How did you initially learn to hear the four tones

[艾墨本]

Looking back at my own experience, teachers never touched on the listening aspect of tones, but always just dived right into how to create the tones yourself.

 

Personally, it wasn't until I really focused on hearing the difference that I could start making them myself. A grad student at my college had created software to train the listener to both hear and create, providing visual feedback in the form of graphs of what the tone looked like. My ability to hear the tones became conscious and as a result I was able to begin correcting my own tones.

 

1. Did anyone have a teacher that successfully taught how to hear the difference between tones? How was it taught?
2. Did you study them as individual characters, in pairings, or in the midst of sentences?
3. Did your teacher even teach hearing tones, or only teach speaking? If the latter, at what point could you start hearing the difference in tones and what do you attribute the development to?

 

I'm currently researching this topic and considering it for a thesis. I'd appreciate any response of any length. It would really help me get a grip on the broad situation as opposed to my individual anecdotal story. So if you're reading this as a forum lurker but never poster, login!

[Flickserve]

Interesting question. This is for Mandarin.

 

1. Had teachers teach tones individually which I can reproduce. Same teaching method as almost everybody with the 1-2-3-4 tones practice.

 

2. From the beginning I tried to focus on tones a lot. It was all those stories on the internet about second Chinese learners landing in China thinking they could get away with not learning tones. I had seen (heard?) that a lot when second language learners get the tone wrong with Cantonese. I tried the tone pairings and it's OK when you practice but then try to fit them into a sentence and then it goes wrong again. Short sentences seem most effective.. I tried using praat for tone pairs which is similar to the software you describe. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't. Maybe native speaker looking at the tone outline simultaneously will give much better feedback.

 

3. I can hear the differences in tones fairly OK. I noticed I had a big (or was it in reality small) jump with intense listening practice using workaudio book. And that was because I was listening to the same sentences over and over again trying to match hanzi text to speech accurately (not even looking at pinyin). An unexpected benefit. I did spend a lot of time trying to copy speaking sentences from teachers during lessons with a bit of success. In fact, it was a bit frustrating to get 差不多 wrong so many times and on different days - main problem with reproducing 多 with the correct tone. Needs a lot of patience from the teacher!

 

My second jump came from reading Olle Kjellin's theories on quality practice pronunciation. The intense repetitive listening of individual sentences with workaudiobook replicated his advice albeit with fewer reps. So I just increased the number of repetitions of selected sentences and started copying them which helped tone recognition.

 

If you talk about correcting one's own tones during speech, I need some sort of calibration at the beginning. The tones come out in Cantonese but improve more as the conversation progresses i.e. I calibrate using the speech of the other person. Then I am going on some auto mode where the tones just feel right (but probabkly wrong)

[calibre2001]

Personally I found tone pairing practice useful with recognition of pitch changes. I think it's best learnt through words.

 

One-to-one tutoring for pronunciation in the form of langdu朗讀 did wonders. It would consist of short sentences along with Pinyin. The tutor would highlight & jot down words incorrectly pronounced i.e. tone 3 instead of 1.

Too many mistakes and laughing moments though. Characters weren't necessary as I was already had a decent vocabulary and understanding of spoken mandarin.

 

[Flickserve]

11 hours ago, 艾墨本 said:

 

I'm currently researching this topic and considering it for a thesis

 

I had another think about this. I think I gave a wrong answer to number 2 as my answer referred to speaking rather than listening. Actually, now, I have to say quite early on, I didn't really listen to tones in a conscious sense thinking it might be a third tone or fourth tone. I would just listen to the sentence and use the rhythm of the short sentence. It's only if I tried to reproduce the word that I would've tried to actively think about the tone for each individual word.

 

 

[Shelley]

I would say I haven't spent as much time practising listening to tones specifically. I just try to hear the whole pronunciation and meaning. This is probably because as I have said before I try not to separate tone and the basic sound,  these two together are the pronunciation of the character or word.

 

Your question has made me think that maybe I should spend some time listening more to tones with a new word or character. This is because I am realising that the tone will clarify the meaning in moments of doubt due to homophones or other confusion.

Until I thought about it to answer your question, I was only approaching tones from the speaking side of things, I suppose I thought if I learnt to say it, I would have learnt to recognise it if I hear it. I am going to have go away and think about this some more:)

 

 

[imron]

How did you initially learn to hear the four tones?

 

A tone chart, a tape-player, and a tape of bā bá bǎ bà pā pá pǎ pà mā má mǎ mà fā fá fǎ fà (and so on) on continuous repeat for several hours a day (of which there would be maybe 15 minutes of trying to mimic the sounds myself).

[gwr71]

Dear All,

As a Novice learner of Mandarin and at the tender age of 46 (2017) learning the tones is a breaking point.  It is either do or die.  However, there is hope.  I found a free website which taught me the four tones using videos and audio files.  Then they have a pinyin chart where you can hear the four tones clearly for all syllables of mandarin and repeat to your heart's content until you are reasonably good ( of course in your own eyes or ears as is this case).  it is www.yoyochinese.com .  I found it to be very good. I downloaded the videos and audio files and can play them when I want but after a while you realise you don't need them any more and have to move on to more important issues in learning to hear and speak mandarin.  The site has now been upgraded and there is a paying section for life but it is worth it.  If you really want to test your listening of chinese mandarin at a basic or intermediate level just look at the videos at that website. especially Chinese on the Street. Let me know what you think.

[艾墨本]

Sounds like my assumptions about learning Chinese tones are accurate, which is reassuring.

On 10/17/2017 at 10:22 PM, imron said:

A tone chart, a tape-player, and a tape of bā bá bǎ bà pā pá pǎ pà mā má mǎ mà fā fá fǎ fà (and so on) on continuous repeat for several hours a day (of which there would be maybe 15 minutes of trying to mimic the sounds myself).

How did you know if you are right or wrong? Did you have a tutor or anyone to help you? 

 

On 10/14/2017 at 6:30 PM, Shelley said:

I was only approaching tones from the speaking side of things,

I think most of us (myself included) do it this way. I'm not convinced this is the best approach, though. Still combing through dissertations for relevant reads.

 

On 10/14/2017 at 11:51 AM, Flickserve said:

Actually, now, I have to say quite early on, I didn't really listen to tones in a conscious sense thinking it might be a third tone or fourth tone. I would just listen to the sentence and use the rhythm of the short sentence. It's only if I tried to reproduce the word that I would've tried to actively think about the tone for each individual word.

I was just looking at a paper on the way non-native speakers don't sparse tones as clearly as native speakers. Your comment makes me curious to read it beyond just the abstract.

 

On 10/14/2017 at 5:48 AM, calibre2001 said:

One-to-one tutoring for pronunciation in the form of langdu朗讀 did wonders. It would consist of short sentences along with Pinyin. The tutor would highlight & jot down words incorrectly pronounced i.e. tone 3 instead of 1.

Too many mistakes and laughing moments though. Characters weren't necessary as I was already had a decent vocabulary and understanding of spoken mandarin.

I too find this very helpful, but it is dependent on having a tutor to work with you, which many language learners don't have. I'm actually actively working on my tones via 朗读 with a tutor now. It has been helping me.

 

Personal update: I've started learning all of my vocabulary through the reading function on Pleco. So it only gives me the audio and I write down the word and define it. If I have the time I also create a sentence but usually I'm just focusing on getting words into passive memory. I have so much coursework as is that trying for 100+ characters a week into active memory is a monster work load. The side-effect of this is that my listening has been improving slightly. More importantly, it's been a humbling exercise to realize how often I am wrong despite thinking previously that it wasn't a problem I have. I write down my guess as well to ensure I don't pull the "but that's what I meant" thinking. 

[imron]

1 hour ago, 艾墨本 said:

Did you have a tutor or anyone to help you? 

At the time I was taking evening classes once a week, so had feedback from a native speaker during class, but it was also a matter of being mindful of what I was listening to and what I was repeating.

[Flickserve]

13 hours ago, 艾墨本 said:

On 14/10/2017 at 11:51 AM, Flickserve said:

 

I was just looking at a paper on the way non-native speakers don't sparse tones as clearly as native speakers. Your

 

What is meant by "the register"? Is it the emphasis?

 

I had one native speaker work me trying to make me speak more naturally. I asked him to pick up non native speaking and subtle patterns in my speech. That was a pretty interesting experience.

 

Going back to your question of listening for tones, I have been following recordings of my lessons. I just noticed recently (!) at the end of a sentence, the last word's tone seems to turn neutral on a number of occasions. Discovered it because I might not know the last word or repeated it incorrectly and the tutor repeated it with the proper tone.

 

13 hours ago, 艾墨本 said:

I'm actually actively working on my tones via 朗读 with a tutor

 

I am pretty crap at this. And interestingly, it's also crap when I read out Cantonese (my much stronger dialect). For instance, I can use the tones very accurately in Cantonese speech but when I come to reading out loud, the error rate goes up really high.

[Flickserve]

On 19/10/2017 at 6:05 PM, 艾墨本 said:

I was just looking at a paper on the way non-native speakers don't sparse tones as clearly as native speakers. Your comment makes me curious to read it beyond just the abstract.

 

https://www.shanghaiexpat.com/news/mastering-mandarin-shanghainese-inside-mind-polyglot?utm_source=facebook&utm_campaign=inside-the-mind-of-a-polyglot-2017-10-30&utm_medium=cpc&utm_content=all-18_65-mau-all-mtp-cat-china&utm_term=inside-the-mind-of-a-polyglot-2017-10-30

 

I suppose many people here have the same experience (like Imron). Listen carefully many many times and switch to mimicking.

 

Although you can be guided by a teacher, eventually what it boils down to is if you listen enough building up the input. The act of mimicking and shadowing helps you.

 

I tried praat early on for a short while to look at a teacher's tones and mine. I think it is nice to visualise. Whether it effects a faster rate of change to recognition of correct tone, I am not sure. What I realise now is the repetitive input and looping as the key which means time and experience. Hence, I concentrate most of my time on listening to native speaker sentences from my conversations.  

[abcdefg]

On 10/13/2017 at 10:04 PM, 艾墨本 said:

Looking back at my own experience, teachers never touched on the listening aspect of tones, but always just dived right into how to create the tones yourself.

 

Personally, it wasn't until I really focused on hearing the difference that I could start making them myself.

 

I'm not 100% positive, but I think for me it was the other way around. What I mean is that, to borrow your phrase, it wasn't until I really focused on making the right tones in my own speech that I listened closely enough to recognize what tones I needed to make. It was a pretty sloppy process before that, everything mixed together, not teased apart into distinct components.

 

To some extent this may be a "Which came first, the chicken or the egg?" type of problem.

 

When I practiced reading out loud early on, the teacher would say "That word (or that phrase) was wrong. Listen to how I say it and try again." The process of trying to imitate him or her involved my listening very closely, more closely than I ever had before. Gradually, with time and plenty of practice, the results improved until they were passable.

 

But I think the listening and the speaking improved pretty much together and at about the same rate.

[lips]

14 minutes ago, abcdefg said:

It was a pretty sloppy process before that, everything mixed together, not teased apart into distinct components.

 

15 minutes ago, abcdefg said:

"That word (or that phrase) was wrong. Listen to how I say it and try again."

That's basically how a native learns the language.

[Katie Whitman]

 

How I (finally) learned to separate 2nd and 3rd tone using “creaky voice”

 

For years, my biggest pain point in learning Chinese was separating 2nd and 3rd tones. I couldn’t really hear the difference between the two, so I couldn’t say either right. I went through years of Chinese class without resolving this, partially because teachers never emphasized it that much, partially because I couldn’t figure out a good way to train my ear. I dreaded those quizzes where you had to fill in the pinyin with tones.

 

This all changed when I learned to apply the “creaky voice” test. I recently found myself faced with a quiz that asked me to write the tones for 批准 (pi1 zhun3). Was zhun second or third tone? I started saying it my head- did long, low, creaky zhu-u-u-un or zhun starting low but quickly starting to rise (a bit like a question) sound more right? After repeating it in my head a few times I was pretty sure it was the low creaky one. A second after I handed in my quiz, I checked on pleco and felt triumphant. I had finally had a system that worked for me to separate 2nd and 3rd tones!   

 

What is “creaky voice”?  If you google “vocal fry” or “creaky voice” there are lots of fancy linguistic explanations, but the way I think of is that ‘a-a-a’ or ‘o-o-o’ crackliness that creeps into your voice when you hold a sound at the lower end of your range. That o-o-o is like alarm bells screaming ‘third tone! third tone!’

 

In contrast, second tone can (and often does) start low, but it doesn’t ever hold that low pitch. No creakiness here. It starts to clearly rise right away, and continues to rise the entire time you are speaking. 
 

[somethingfunny]

Two interesting/useful things I was told about learning the third tone:

 

1.  Just say it low.  Yes, it dips and rises, but it's a low tone so at least make sure it's lower than the others.

2.  Try to make your voice 'crack'.  This sometimes happens naturally when your voice reaches the low point and starts to rise again - there is a noticeable break in the sound you produce.  If this happens, you're not doing it wrong.

 

For everything else my experience was similar to Imron.  Learning pinyin and learning the tones were done at the same time and the same dreadfully dull way.