More Advice for Learning Chinese: Possibly Controversial

[Nathan Mao]

This article (if you ignore the politics), makes a pretty good argument that when I say "tones are overrated", I'm confusing endpoint with shortcut.

I know someone (renzhe, I think) made a very similar point, and it was semi-persuasive, but this article was just worded the right way to really hit the point home for me.

 

I'm still glad we had the discussion, but I withdraw the point.

[renzhe]

Yeah, I'd say that if you get mistaken for a native speaker, then your tones have to be all right.

But it is a fascinating topic, I don't think that there's a "right", "proper", "efficient" way to learn them. They are a bit of an orphan of Chinese language teaching -- tacked on as an afterthought because nobody really has a good system for learning them, and usually swept under the rug soon afterwards when the teachers give up, so nobody really learns them. It tends to click for really experienced long-time learners without ever understanding why, yet it is not automatic for everyone -- many people spend decades with awful tones without ever making progress.

It would be cool to hear about innovative magic methods for tones, like we have for characters and listening. And no, colours, orchestra conducting, gentle giants and Gwoyeu Romatzyh have never really mustered the sort of following that Heisig has, or Benny or Katzumoto...

[abcdefg]

In #25 OneEye said:

 

I'd argue that tones are more important than initials and finals... But my Taiwanese friends can have conversations without actually pronouncing anything but the tones. Mouth full of food? No problem. And they're surprised that I don't understand.

I find this to be true over and over and over here in Kunming.

[anonymoose]

In terms of informative value, the relative ranking in Mandarin is finals > initials > tones.

 

This may of interest academically, but it is of little practical value.

 

This is like ranking oxygen > water > food in terms of importance to sustain life. You can survive for longer without food than you can without oxygen, but in the end you still need all three.

[陳德聰]

For the nth time, no one is saying to dispense with tones.

[Ruben von Zwack]

I don't think these discussions are academic only. A lot of people struggle with those initials like q, x, zh or, worst case, I've even seen people who don't bother to distinguish between sh and x.