What?" He/she says. I repeat. "Huh?" Then, after a short explanation Chinese person smiles, and says, "Oh, You meant ____ !", saying it exactly the way I did in the first place. Or that's how it feels like, at least. For the beginners it does make sense to exaggerate the tone a bit, when learning, because when you'll start speaking faster, the tones will tend to blur out quite a bit, so starting with a little extra helps you keep at least a semblance of tones in a rapid speech. That's also why you don't seem to hear tones in the videos. Yes, they are less pronounced than the ones on the CD that comes with your textbook. But they sure are there. Oh, well... Sorry for my random punctuation. And good luck with the studies. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| GREGORG4000 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5304 days ago 307 posts - 479 votes Speaks: English*, Finnish Studies: Japanese, Korean, Amharic, French | Message 6 of 28 24 July 2010 at 3:35pm | IP Logged | ||
I read somewhere that in Mandarin they just ignore the tones and rely on context, and in Cantonese they sing the tones subtly or work them into the song somehow. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cetacea Bilingual Tetraglot Groupie United States booh.com Joined 5105 days ago 80 posts - 163 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin*, Arabic (Yemeni), Arabic (Written) Studies: French | Message 7 of 28 24 July 2010 at 3:48pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'm a native Mandarin speaker and I can assure you that tones are important if you want to be understood. My Mom is from the south, and she can't roll her tongue, so she pronounces "sh" like "s", "ch" like "c", and "zh" like "z", but being a native speaker, her tones are ALWAYS correct, so people have no problem understanding her. It just shows you that correct tones are in a way more important than correct consonants.
If you say shi4 (to be) like si4 (four), I can still understand you from context. But if you said shi4 like shi3 (to make someone do sth, or s&*t ), I'd be very confused. 12 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| BobbyE Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5028 days ago 226 posts - 331 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin | Message 8 of 28 24 July 2010 at 7:40pm | IP Logged | ||
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When I was studying Mandarin, my words and word order would stay the same but my friend could not understand me until I told him in English my intention and he corrected my tones. After my tones were right, I was understood.
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