tone 1+ 2 vs tone 1+3?

[Xu Jun]

Hey everyone,

I have a question about tone 1+2. I think i have trouble speaking that ...like.. 中国 is zhong1guo2.... how do you speak it fast? Zhong is already at highest flat pitch. Then you speak guo2. You cannot raise the tone any higher. You have to make a drop to mid-tone and go up again? ....

and that sounds like 1+ 3 ...

when speaking the 3rd tone, you must drop and rise up.... I know from the tone pictures, you have drop to the lowest pitch level, while 2nd tone starts at mid level, but can you really see the difference? Plus, the 3rd tone drops down QUICK so...

so it just all practice =/ ?

Thanks!

[renzhe]

Zhong is already at highest flat pitch. Then you speak guo2. You cannot raise the tone any higher. You have to make a drop to mid-tone and go up again? ....

Yes.

and that sounds like 1+ 3 ...

Not really. Listen to the pronunciation samples at www.nciku.com:

http://www.nciku.com/search/zh/detail/中国/1319781

http://www.nciku.com/search/zh/detail/终点/1319813

when speaking the 3rd tone, you must drop and rise up....

Usually you don't. This is the full, proper, canonical version of the third tone, used when reading a single character, or when a character is at the end of an utterance, or when it is particularly stressed.

In most cases during fluent speech, the third tone is a short low tone without any noticable dipping or rising characteristics.

I think that you are looking at diagrams a bit too much. They are useful to get the idea, but you MUST listen to native speakers pronounce tones. You must listen to it a lot, as single characters, as words, and within complete sentences. Theory is all good and fine, but there is a way certain tone combinations SOUND, and you must hear that sound and replicate it. The diagrams are just a tool.

[aristotle1990]

renzhe is right. You might want to have a look at this.

[Glenn]

That article's great. I'm really interested in how only focusing on the tones of stressed words/syllables works or will work as a pedagogical tool. It seems to mostly fall in line with my experience from listening and reading along with speech, particularly fast speech.

[abcdefg]

Meaty article and good thread. I extracted the original if anyone wants more: http://chinalinks.osu.edu/naccl-20/proceedings/05_liao-r.pdf

This whole business is what I was trying to get at some time ago in another post. If you only think about the tones of individual syllables, you will be lost in daily conversation. Much, much more is required to communicate effectively.