Does mandarin really have fewer tones than cantonese?

[bomaci]

Many people seem to believe that mandarin must be easier than cantonese since it "only" has 4 tones. But when you look closely how many tones does mandarin really have?

I would say that if you look at it from the point of view of the different sounds you have to learn, mandarin has at least 5 tones. This due to that the third tone changes to low falling except when in stressed or sentence final position. Then there is the neutral tone which takes on 4 different sounds depending on the tone that precedes it. Furthermore these sounds are not similar to the other 4 tones. So you could if you want invent seperate tones for these. All of a sudden you have 9 tones in mandarin! The point I am trying to make is that you can't really count the tones when determining whether a language is difficult or not. You should learn by imitation.

[Language Guy]

These are pretty interesting points.

Although I would like to add that all of the "extra" tones other than the normal 4 that officially make up the language are not exactly constructed rules, but tendencies that have developed over millenia of speech.

So basically, these extra tones come naturally through repeated speech, and don't necessarily need to be learned and practiced consciously.

I don't understand the last two sentences of your post.

[bomaci]

Although I would like to add that all of the "extra" tones other than the normal 4 that officially make up the language are not exactly constructed rules, but tendencies that have developed over millenia of speech.

Actually as far as I have read, all tones are something that have developeed over a long time. Tones usually appear as a result of loss of for instance final consonants. So say that you originally had two words pronounced bas and bat. Later the final consonants disappeared but the pitch of the vowel which the consonant gave rise to remained thus giving rise to two "ba" words with different tones.

I don't understand the last two sentences of your post.

The point I am trying to make is that how many tones a language has is really matter for linguists and not really something the language learner should bother that much with. Listen a lot to the language and imitate it and you will pick up the tones. The only way you can succesfully learn to pronounce a tonal language is by imitation. And if you imitate all that matters is that you imitate as closely as possible not if the language has 11 tones or not.

[HashiriKata]

The point I am trying to make is that you can't really count the tones when determining whether a language is difficult or not. You should learn by imitation.

I fully agree that the number of tones doesn't necessarily make a language harder or less hard to learn. However, there is a concrete reason, and not just an oversight, for the neutral and half tones in Mandarin not to be counted as tones in the same way as tone 1,2,3 and 4 are. (Maybe I should leave this for you to explore... )

[imron]

Perhaps you could share it with those of us who aren't really interested in exploring such differences, but might still be interested in why that's the case

[leosmith]

Sweet, another chorusing thread!

You should learn by imitation.

But not by chorusing alone. Spend a little time learning about the initials, finals and tones. I recommend checking out either the first 6 tapes of FSI's resource module, or sinosplice. Both are excellent free sources of pronunciation. I now lean towards FSI, since it's audio.

So go ahead with your chorusing, shadowing or repetitions, but arm yourself with the knowledge of pronunciation. Some say having this knowledge is a negative, but I disagree. When doing repetitions just relax and let it come naturally. Just try to imitate the audio. Your isolated pronunciation study will help you if you get stuck.

Also, it's a good idea to go back and check the 2 sources I listed again a few months down the road. That will give things that didn't sink in the first time another chance. I believe it's an iterative process. I find this far more effective than just pure chorusing.

[muyongshi]

This due to that the third tone changes to low falling except when in stressed or sentence final position. Then there is the neutral tone which takes on 4 different sounds depending on the tone that precedes it.

I follow your train of thought here but I personally chalk these "variances" up to more of 音调 type thing rather than a 声调. Maybe we should look at the uses of 音调 vs. 声调 do help us really count how many tones there are.

四川话 has "5" tones but then you ask what they are and the answer you will always get goes something like this “恩，它们也不是声调，它们更象。。。我不知道." I love that answer.

[OneEye]

But not by chorusing alone. Spend a little time learning about the initials, finals and tones. I recommend checking out either the first 6 tapes of FSI's resource module, or sinosplice. Both are excellent free sources of pronunciation. I now lean towards FSI, since it's audio.

So go ahead with your chorusing, shadowing or repetitions, but arm yourself with the knowledge of pronunciation. Some say having this knowledge is a negative, but I disagree. When doing repetitions just relax and let it come naturally. Just try to imitate the audio. Your isolated pronunciation study will help you if you get stuck.

Also, it's a good idea to go back and check the 2 sources I listed again a few months down the road. That will give things that didn't sink in the first time another chance. I believe it's an iterative process. I find this far more effective than just pure chorusing.

I agree 100%. It's good to at least know how to make the sounds before you start chorusing. I feel like it helps me to be able to produce the sentences much more quickly because I know where my tongue should be going for each syllable. It's getting to be almost automatic, and I think it would have taken longer had I not studied pronunciation and pinyin early on.

[HashiriKata]

I follow your train of thought here but I personally chalk these "variances" up to more of 音调 type thing rather than a 声调.

I agree with muyongshi on this, and to continue from my earlier post, I'd say that the neutral and half tones are not tones proper because of their lack of independency: they occur only in specific positions (= dependent on others) and their occurrence in the vast majority of cases does not result in a change of meaning (= whether the syllable neutralised or fully enunciated, the meaning stays essentially the same). For example, when you forget to neutralise a tone or to give it a half-length in a position where this is required, you may sound odd but this mix up does not alter the meaning of what you say in the way a mix up between 2 tones proper would.

[muyongshi]

I agree with muyongshi on this, and to continue from my earlier post, I'd say that the neutral and half tones are not tones proper because of their lack of independency: they occur only in specific positions (= dependent on others) and their occurrence in the vast majority of cases does not result in a change of meaning (= whether the syllable neutralised or fully enunciated, the meaning stays essentially the same). For example, when you forget to neutralise a tone or to give it a half-length in a position where this is required, you may sound odd but this mix up does not alter the meaning of what you say in the way a mix up between 2 tones proper would.

Couldn't say it better myself.

[xianu]

Just to answer the original question: Cantonese (at least the dialect my family speaks) has more tones than mandarin. I think there are nine - three different tones for 2 different ranges of register: a higher and a lower register (and I am not a linguist, nor have i ever studied cantonese, so I don't really know how to describe these things), plus the ru4 sheng入聲 (entering tone) that is the stacatto-like consonant ending (-t, -k, -p) that you hear. Cantonese also follows classical grammar and vocabulary a little more closely than mandarin, being an older language. I think mandarin as we know was developed about 500 years ago when Beijing became the center of the Chinese political world. Cantonese I think dates back to about the 9th century/end of the Tang (I *think*that is why Cantonese call themselves tangren唐人,chinatowns being tang ren jie唐人街). I think Taiwanese is supposed to go back to the early Tang/end Sui period, in terms of pronunciation, vocabulary frequency and grammar, too.

[bomaci]

But not by chorusing alone. Spend a little time learning about the initials, finals and tones. I recommend checking out either the first 6 tapes of FSI's resource module, or sinosplice. Both are excellent free sources of pronunciation. I now lean towards FSI, since it's audio.

So go ahead with your chorusing, shadowing or repetitions, but arm yourself with the knowledge of pronunciation. Some say having this knowledge is a negative, but I disagree. When doing repetitions just relax and let it come naturally. Just try to imitate the audio. Your isolated pronunciation study will help you if you get stuck.

I agree with you that it is a good idea to learn the sounds of the language, because as an adult it can be difficult to hear and produce sounds that are not in your native language. However for tones I think concious study should be avoided, or at least postponed until you have chorused for a while. Tones are just what the chorus method is so very good at teaching you. You may think that if you don't know the tones it is impossible to learn but I disagree. In fact I think it is better to learn without knowing the tones for the following reason:

It forces you to learn by imitation, and you have to make sure to imitate the model excactly. If you decide to learn all words by imitation there is know way you can fall into the trap of "knowing the word, but not the tone". Since you learn all the words by rigourous imitation you have the sound of the word in your head. Anyway this is what I am doing for cantonese. I first chorus the audio of the sentence I am learning. Having done that for a while I check some of the sounds that I am unsure of. Having done that I chorus for a while again, paying special attention to the sounds that I had problems with. However I usually don't check the tones. There is no need really. With the chorus method the tonal pattern of the sentence is already in my head.

[Luobot]

I'd say that the neutral and half tones are not tones proper because of their lack of independency: they occur only in specific positions (= dependent on others) and their occurrence in the vast majority of cases does not result in a change of meaning (= whether the syllable neutralised or fully enunciated, the meaning stays essentially the same).

Interesting way of defining it, dividing it up into dependent and independent tones. So I did a recount and found 4 dependent tones (the usual 4 suspects) and 7 independent tones:

1 - half third tone.

4 - neutral tones that are influenced by their preceding tone.

1 - neutral-neutral tone, which I previously thought was just neutral, but now I know it’s really neutral-neutral. This is the tone that refuses to be pushed around by the tone that precedes it, especially if the preceding tone was a bit wimpy to begin with. 你明白我的意思了吗 (Nǐ míngbai wǒ de yìsi le ma) ?

1 - questioning tone (not to be confused with tone 2), for asking questions without using 吗 (ma).

[Language Guy]

Thanks for clearing that up, bomaci.

I agree with your points.

[leosmith]

You may think that if you don't know the tones it is impossible to learn

Not at all. Just extremely inefficient. You'll have to chorus every single word. And how are you going to figure out tone changes? How many sample sentences are you willing to drill? Do you ever plan on being able to read? I believe it's much better to get a solid grounding in pronunciation & pinyin, along with your pronunciation drills like chorusing. I have yet to hear a valid reason not to learn the basics.

[bomaci]

Not at all. Just extremely inefficient. You'll have to chorus every single word. And how are you going to figure out tone changes? How many sample sentences are you willing to drill? Do you ever plan on being able to read?

No you don't. Because if you have work hard enough on the initial batch of sentences you will be able to imitate words you have only heard once. You will also be able to pick out new words from conversation and repeat them back almost like a native. Tone changes are very much related to rhythm in mandarin and prosody. If you choose a large enough number of practice sentences you will learn the tone changes rules by osmosis. I know for myself that I have started to apply the tone sandhi roles unconciously when speaking mandarin. Even if you know the rules you have to practice them, which is what you ideally should do with the chorus method. When speaking mandarin there is no way that you have time to think of sandhi rules. They have to be drilled to such a degree that they are automatic. This is actually possible to do. All chinese children, who speak mandarin natively ,do it.

As for reading all you need to do is to read a book and listen to the corresponding audio book at the same time. Maybe it is a bit drastic to say that you should avoid learning tone marks all togehter, but you should at least postpone it until you have a very good grounding in the pronounciation of mandarin.

[leosmith]

If you choose a large enough number of practice sentences you will learn the tone changes rules by osmosis.

That may be true, but it would be a very large sample, and a very inefficient way to learn them. It's much better to spend a few hours with FSI or some other program that will give you the knowledge.

Even if you know the rules you have to practice them

Absolutely. It takes hundreds of hours to get good at conversation, and get all your pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, etc. skills to come to the surface. The chorus method is no different; after it you will still need hundreds of hours of actual speaking to a real human. A little drilling is fine, but it sounds like you're advocating a lot. So why not just learn the rules, much like you learn grammar rules, drill a little, and then let everything sink in over conversation time?

All chinese children, who speak mandarin natively, do it.

This is irrelevant since we are not children.

you should at least postpone it until you have a very good grounding in the pronounciation of mandarin.

As long as you do it in the first few months of learning, I see no harm in your suggestion. But no matter how you learn your pronunciartion, I recommend checking a quick program like FSI again later on. You'll be surprised at how much you still don't know.

As for reading all you need to do is to read a book and listen to the corresponding audio book at the same time.

How did you ever come to this conclusion? No character study? Can you get that from chorusing too?

And another question, what does your mouth look like when you talk? You are aware that you can make the same sounds with different lip shapes right? If you talk to a native and you sound good but your mouth is shaped wrong, it throws them off. How does chorusing handle that?

[bomaci]

How did you ever come to this conclusion? No character study? Can you get that from chorusing too?

No not from chorusing, but you can listen to the sentence at the same time as you are reading it and thus pick up the characters. I haven't studied any characters for over a year now but I find that I am getting better and better at reading chinese, just by listening and reading simultaneously.

That may be true, but it would be a very large sample, and a very inefficient way to learn them.

I don't quite understand why you would need a large sample. Even in one single sentence you can get all four tones in without problems.

When I started studying mandarin I studied all the sandhi rules and knew them perfectly, but I soon discovered that knowing the rules doesn't help a bit without a lot of listening and imitating. You have to hear the tone changes in effect over and over to to be able to use them with any automaticity.

Conversation will not help very much, because in conversation you are too busy trying to get your message across to be able to focus on rules for tone changes.

[anonymoose]

bomaci, I suspect you are either exceptionally gifted at languages, or just have a very good ear for picking up sounds, which most people don't share with you.

Your rationale behind using chorusing is reasonable, but I don't think very practical for most learners. Also, I'm not sure if you actually did employ the method as you are suggesting others to do. You said when you started out learning mandarin, you studied all the sandhi rules and knew them perfectly. Therefore you must have a solid knowledge of the tones of mandarin, even if you didn't think about them consciously when chorusing. I guess you are also familiar with the tone system of cantonese in a similar way.

The reason why I bring this up is because it is much easier to reproduce the sound of a word or phrase (in mandarin at least) after hearing it only once if you know what the standards are. For example, suppose you hear the words nián qīng and sōng shŭ. If you are familiar with the tonal system of mandarin, you know there is only one flat tone, and therefore qīng and sōng should have the same tonal value. Even if you didn't hear the sound very clearly, you should be able to repeat it back without too much problem. On the other hand, if you know nothing about tones, and you are just imitating, you cannot easily categorize the sounds in your mind. You cannot possibly tell that qīng and sōng should have equivalent tonal values - for all you know there may be more than one flat tone at different pitches. The best you can do is try to remember the sound, and at a later time when you want to say the word, recall it from memory and try to imitate the sound you originally heard. For me at least, I think this would be a very difficult and inefficient way of learning.

I accept that this method may work for you. You have provided sound samples of you speaking mandarin on this site before, and you certainly sound good, so you obviously know how to learn the language. But I think the methods you employ to meet this end are probably more suited to you than most other people.

I am currently trying to learn shanghainese, and this definitely relies much more heavily on imitation. For a start, there is no standard writing system, so it is difficult to record sounds on paper anyway. Furthermore, shanghainese isn't divided into neat syllables like mandarin and cantonese which you can just put one after another to make a sentence. Shanghainese syllables have varying lengths, and different syllables in words have varying stresses, so really there is not much alternative to chorusing. Nevertheless, I find I am much better at imitating a shanghainese word if I am conscious of the tone pattern for that word, and thus know what it should sound like even if I didn't hear it clearly, than if I am just imitating straight off without any other knowledge.

[bomaci]

bomaci, I suspect you are either exceptionally gifted at languages, or just have a very good ear for picking up sounds, which most people don't share with you.

I do have a good ear, but I firmly believe that it comes from practice more than anything else. I have previously played jazz piano. To be successful at that, you have to learn solos and tunes by ear. When I first started doing that I thought it was impossible. How can you learn something off a record without having anything written to look at? However I quickly found out that not only is it possible, I actually learnt the tunes better if I learnt them by ear than by trying to memorize the written music.

Also, I'm not sure if you actually did employ the method as you are suggesting others to do. You said when you started out learning mandarin, you studied all the sandhi rules and knew them perfectly. Therefore you must have a solid knowledge of the tones of mandarin, even if you didn't think about them consciously when chorusing. I guess you are also familiar with the tone system of cantonese in a similar way.

I did some chorusing when I started learning mandarin seriously but unfortunately not enough. And I did study the sandhi rules. But at that time whenever I spoke mandarin in conversation I made tons of tone mistakes. It was only after alot of listening and chorusing that was able to speak mandarin farily fluently without making tone mistakes all the time (although I still make them). As for cantonese, I know it has tones and I know what they are, but I haven't studied them conciously at all yet. For instance for mandarin I worked a lot on two tone combinations, so I know what a 3-2 combination sounds like for instance.

However for cantonese I have relied only on imitating full sentences without looking up the tones. So right know I can't read a sentence in jyutping with tone marks and pronounce the tones correctly. I am not sure how good my cantonese pronounciation is either. I plan to post a recording in the future to see what the native cantonese speakers on this forum think of it.

Your rationale behind using chorusing is reasonable, but I don't think very practical for most learners.

At first I didn't think it was very practical either, until I read about the method on http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com/blog/ which advocates learning the language by memorizing the sentences using supermemo or similar software. I modified this approach a bit by putting an audio file of the sentence I want to study as the "question" in supermemo and the sentence in characters along with explanation of unkown words as the "answer". Then when studying apart from only listening to the sentence I also chorus it 5-10 times.

The best you can do is try to remember the sound, and at a later time when you want to say the word, recall it from memory and try to imitate the sound you originally heard. For me at least, I think this would be a very difficult and inefficient way of learning.

Well children to it all the time. It is all about repetition. If you listen to alot of mandarin and in addition use the "sentence method" describe above, you will hear the words you want to study over and over again and eventually they will stick. It the same way as remembering a tune. When you remember a song do you memorize the note values as letters or do you just remember the sound of the song.

Imitation will not be difficult if you have worked hard initially with the chorus method. I actually have experience with this. When I started out studying mandarin there was no way I could accurately repeat back a word I had heard only once. I had to have the speaker say each syllable very slowly and clearly. Now after alot of listening and chorusing I have actually acquired this ability fairly well.