Using Yale (Gwoyeu Romatzyh) to get better at remembering tones?

[character]

Gwoyeu Romatzyh

Spelling in Gwoyeu Romatzyh

I've been wondering if a romanization which used letters (familiar to me) instead of numbers/letters with diacritics to represent tones might help me better memorize tones. Has anyone tried this after starting with Pinyin? Remembering tones remains a real sticking point, even after years of casual study.

[songlei]

my advice: use listening to get better at tones. i'm sure you are aware of the concept of tone sandhi (if not, this refers to the original tones changing depending on the tone that follows in the next syllable), this makes the whole thing a bit more complex. to add to this complexity, there are many exceptions when it comes to the sandhi, for example when the string of sandhi is interrupted because one noun phrase ends and another begins. in other words, it's good to be aware of some of the rules when it comes to tones, as well as how pinyin works, but apart from that, you really need to start listening to chunks of chinese in order to get the pronunciation right. just forget about what the sounds look like, and focus heavily on what the sounds sound like. of course, when you learn new words, you need to know what the original tones are in order to use them properly, but a true feeling for the tones only comes from hearing the language in action. i hope this works for you! good luck!

one more thing, what helps me to remember tones is to learn words not only using flashcards, but also though audio. you can cut small phrases out of the recordings that come with textbooks or podcasts, or you can record a list of vocabulary yourself. this way you drill the items twice, once visually, once aurally. this two-pronged approach really did miracles for me!

[aristotle1990]

According to this study, "GR [Gwoyeu Romatzyh] did not lead to significantly greater accuracy in tone production. Indeed, the use of GR reflected slightly lower rates of tonal production accuracy."

[Lu]

Note that Yale is not the same as Gwoyeu Romatzyh. GR was designed to include tones in spelling, Yale was designed as a more intuitive romanisation for English speakers.

[abcdefg]

Several years ago Lonely Planet brought out a Mandarin phrase book in which they introduced their own proprietary "intuitive Romanization" system as a guide to pronunciation of Chinese words and phrases. I think it was 2006. What a confusing mess that was.

I think you are better off sticking with Pinyin, and as @songlei said, use Pinyin just as a stepping stone to listening (and speaking) to really get better at remembering, recognizing, and producing proper tones.

[character]

Thanks for the replies. I downloaded the study aristotle1990 mentioned and will give it a look. I really think I need a method for remembering tones which doesn't depend on hearing them, so I thought this might help.

[anonymoose]

I think ultimately it comes with practise. Besides, I don't know what your goals with learning Chinese are, but if you want to become literate in Chinese, you're going to have to wean yourself off romanization all together sooner or later anyway.

[character]

I think ultimately it comes with practise.

I imagine it comes with practice for youngsters with average hearing. I'm older and my hearing isn't what it was.

Besides, I don't know what your goals with learning Chinese are, but if you want to become literate in Chinese, you're going to have to wean yourself off romanization all together sooner or later anyway.

I'm doing great on reading given the amount of time/effort I've put into it. Still dreadful at remembering tones. ;)

[anonymoose]

Since you've already got great reading, but just can't remember tones, then here's a solution for you. Use different colour pens to write out your characters. For example

1st tone: blue - high up and level like the sky

2nd tone: red - rising like flames

3rd tone: green - low and bumpy like a grassy valley

4th tone: purple - the colour of the bruises you get falling down abruptly

5th tone: grey - no specific colour

This should give you the tone information you need and is a strong visual memory aid, and you don't need to involve unnecessary romanization.

[roddy]

If anyone hasn't read this discussion they should. As for the actual question - I do suspect it might help, but I think the advantages are going to be quite marginal and maybe not worth the extra time.

Personally I think you need a two-pronged approach

1) Massive amounts of flashcard work to remember the things. Doesn't matter how good your pronunciation is, you can't say what you don't know.

2) Massive amounts of pronunciation work to ensure you're saying the tones correctly. That means the flashcard work will show results in your day-to-day communication, and that's massive positive feedback.

The theme here, as you'll see, is massive amounts of work.

[ironlady]

I would recommend adopting TOP (Tonally Orthographic Pinyin). This system provides a triple marking of tones: color-coding, diacritical marks like standard Hanyu Pinyin, and a system of capitals and small letters marking the tones. See http://www.albanylanguagelearning.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&id=40:the-top-romanization-system&Itemid=55&layout=default for a summary of the rules of TOP and its use.

The other thing that is useful is to use directional gestures for each new word. A directional gesture is a gesture that somehow represents the meaning of the word (this can be kind of loose, of course!) AND correctly reflects the tone(s) of the syllable(s). Every first-tone syllable is gestured at chest level or higher, and is level; second tones start at the navel level and move upward; third tones remain at the navel or below; fourth tones start at shoulder level and fall. For example, the gesture for "lǎoSHĪ" that I use when teaching is picking up an imaginary piece of chalk (at waist level) and then writing on the imaginary board (at eye level). The gesture has some of the semantic meaning of "teacher" and also illustrates the correct tones.

I find that the use of tonal spelling PLUS directional gestures is the most effective way both to get beginners to remember and perform tones correctly, and to jump-start tones in more advanced learners who have either ignored them in the past or just never quite "got" them. I work with non-native-speaking teachers of Chinese to improve their Mandarin and teaching skills as well as teaching "regular" students, and this combination of methods has worked well with both groups. This practice is probably most effective because it caters both to visual learners (and to three different types of visual cue) and to kinesthetic learners. Also, people tend to exaggerate the tones when using directional gestures, which is a good thing for teaching.

Full disclosure: both of these are my own innovations in Mandarin pedagogy, so I may be biased, but a survey of learners in an intensive Chinese course with no prior exposure to the language (article still in preparation) showed that the triple-markings were well-received, but that directional gestures were felt to be the most helpful in cementing the tones.

[GuoDongXing]

For what it's worth, I'm taking an intensive study course. We use pinyin, and were encouraged to use gestures to help retain tones. But in the end, were advised that it comes with practice practice practice.