Struggling with the second tone

[Demonic_Duck]

I'm not sure who you're referring to as "wedded to the traditional chart-based representation of isolated tones". I don't think anyone has expressed that opinion in this thread.

Also, no matter how knowledgeable the person who allegedly gave the advice, it's bad advice and will certainly not help learners produce "natural-sounding" tones.

[Guest realmayo]

"the person who allegedly gave the advice"

 

Classy.

 

it's bad advice and will certainly not help

 

You are so cast-iron certain, it's sad.

 

 

The little piece of advice I passed on is not a re-writing of the manual. It's: if the tone isn't coming out right, try this and maybe it will lead to an improvement. It isn't 'the-right-way-to-make-a-second-tone-and-everyone-else-is-doing-it-wrong'. It's just a way to get on the right track.

 

There should be no "leveling off" at the end of 2nd tones

 

Take a look at Praat for qiang2 and mang2 and think again (although I'm certainly not saying for one second that they *must* be pronounced like this):

 

[Flickserve]

Thanks everyobody for your answers, here's a very short recordings of my tones:

https://soundcloud.com/mu-andeli/tones

please tell me what you think

Apart from the 2nd tone, which has been well covered by the others, I think your fourth tone can be improved. A while back, a language partner was analysing a sentence of mine trying to work out why my speech didn't sound so natural. After experimenting a bit, I eventually worked out that if I said the fourth tone a bit louder with a shorter duration, she got happier with my speech sounding a bit more natural. It's something you may want to experiment with.