Listening for Tones

[Steingletscher]

I realized a few weeks ago that I recognize what people are saying based on the pinyin combinations that people say and not actually to the tones. I can recognize the tones when said in isolation; but when people start speaking all notions of the tones goes out of my head and I listen only for the vowels and consonants. The fact that I live in 成都 doesn't matter as I still have this problem in class and when watching TV. I find it especially hard to identify characters that are not said in combinations (verbs for example). If someone read my textbook aloud to me, I would be able to understand it just fine. But pick up an kid's book and read it aloud then I would be completely lost, regardless of the fact that I read it with no problem.

I don't think it will be easy to make the leap, but it has to be done, especially once when I reach higher levels where I start encountering identical pinyin combinations, but with different tones. Or perhaps such an ability will happen naturally as I slowly increase my vocabulary and become familiar of what the identical pinyin combinations and thus know how they sound different. I can't help but think of an example in English with the stresses and long and short vowels. Take 'record' as a verb, and 'record' as a noun. Lots of Chinese people confuse these two. I think the only way to be able to tell the difference is by hearing them side-by-side at first and then encountering them over time (its how to internalize the difference that can be debated)--not only with the combinations, but also when things tend to occur in combinations and when they don't. Is this true?

Tones sometimes change across accents, and I'm wondering how for those people who can identify the tones in 普通話 when spoken at the speed on TV cope with the changes. Are you able to tell how the tones are different and be able to adapt to them much more easily? Or should I ask this "Accents are killing me..." thread?

It will probably be a good many years before I have a large enough vocabulary to know in spoken language if such a thing exists or if someone is just speaking gibberish or when such a character is being used in an odd or unique way. The fact that only so many sounds can occur in Chinese made it seem like it made learning the language easier, but now I'm realizing how much more difficult it is making the language. This is why the characters feel like the easiest part of the language (though I wonder if Chinese people, in regards to the written language, when encountering any language with an alphabet for the first time, had the same thought that I have).

[Steingletscher]

Perhaps the best way is to combine reading and listening by having someone read aloud to me before I go to bed at night. I need to get a Chinese girlfriend.

[roddy]

That sounds a lot more like a Chinese father.

I wouldn't worry about it too much. I don't think you do get that much more potential ambiguity at higher levels.

[Guest realmayo]

I understand the concern, but also reckon in practice you needn't worry too much, generally it's something you pick up better the better you get. But to speed the process it shouldn't be too hard to find or make some mp3s to work on your ability to discriminate same-'sound'-different-tones combinations. Could try these: http://www.sinosplice.com/learn-chinese/tone-pair-drills

But I suspect that, if you focus a lot on listening to material that you understand reasonably well, you'll also be doing a lot of subconscious reinforcing of your ability to hear tones. I mean: if you already know that 吃饭 is chi1fan4, every time you hear it you are reminding your brain what the 1+4 combination sounds like.

Also (even more speculative here) if you later learn that 米饭 is mi3fan4, well whenever you hear it your brain will also be reminded of the difference between 1+4 (吃饭) and 3+4.

So: the ability should come naturally. But if I had my time over again I'd consider spending a lot of time on exercises specifically designed to improve by ability to discriminate the tones when listening. Though it's possible that simply spending a lot of time listening to appropriate-level material would achieve almost the same thing, while also improving general listening ability more.