Pinyin tone integration with characters

[tianjinpete]

Is there something sacrosanct about characters that would prevent the integration of pinyin tone markers (their numeric equivalents) as an aid to memorization? Has this been done? Or is it simply a poor idea?

谷3 歌1 拼1 音1 输1 入4 法3

[Numbers should have appeared in superscript]

[Hofmann]

Why not put the whole Pinyin on?

[zhwj]

It's been done. Lots of introductory language learning textbooks put pinyin-style tone markings over the characters.

[jiangping]

The simple reason that it's not done is because Chinese people don't need them I don't think there's anything "wrong" with adding the tone for learning purposes, but I don't think it particularly helps tones!

[FadedStardust]

Interestingly, when I bought "David and Helen in China" used from Amazon, one (I emphasize, only ONE) of the lessons had all of the characters with the tone marks over them. I suspect the previous owner thought it would make it easier to read but quickly gave up the idea.

Oddly, when I tried to read along with it, the added presence of the tone marks made it HARDER to read naturally and I ended up making more mistakes than I normally would reading straight characters because I was trying too hard to be 100% correct. I found this to be strange because I'm usually very good with tones (to the point of random Chinese people telling me I sound native).

Also, I suspect that if you start with reading with the tones, you may run the risk of becoming dependent on their presence and feel lost the first time you have to read something past the newbie level.

My personal recommendation is to just memorize what character uses what tone(s) where and learn to read naturally without them to save yourself some grief later on when you'd otherwise be weaning yourself off of them.

But of course, everyone learns differently, and if you're just planing on using tone marks on flashcards or something, more power to you! Good luck with your Chinese studies!!

[imron]

There's nothing sacrosanct about it, it's just damn annonying for people who don't need it - i.e. the vast majority of all people who can read Chinese. Considering most Chinese already know the pronunciation of a word (including its tone) before they learn the character, there is no real need to add something that only serves as a distraction.

[tianjinpete]

Arguing from what the vast majority of Chinese readers may know is a fallacy in numbers, and fails to impress ... But if true, a logical next step in the simplification of the characters is the reduction/elimination of the phonetic component, since that’s already known ... One advantage of an ancillary numeric system would be to reinforce visually certain patterns in tone sandhi, which native speakers cannot easily explain, and which non-native speakers often have difficulty mastering ... Pinyin and characters historically have been separated, preservation of the characters argues for a single, holistic system ...

[Artem]

But if true, a logical next step in the simplification of the characters is the reduction/elimination of the phonetic component, since that’s already known ...

That's what we tend to call a logical fallacy. It's not a logical next step at all. Just because you don't need the phonetic guide written all the time, doesn't mean it's never needed. It's not so cut and dry that we should either have it written 100% of the time, or never written. Chinese people use pinyin just as often as foreigners when looking up a word in the dictionary.

Why would you want to reenforce visually tone sandhi; tone sandhi in itself is a spoken thing. Once you become comfortable with the languages "it just makes sense." Some tone combinations will simply sound awkward to you. You can make a science out of it if you want, but it won't make making tone sandhi any easier. You only make science out of it if you are going to being a linguist, but the general population doesn't need to know the magic behind it.

Pinyin and characters have been seperated because that's how the language is. Pinyin is a phonetic guide, as in to help you look things up in the dictionary and know how to say it. Think about phonetic guides in English. You don't need it most of the time, but it's nice to have it when you are not sure about a word. (Example, as learner of English you learned the word science and then learned conscience, you might be tempted to say con-science without the proper use of phonetic guide. However, you don't need it there all the time after you looked it up once.)

Personally, as learner of chinese I find pinying written above characters (even just tones) extremely annoying and distructful. I end up just trying so hard to follow 100% pinyin that I don't actually get the full meaning of the sentence. Plus after awhile remembering the tones of words is not that hard, but making them in speach is still tough, and no tone marks will help with that.

But I digress, some early beginner books for learning Chinese in China use tonal marks above characters.

[imron]

The other thing to consider is that Chinese don't really think of tones as tones, but rather as complete sounds in their own right. e.g. 马 isn't the sound ma plus the third tone, it's mǎ and is as distinct from mā, má, and mà as it is from say nǎ or any other sound. Just like in English, when you see the words fit and feet, you don't think "oh, feet is just fit with a long vowel."

That being the case, for native speakers to implement such a system why choose to focus on tones and not some other part of speech such as initials or finals, which different regions tend to have more difficulty pronouncing (e.g. sh/s ch/c zh/z etc).