Time it takes to pronounce understandable tones

[Borodin]

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[manuelsp]

I'm still learning myself but I think there are two things you should be aware of:

- The tones are not fixed, they can be altered in spoken mandarin for the purpose of facilitating speech - take ni3hao3 (formally third tone for both words) which is actually spoken ni2hao3 (easier to speak). You can find the rules crawling the web

- There is a certain "rythm" in spoken mandarin, so set characters are spoken together in a way that the meaning would not be lost to the listener... I'm still trying to figure out this point

Don't know if this made some sense though

[Borodin]

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[querido]

Borodin, what is your current level in listening comprehension? 

 

The things you ask about happen automatically in every language.

I wouldn't think of it as saving time, although it does. To me, economizing on muscular effort is the key thing happening.

You can study some of this - the parts that can be explained and learned economically enough, like those that manualsp mentioned - but most of it is probably not codified digestibly enough (linguistics, speech physiology, etc).

 

"How do you tackle this?"

Select graduated materials at a lower level and build up from there. Apparent (muscular) ease in speaking, and hopefully then in listening to others doing the same, should appear along with and as a part of "fluency". I advise you not to try to analyse this too much. 

 

I empathize and sympathize with you fully. Good luck. :-)

[Borodin]

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[querido]

I will certainly make a note of your expertise. Good luck. :-)

[Borodin]

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[ZhangJiang]

AFAIK, the tones are pronounced differently in individual characters and compound words. There seems to be a strong form and week form of each tone, and tones affect each other in sequence. So a practical way to learn them is to learn them in pairs or even triplets. Maybe after a good grasp of all the possible tone pairs(11, 12, 13, 14, 21...), things would become easier. And also the 5th tone, as the "的"in "伦敦的".

Hope it helps.

[manuelsp]

Maybe this article can help also:

http://www.hackingchinese.com/focusing-on-tone-pairs-to-improve-your-mandarin-pronunciation/

It focuses in tone pair drills, way different from what I'm currently learning in "individual word" tones

[OneEye]

The tones should be pronounced as native speakers (especially those regarded by others as being articulate speakers) pronounce them, not how textbooks for foreigners say to pronounce them. To way to improve your pronunciation is to listen to and imitate such speakers. The way to improve your listening is to keep listening. Pick one thing, listen to it, look up words you don't know, then repeatedly listen until you can understand the whole thing with little effort. Wash, repeat. Isolated tone drills with one, two, three character words or more are also good, but nothing beats intensive and extensive listening, shadowing, mimicking, etc.

[Ruben von Zwack]

I think that when you have a recording of spoken Mandarin and play it on slow speed (as some programmes enable you to do), you will find that the tones are all there.

Of course there are many factors that influence how clearly a word will be pronounced. But in short, from my perspective: no, the tones are pronounced and not neglected. And I think the Chinese do like to speak in short or incomplete sentences.

[querido]

To the last few posters: Native pronunciation (but I'm really thinking about enunciation), and how it differs from textbook putonghua, seems to me to be an overwhelmingly bigger problem than tone sandhi and other changes to tones caused by speaking quickly. So while the original poster asked about tones, I answered the bigger question that I inferred from the his description of "one big mess of noises": when I was a beginner I probably asked about tone changes too rather than this bigger problem because I was not aware of it. Well, I'm painfully aware of it now.

 

For example, for a measure of the relative importance, Ruben von Zwack opined that "the tones are pronounced and not neglected". I wonder if she would agree that pronunciation (but especially enunciation) is widely neglected (relative to textbook putonghua).

 

To me the original poster was asking a question of relatively minor importance, without realizing it. 

[Lanchong]

Is it possible that Mandarin speakers extensively make use of the context of that which is being said? If that is the case, then it would be logical to try and speak in as complete as possible sentences in order to be better understood, rather than using single words or concepts (missing the right tone could be "disastrous" in such a case).

I'm not sure that's right. Actually, it's logical to use common sentence patterns and common chunks of language. In many situations, there is a 'natural' way to say something. The more predictable a word/phrase/chunk, the faster you can say it. A complete sentence isn't necessarily more predictable - it's often the opposite.

On the topic of tones, this article is a good read: http://www.sinosplice.com/life/archives/2008/12/10/toward-better-tones-in-natural-speech

The gist is that, in any sentence, certain words - the important words - are stressed. The tones of stressed words are what matter most. Some other words have some hint of their tone. And the least important words (in the link, words like 来, 和） lose their tone.

To instinctively understand all that unstressed material is, you need a huge wad of exposure.

[Lanchong]

I think that when you have a recording of spoken Mandarin and play it on slow speed (as some programmes enable you to do), you will find that the tones are all there.

Have a look at the sinosplice link in my last post. When the tone analysis is done, it turns out that the tones are not all there.

[querido]

"you need a huge wad of exposure"

 

Right! And it needs to be comprehensible. That's why I'm sure that the original poster should start at a lower level than TV. Links and reviews of vast quantities of materials at a lower level can be found in the "Resources for Studying Chinese" subforum.

[Ruben von Zwack]

Yes I absolutely agree. I was just trying to be brief.

You both, Lanchong and Querido, make excellent points there. I cannot comment on that Sinosplice article, haven't had the time to read it yet. I shall do so later tonight!

[Shelley]

Interesting , the OP has removed all his posts from all the topics he was in. Didn't know you could do that. Thinking about it though I suppose it is just editing.

 

I think tones is the most difficult part of learning Chinese, but the way I deal with it is I don't think of the tone and pronunciation as separate. I learn them both together. When there tone changes for what ever reason it usually is because it is a 2 or 3 character word and then I learn it as one thing again incorporating the tone as part of the pronunciation.

[abcdefg]

How strange that the OP disappeared and took all his posted content with him. What frightened him away? Psychopathology comes in many flavors.

 

Edit: Do not mean to give offense. Let's make that "Odd behavior comes in many flavors."

[querido]

Without any doubt, he will lose a lot.

Periodically, I feel a strong urge to "clean house", to flush my mind and try to start over. I do it too, trashing flashcard collections, etc. I have logged out of this forum and deleted the link a few times. It's always a mistake. 

 

Never can quite forget the address. <3

[Basil]

Borodin,

 

I imagine you are still there, lurking, feeling a bit silly.

 

There's lots of different kinds of people on this forum. We are all very interested, for different reasons, in learning Chinese. There's a lot of resources and resourceful people here who can offer advice, or find solutions together.

 

I've heard there are some experts now who tell people that they have diagnosed with stuff like autism, that they should announce their particular diagnosis to any group the asap, so that strangers know how to behave. This is misguided for two reasons, firstly, strangers rarely understand or know how to use this extra information. I certainly do not. The second is that, places like here, we simply do not care. Either you want to improve your Chinese or you do not.

 

Nothing else matters.

 

Have a look at this thread:

 

http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/19910-post-a-sample-of-your-pronunciation-here/page-17

 

You can download my recording.

 

In answer to your question, if you listen, you can see I speak relatively quickly but get some of the tones wrong. I am a learner. So it is possible to speak quicker and still get the tones right.

 

 

My advice is to forget about this thread, do that recording and upload it below my one. If listeners are good enough to help, I am sure they will.