Tones

[Sam Addington]

For four years I studied Chinese at a university in the States. I foolishly arrived in Taipei thinking I could just get on a bus and find a hotel. In those days the airport was just to the northeast of the Taipei train station. The bus signs were little round things with lots of Chinese characters written on them. Since I knew nothing of Taipei, I could not read a single thing.

For four years of university I struggled with tones. To me it was pure numerical nightmare. A year and a half after my arrival in Taipei I entered a graduate program in the US. To my amazement I knew the tone of almost any word I tried to pinpoint. Never once in my year and a half in residence did I purposefully set out to learn tones.

Thirty years later people complement me on my fine Chinese. The longer I converse with them however, the more they realize my shortcomings. Sometimes I pronounce the tone totally wrong. I think it is because I have almost zero contact with spoken Chinese.

To this day I cringe at the northern dialects (I use the term losely to refer to the highly retroflexed Beijinghua.) I refuse to fall into the trap of having to speak like a native of Beijing. I also will never be a television announcer. I guess even the television announcers need to have training on the correct usage of tones. And yet this is all very artificial.

I have no proposal for the learning of tones. I would imagine listening to entire sentences would be the best way. However, as hard as I try, I have not found a good way to teach my Japanese students of English the strange art of intonation (Great Lakes Region intonation to be sure!)

[renzhe]

To this day I cringe at the northern dialects (I use the term losely to refer to the highly retroflexed Beijinghua.) I refuse to fall into the trap of having to speak like a native of Beijing. I also will never be a television announcer. I guess even the television announcers need to have training on the correct usage of tones. And yet this is all very artificial.

What's wrong with the tones in northern dialects?

Are you referring to the use of the neutral tone here? Or the "er"?

[Sam Addington]

Nothing is "wrong" with them ... it is just that it isn MY dialect.

If I started saying the British to-mah-to instead of the American to-may-to I'd be run out of town on a rail.

[kdavid]

We foreigners have so many other barriers in mastering Chinese. We can't afford to not learn correct tones.

Learning that "northern dialect“, also known as the "correct" way of speaking standard Mandarin, is the only way that you're going to come close to guaranteeing that people understand you.

That's why it's important to drill pronunciation from the start. I know a few people who didn't bother learning tones in the beginning, and now, years later, they're paying for it. They're bad habits have been cemented and their pretty much stuck with the 洋腔洋调。

I still to this day don't understand why someone who want to learn a non-standard accent of Mandarin (i.e. Taiwanese). I listened to a podcast on Chinesepod recently that showcased an interview with a Taiwanese and it made my blood itch.

[skylee]

I still to this day don't understand why someone who want to learn a non-standard accent of Mandarin (i.e. Taiwanese).

Because over 20 million people in Taiwan speak the language with a Taiwan accent?

And I think Taiwanese is not the same as the mandarin (aka guoyu) spoken in Taiwan.

[Sam Addington]

Gee, I didn't mean to start a flame war here. I apologize for my use of the word "cringe." And I'm sorry to hear the Taiwanese accent of standard Chinese makes you itch.

Please review the history of the development of the standard Chinese dialect. Although it was based on the Beijing dialect, certain characteristics of the Beijing dialect, such as the heavy use of "er" were not taken into the standard because of the difficulty it would cause for the rest of China. The ideal was to have the entire nation speaking the same language.

I think you overstate the handicap we foreigners have at learning Chinese. I learned Mandarin in Taiwan in 1978 before it was common for Westerners to visit the mainland. In 1980 I spent a year in Guangxi where my Mandarin served me very well. The capital, Nanning was largely a Mandarin speaking area because the capital of Guangxi moved from Guilin to Nanning at one time. My Mandarin also served me well in Beijing where I encountered the respect of many just because I was an enthusiastic speaker of Chinese. I even reached the point were I had a wonderful conversation with a taxi driver in Hong Kong. Somehow, I was able to grasp some of his Cantonese and he my Mandarin. He spoke no Mandarin whatsoever.

The purpose of my original message was to suggest not placing undue concern over learning tones. Indeed they are important, but they CAN be learned naturally. Some have a better ear than others. I wouldn't waste my energy worrying about the impression I made on others. Attitude is 99% in my opinion.

[imron]

They're bad habits have been cemented and their pretty much stuck with...

A similar thing happens in English with spelling

I listened to a podcast on Chinesepod recently that showcased an interview with a Taiwanese and it made my blood itch.

Does it make your blood itch if you hear someone speaking English with an Australian accent, or a Scottish accent? Is it really so bad if a large variety of accents also exist in Mandarin?

Don't get me wrong, I also think it's important to drill pronunciation from the start, but I also don't see a problem with people adopting an accent similar to the people around them.

[sandeehoo]

Dear Kdavid,

Learning that "northern dialect“, also known as the "correct" way of speaking standard Mandarin

1) what makes a certain tone/pronunciation 'correct'? Beijing retroflex 'er' is native to the Northern region of China, like you said, and is not common throughout the whole of China. Hence, who officially classified the Beijing retroflex 'er' tone as 'the correct way' ?!?!

Learning that "northern dialect“....is the only way that you're going to come close to guaranteeing that people understand you

2) The situation will probably be more like, only the Northern people will understand you. I personally find the heavy Beijing accent very difficult to understand and adding the 'er' to many words seems completely unnecessary (feel free to back me up on this, anyone) Whereas if you speak with less 'ers' and with a flatter tone, people in Beijing will still understand you and more importantly those outside of Beijing will also understand you.

I still to this day don't understand why someone who want to learn a non-standard accent of Mandarin (i.e. Taiwanese)

3) I personally adore the Taiwanese accent. I find it very easy and soft on the ear as opposed to the heavy Beijing will-give-you-tongue-spasm accent. Every region has their own accents and China is a prime example of this considering it has countless different tribal dialects. To say one dialect is more 'correct' than another seems unfair. Even when speaking in English, for example the American accent, British, Australian, South-African accents are all rather different. You might as well be saying that the American accent is the 'correct' English accent and every other ones are just plainly wrong!

[renzhe]

I'm pretty sure that kdavid was referring to the northern pronunciation of "zh", "ch", "q", "x", etc. (which is indeed standard putonghua, at least in the mainland), and not to the excessive use of "-er" and swallowing of finals (which is not standard putonghua).

Nobody will find it more difficult to understand you if you pronounce "zh", "ch", "q", "x" and "sh" as separate sounds. People WILL find it more difficult to understand you if you mix "zh" and "z", "sh" and "s", etc.

But I don't see how any of this relates to tones. The only major difference in tones between Taiwanese Mandarin and mainland putonghua that I'm aware of is the relative absence of neutral tone in Taiwan. But then again, I'm a n00b, so what do I know?

[roddy]

The purpose of my original message was to suggest not placing undue concern over learning tones. Indeed they are important, but they CAN be learned naturally. Some have a better ear than others.

It might be possible to learn them 'naturally' for some, but unless you are one of those lucky few you're liable to end up in the situation kdavid describes:

I know a few people who didn't bother learning tones in the beginning, and now, years later, they're paying for it. They're bad habits have been cemented and their pretty much stuck with the 洋腔洋调。

That's pretty much me. I'm working on it, but I wish I didn't have to.

[kdavid]

Quote:

They're bad habits have been cemented and their pretty much stuck with...

A similar thing happens in English with spelling

Hahaha. I completely missed that. Shame on me.

I'm pretty sure that kdavid was referring to the northern pronunciation of "zh", "ch", "q", "x", etc. (which is indeed standard putonghua, at least in the mainland), and not to the excessive use of "-er" and swallowing of finals (which is not standard putonghua).

This is what I was referring to. I, also, have a difficult time with the heavy "er" accent on occasion.

Because over 20 million people in Taiwan speak the language with a Taiwan accent?

Point taken. However, more than 10 x's that speak standard Mandarin.

And I think Taiwanese is not the same as the mandarin (aka guoyu) spoken in Taiwan.

I think you're right here. Some of my students last night, in fact, pointed out that Mandarin and Guoyu are not the same.

Here is where I think I believe that your learning strategies should be centered around your goals. If, for example, you plan on doing business with Taiwanese, living in Taiwan, etc., and have little professional dealings with the mainland, then learning the Taiwanese accent / dialect is great. There's nothing wrong with that. However, if you're going to be dealing with a wide variety of Chinese from all over China, then you absolutely must learn standard 东北 Mandarin.

Does it make your blood itch if you hear someone speaking English with an Australian accent, or a Scottish accent? Is it really so bad if a large variety of accents also exist in Mandarin?

Have you seen the film "Snatch"? You know Brad Pitt's character, the pikey. You remember how he spoke? I think Taiwanese is similar. However, that's just my opinion. I find 四川话 the same.

what makes a certain tone/pronunciation 'correct'?

We can't really say that one accent is "correct". This is why I enclosed the word in quotation marks.

I also don't see a problem with people adopting an accent similar to the people around them.

I completely agree. I think this is a good sign of a good language learner. Again, one should see my above comment on priorities, though, before deciding if adopting an accent that many mainlanders fine difficult to understand is worth many years of their time.

[imron]

Actually, the Chinese do have a concept of which accent is correct, see for example the 普通话测试. In order to be eligible for certain jobs (teachers, broadcasters etc), you need to have obtained a certain level on this test. It's also worth realising that with regards to standard Mandarin, the Beijing accent is not considered standard, but also that there are some words that are supposed to use er hua.

Personally though, I like the variety of accents, including the pikeys in Snatch and the Sichuanese If you only expose yourself to one kind of accent then you'll have more difficulty communicating and understanding people from other places in China.

[yf_chen]

Certain dialects give me the creeps. But after you get used to them, you can get along with them.

[heifeng]

Actually, the Chinese do have a concept of which accent is correct, see for example the 普通话测试. In order to be eligible for certain jobs (teachers, broadcasters etc), you need to have obtained a certain level on this test. It's also worth realising that with regards to standard Mandarin, the Beijing accent is not considered standard, but also that there are some words that are supposed to use er hua.

precisely. I personally love all chinese accents since I have been exposed to enough of both northern and southern accents. Yet while I can imitate the accent to a certain extent, but at the root of my chinese skills I would at least expect myself to know and be able to speak the most standard mandarin I could for the whole purpose of making it easier for others to understand me. If I go to taiwan or back to the US even I just cut out the er hua and when I'm in the north of China and I don't let myself get to lazy with the zh, ch, shi like I use too when I lived with taiwanese friends.

however, 言归正传, I think that if people have the tones correct, it is just as important as the initial and final of a syllable...so whether or not you to avoid the beijing accent the tone is just as important as any other aspect of the word. I would fall into the exact region you talk about (well maybe with a more inner city slurred way of speaking rather than a midwestern accent) and have difficulty with tones but to be honest this was just a result of my own laziness and pushing for vocab and reading skills over pronunciation when I was in school....

if you really want your students to hear the tones you have to stress quality over quantity and let them spend time analyzing a standard way of speaking, but maybe this requires that they know where to look. If the near-beijing way of speaking is rejected by the instructer, then I don't know what to say....;

A similar thing happens in English with spelling

yeah, but I blame spellcheck too

[Lu]

Because over 20 million people in Taiwan speak the language with a Taiwan accent?

Point taken. However, more than 10 x's that speak standard Mandarin.

First, there are two standards of Mandarin, and the standard on Taiwan is slightly different from the one on the Mainland. Second, I believe most Dongbei people have as much of an accent as many Taiwanese (mixing up retroflexes, r becomes y, little difference between yin and yan, to name a few). While I do feel that saying 'sese' instead of 'xiexie' is taking it a bit too far, cutting out the heavy nothern retroflexes and dropping the erhua while in Taiwan is in my opinion only sensible. If you're a foreigner who moves to the US after studying English in Liverpool, wouldn't you try to mimic the accent around you, rather than sticking with what you learned?

I know a guy here who studied in Beijing for the past two years or so, and thus naturally has a Beijing accent. Speaking Chinese with him just feels weird, for that reason.

In English I have arrived at an accent of my own, it's British-leaning with some Dutch 腔, but not too much of anything. Ideally I would find something like that in Chinese, an accent that I'm comfortable with on both sides of the strait and in both north and south China. Until that time, I'll try to speak what's spoken around me, instead of sticking to the accent of some place faraway.

[xxl_male]

The concept of minimal pairs is central to understanding why tones exist in Chinese. Minimal pairs are syllables (or monosyllable words) that differ by only one feature. Examples: bad and bat, bet and bed In this case the final consonant is what differentiates the pairs. Since Chinese phonemes never end with a consonant, the Chinese language would run out of differentiating features if it were not for tones. In other words, where in English minimal pairs will differ by their final consonant, in Chinese they will differ by their different tones. (Incidentally, Chinese speakers have problems pronouncing English because many words in English end up with a consonant. This is why Chinese people will pronounce "bat" and "bet" like "baa" and "bee".).

A corollary of this is that you need to get the tone right to differentiate minimal pairs (typically one-charater words) in Chinese. With two-character words you may get away with getting one of the tones wrong, provided the second tone is right. The more characters in a given word, the more your can afford to get one of the tone wrong. This is only from a phonetical point of view: in practice context (= meaning) will act as a crude phonetical "spellchecker" provided your listener is not dumb and makes allowances.

As to what kind of Chinese (Taiwan, Southern, Northern ...) you choose as a model, it shouldn't matter as long as it is native Chinese. It also pays to be consistent, ie once a model is chosen, stick with it. This is not always possible if you move to another part of the country or marry someone from there.

[酷勁學長]

I am going to recommend an app for getting used to set up the category of Chinese tones:

you can download from here:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=tw.edu.ntnu.tcsl.ctl&hl=en_US&gl=US

it provides a lot of audio clips for you to test whether you can categorize the correct tones or not.

and this video explains how and why it works:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFJQUVldisQ&lc=Ugw2seH2f_5-evGiwsh4AaABAg

hope you enjoy your trip of learning Chinese tones.