Second tone trouble

[Melanie1989]

Hey again,

 

Random question probably, but does (or did) anyone else have trouble with the 2nd tone in Mandarin at all? I can manage pronouncing and recognising first, third and fourth tones easily, but i seem to have trouble with the second tone. Sometimes when i'm listening to native Chinese speaking and i know they're using the second tone, it still sounds like a fourth tone. Occasionally when using online tests i mistake 2nd for 4th. 

 

Also i seem to really struggle with pronouncing it too, the only exception being in 国 for some reason. It usually sounds like anyone of the three other tones. I can sometimes manage to say it really slowly but of course that's not great for sentences, especially. Does anybody else have this trouble?

 

I have heard of people having trouble with third and 4th tones before, but i seem to be the only person that struggles with second. This is very annoying. Kinda funny, but mostly annoying.

 

Can anyone recommend anything please? I listen to plenty of Chinese tv and videos specifically for tones but i just can't get it. Thanks! :-*

[simpleasy]

I remember the second tone to be the most difficult for me as well. Although I usually confused it with the third tone, only occasionally with the fourth. 

 

The way I remembered it is thinking of the second tone as asking a question. 

Just use some small question words in your native language as a reference. For example, say "why?" or "how?". (In a normal way, like you're generally interested in how or why something is done, not in the surprised way). This comes very close to an actual second tone.

Pronouncing 来 for example, will be very easy since it's almost exactly the same as the English "why?".

 

I remembered the fourth tone as saying 'no!'. Short, definitive, etc. 

Usually tones are not pronounced this clearly though, so I can see why it's still difficult to recognize.

 

When pronouncing though, it's better to pronounce it 'over the top' (up to the point where it sounds ridiculous). Many people feel more comfortable speaking without using tones when they first start out, because they feel like it sounds funny and embarrassing when they do. If you pronounce every tone very clearly, it might not sound 'natural', but it will help you get comfortable using tones, and you will be more easily understood.

 

As for recognizing: This only comes with practice. I don't think Chinese TV will help recognize tones at this stage though. Practice recognizing them in isolation first, then move on to two syllables. I have noticed that native Chinese will often 'swallow' some tones when speaking fast. Television will definitely help once you can easily see the difference between all four tones in isolation.

[imron]

The other thing to realise is that the second tone starts slightly higher than a third tone, which can also help with recognition once you pay attention to that.

[hedwards]

Try taking a look at this: http://www.sinosplice.com/life/archives/2008/01/21/seeing-the-tones-of-mandarin-chinese-with-praat . I pull it out from time to time when I want to work on my listening skills.  The only really hard thing is trying to find a good source of files that accurately reflect the dialect of Chinese you're looking for. I've found that even within Mandarin that there can be a rather substantial amount of variation in how it's spoken depending upon where you are.

[tysond]

I have a Windows Phone app called Tip Tap Tones that tests on tones.  I consistently score lower on 2nd tone than anything else (basically, the others I am 99% correct on but 2nd tone is only 90%).  You are not the only person finding 2nd tone hard.  I will usually confuse it with 3rd tone (but I won't generally confuse 3rd tone with 2nd).

 

Producing the tone for me is not as hard as identifying it correctly.  I suspect the reason you can do 国 is because it's soooooo high frequency in textbooks and so on. 人 is another super common second tone.

 

I have a wonderful aural memory about 人.  I got into a taxi outside my apartment.  A minute later someone frantically started waving down the driver trying to catch the same taxi.  The driver stuck his huge head out the window and bellowed a long slow  "有人!" with crystal clear tones.   

 

I don't know how this helps you but I just like the story.

[Meng Lelan]

Tip Tap Tones? That's new to me. Mentally jotting this down for future reference.

 

I have a wonderful aural memory about 人.  I got into a taxi outside my apartment.  A minute later someone frantically started waving down the driver trying to catch the same taxi.  The driver stuck his huge head out the window and bellowed a long slow  "有人!" with crystal clear tones.   

 

 

Can you tape it for us?

 

I have an aural memory of 人 ...back in the early 1980s when I would be sitting around and a tyke on the back of a bike would always point at me and solemnly intone外国人while mommy pedaled onward as if this was an ordinary act. 

[lakers4sho]

Tone deafness might have something to do with this.

lakers4sho

[imron]

Unlikely if they can already distinguish the other tones.

[hedwards]

Chances are that tone deafness would show up in every day living. Such as having people getting upset for no reason. The tones in Mandarin aren't quite the same as the ones in English, but they should be close enough to get an inkling with training.

 

I've noticed that my sense of tone has dramatically increased in the time I've been studying Mandarin. I could already hear those tones previously, they just weren't something that I paid attention to consciously. I suspect that with a bit of drilling and analysis that the OP will be able to develop a higher level of awareness. I know I did.

[Melanie1989]

Thanks for everyone's help again.

 

I did suspect i was a little tone deaf, just cos i find it so hard but, as some said, it would show up more often. The other tones are a breeze for me, thankfully. I'm so relieved it's not just me that has trouble with 2nd tone. I will take a look at the sinosplice link, but i don't have a phone that can get apps (i am surprisingly technologically inept for a 24year old). 

 

Simpleasy -that is a good idea for remembering tones. I started off doing the same thing while getting familiar with them. The only trouble is i seem to use a third tone for questions like "why" and "how". Must be the funny accent!

 

Thanks again, i will practice more. I'm fairly certain too that i have a few ebooks on tones. It will not help as much as an audio, i'm sure, but maybe they will help too. 

[roddy]

Do you like music? Any music? Then you're not tone deaf, you're just tone inexperienced. 

 

If you haven't already, this'd be a great time to look at tools like Audacity for homing in on particular sounds both in your own speech and in, eg, textbook audio. And you could consider uploading a recording, then people can hear what, if anything, the problem is. 

[Melanie1989]

Yeah, music was the main reassurance for me. I remembered i used to have singing and guitar lessons and it was a breeze. Except, you know, the lack of talent.

I will consider uploading a recording and definitely look at the links. Thanks!

[Melanie1989]

Considering uploading a video of myself and the second tone. In the mean time, here is a video i just found concentrating on 2nd (and 3rd) tone drill. If you need help like me, this might be useful (i haven't watched the whole video yet but the channel is usually pretty good), but you may also see what my problem is. To me, i know she's talking in 2nd tone, but it sounds like fourth to me. I know fourth is usually sharper (and of course, like shooting a bullet into the ground) but i still hear this as 4th tone and say it as either 3rd or 1st.

 

 

 http://youtu.be/ukmXZ1-1_as

[simpleasy]

Now that I see the video you referred to, I remember a student in my class who had a problem like you.
She could easily recognize tones when it was used in the same word, as in: Chā Chá Chǎ Chà 

But when given a random word, she almost always guessed fourth tone in syllables starting with a sharp sound, such as 'ch', 'c', 'z'

 

Maybe this is what confuses you too?

[Melanie1989]

Could be. Don't suppose you have an inspiring story of how she got over it and is now an amazing Mandarin translator?

[simpleasy]

I don't have a story like that, but I can make one up if that helps to encourage you. 

In all seriousness though, it did become much easier for her to recognize tones as soon as she figured out what exactly confused her. And even if you never figure out what exactly makes it difficult for you, it will become easy if you just practice enough.

[hedwards]

You might try taking a set of recordings of minimal pairs and putting them into Anki. I know that it supports multimedia files. Now that I think of it, I wonder if somebody has already done that.

 

Knowing what makes it difficult is probably counterproductive, you want to be looking for what makes it easy or easier. You always want to focus on what makes it easy whenever possible. The brain can give you hard if that's what you're focusing on, but many, many people can handle the tones without any thought, so there must be an easy way of doing it eventually. It just might take considerable time and practice to figure that out.

[simpleasy]

I guess that's personal preference then. I always like knowing what is hard for me so I can practice on that specifically. Pinpoint the problem, then fix it. 

[imron]

I know fourth is usually sharper (and of course, like shooting a bullet into the ground) but i still hear this as 4th tone and say it as either 3rd or 1st.

It sounds to me like you are associating other aspects of the sound as your markers for 4th tone vs 2nd tone and picking up on those markers instead of the tones, which is causing the problem.

 

What you need to do is pay more attention to the difference in pitch of the sound.  I would spend some time practising making slide whistle like up/down sounds with your voice.  Practice slowly going from very low to very high and very high to very low, then try it faster, and with different combinations of speed and pitch.

 

Record yourself with something like Audacity, to make sure that what you think you are sounding like and what you are actually sounding like match up - that is, when you think you are making a 'going up' sound you are actually making a 'going up' sound, and when you think you are making a 'going down' sound you are actually making a 'going down' sound.

 

As you are doing this, make a note of where your high range is, and a note of where your low range is.  A second tone should start a little more than half way between these two points and then go up to the high range.  Practice (and record) just making these sounds (again only the up down slide whistle noises, don't actually make a Chinese sound with it yet).

 

A fourth tone should start at the top of your high range and fall all the way to your low range.  Practice (and record) just making this sound for a while.  Compare and constrast how you make this sound with how you make the second tone sound.

 

Spend maybe 15-20mins doing this for a few days in a row.  After a few days, and once you can easily distinguish and produce different 2nd and 4th tone slide whistle sounds, then try saying various Chinese syllables while making your slide whistle sounds.

 

The aim of this is to make the slide whistle up/down sounds as your marker for the tones.  The more you practice this, the easier it will get and the easier it will be for you to distinguish between 2nd and 4th tones by pitch rather than by other factors such as "sharpness" or whatever.

[carlo]

I remember things eventually falling into place after realising that Mandarin second tone is almost like a first tone, but one that begins with a glide from a lower pitch. If you've ever studied musical notation, it's like a long, flat 1/2 note preceded by a grace note a step below. In other words, the final part of the syllable sounds essentially the same, it's only the onset that is different. By looking at it this way, not only it becomes impossible to confuse second and third tones, but you also become aware of circumstances in which your first tone sounds off because you're inadvertently "gliding" into it from below rather than starting straight at the target pitch. Cantonese has two sets of tone pairs that are in the same relationship (1-2 and 5-3) and I find this way of thinking about it very useful in practice.

 

On the other hand, analogies with non-tonal languages can be very misleading. The English tone for questions may help you say the tone in isolation, but won't help you much beyond that. In real, connected speech, you are juggling with both sentence-level intonation and with syllable-level tones, and if you start mixing those up, the outcome won't be pretty.