Does Correct Intonation Really Matter That Much?

[wushijiao]

No problem, LiYuanXi! I just think, if you study Chinese abroad, you listen to hours and hours of tapes using "shi", "shang", "zhang"...etc, but you may not actually hear that in many places in the mainland. Practicing hearing the tones can solve the problem.

[mark1888]

"see you in the funny pages?"

Sorry to sidetrack again but I think Bart Simpson also said it in a commonly screened episode.

[Green Pea]

Beginners worry about tones too much and often fail to communicate, as Tsunku suggests. I think beginners should focus more on intonation and getting their message across.

When they become advanced students the problems become apparent. If they started learning by focusing on tones, their speech never really develops proper intonation. If they went for intonation, their tones continue to suffer.

So, I think you can go by either A or B. However, after basic fluency is achieved, one needs to return and relearn the missing part.

This is where a good teacher should come in, but has anyone ever had a teacher that specifically trained intonation? I haven't.

[trevelyan]

No teacher should belittle their students, especially when they are teaching something as difficult to master as a language. If you have a Dongbei accent that shows skill -- you've picked up a regional accent just from listening to others speak it.

When I arrived here I used to get *extremely* frustrated at my teachers. They would say things like "watch your tones", "you said that wrong", etc. without ever correcting anything specific. It pissed me off no end since I *was* watching my tones. My big issue (and it still crops up) turned out to be starting the second tone as low as the low point of the third tone. It took about six months to figure that out....

If your teacher was so impolite to dissect you in front of class, speak to her personally. If it continues, go and talk to the school director. You'll be doing other students a favour.... since no class should make the students LESS inclined to talk.

p.s. don't worry about the regional accent. If they take several years to teach schoolchildren "standard" mandarin, what can foreigners expect to accomplish in one or two?

[PollyWaffle]

No teacher should belittle their students, especially when they are teaching something as difficult to master as a language.

if this had happened in my country, she would have been at the very least reprimanded the next day, or at most had her squid fried

[chris.]

When i first started studying chinese i had no idea what the funny lines above the pin yin were, i didnt even know the words beneath the characters were called pin yin. For the first two months of my study i did not use tones at all, i spoke chinese quite fast.

My teacher then began telling me my pronunciation was excellent, just like a native but my tones for words and sentences was horrible I then for another 7 months or so struggled with tones, i could not say the second tone at all, i really struggled.

Now i am much better and remember the tone for just about every character i know, probably around 500 characters. I speak chinese slower now than i did in the first two months of my study, that is a draw back of using tones.

In the end i believe that if u want to be a good chinese speaker you will eventually need the tones. Better learn them early rather than later even if that means sacrificing speaking fluency and annoying some people, it is your chinese and you shouldn't hinder your study to please them.

[Mauro]

Dear Pollywaffle,

I think it is very important to learn the tones right from the beginning. As a matter of fact - if you aspire to speak Chinese well - you have to deal with this problem as early as possible in your studies, because afterwards it'll get more and more difficult for you to learn tones.

What I did was taking a private tutor and read a Chinese textbook aloud with her correcting me every single time I got a tone wrong. This method is frustrating, I agree, but if you apply a bit of discipline to it, you will be rewarded quite quickly. I had major problems with pronouncing two consequent second tones and second and third tone. The tutor's cure straightened'em up after 3 painstakingly unbearable 2-hour lessons.

熟能生巧 (shu2 neng2 sheng1 qiao2): practice makes perfect (or almost perfect...).

Keep up the good work! Ciao!

[anonymoose]

Everybody is of course different, and what's good for one may not be so for another. In my opinion, however, paying attention to pronunciation, including tones, is crucial right from the outset. I think learning to speak toneless chinese, and then hoping to add the tones later is just asking for trouble.

I fit into the second of Roddy's categories, in other words, I speak relatively slowly and try to make sure each tone is accurate. But I have been told by natives that my pronunciation is very good, and that I don't sound like most foreigners. They may have been being overly complimentary, but I believe starting off slowly and accurately, and gradually increasing fluency will lead to a better final result than dismissing the tones and aiming for speed straight away.

When listenning to a foreigner speaking your language, if the pronunciation is good, it will immediately give a positive impression, regardless of how good or bad the other aspects of the language are.

[kentsuarez]

I think you SHOULD really focus on tones and other aspects of pronunciation, because it's really hard to understand someone when their tones aren't right. It's fundamental to communicating properly, and the effort put into learning it correctly in the first place will be well worth it in the long run.

[roddy]

I agree. Now, if anyone wants to time travel back to 1998 and let my past self know . . .

Roddy

[kentsuarez]

Well, heck, in that case, I'd want to go back to kindergarten and insist to my parents that I wanted to study a different language every day of the week. And I would have asked that cute Chinese girl out in high school.

[BFC_Peter]

What I did was taking a private tutor and read a Chinese textbook aloud with her correcting me every single time I got a tone wrong

I've no doubt that tones are very important in Chinese, as an english speaker it's hard for me to appreciate just how important as I'm still a novice with Chinese, but I can't believe it's the be all and end all of the language. When Chinese people are speaking to each other (i.e. at speed), there seems to be little evidence of tones in their language as they speak so quickly - this doesn't seem to hinder their understanding.

While it may not be directly comparable because of tones, I have heard many non-native speakers speaking English and they make all sorts of mistakes but I can still usually understand what they are trying to say.

I don't think anyone has suggested totally ignoring tones, although some have actually learned that way. But the purpose of learning Chinese (for me anyway) is to communicate with Chinese-speaking people. If I have the choice between speaking 50 words perfectly OR 200 words reasonably then I would opt for the latter.

I think that placing such an importance on tones can discourage people from starting/continuing to learn Chinese.

[bill]

I have to agree with Mauro above - reading textbooks with a native speaker is a great way to improve tones.

I was lucky to have a good Chinese teacher who could tell me what I was doing wrong, and how to fix it. Then I found a native speaker, asked her to listen carefully and now I read textbooks and newspapers at her for 2 hours every Tuesday. Not too interesting for me, or I imagine her, but ... it works.

I also do flashcards, trying to make sure I'm memorising the tones that go with the characters. I've got about 2,000 now (is this normal, by the way?!) and this is also dull but works.

I think you need to make a distinction between the problem of not knowing the tones and not using the ones you know. My problem is more the second, so my methods deal with that. If you don't know the tones, I think you've got a bigger problem.

I'm new to the site by the way - thanks to Roddy, Quest et al for all the hard work.

[skylee]

When Chinese people are speaking to each other (i.e. at speed), there seems to be little evidence of tones in their language as they speak so quickly

This is not true. Chinese people themselves may not be aware of the tones they are using if you ask them, though.

[Quest]

When Chinese people are speaking to each other (i.e. at speed), there seems to be little evidence of tones in their language as they speak so quickly

The tones are still there regardless of speed. Native speakers do not have to think what tone to use, the words with the right tones just come naturally, so speaking fast does not affect the tone fetching process of native speakers.

[HashiriKata]

I have heard many non-native speakers speaking English and they make all sorts of mistakes but I can still usually understand what they are trying to say.

There are different kinds of speakers and different kinds of purposes for learning a foreign language. If you're aspired to learning just 50 words and relying on the listeners to do most of the work in trying to understand you, then that is just fine for you. There're still learners who are troubled by this limitation because they want to go further and to be able to do more.

(And there are no doubt foreigners who have lived in China for decades and still magnificiently managed to maintain their purity by learning nothing more than "Ni hao"! ).

[ChouDoufu]

Wushijiao is right on. when I was just starting to learn chinese in beijing I asked a language partner how they could enderstand people from different parts of china since their pronunciation was always different (shi->si; nu->lu, etc) and they said it was because the tones were the same. Take your time, speak slowly, get the tones right. The person talking to you might not care either way but your improvement will be faster overall if you just slow down your speech and concentrate. Tones are almost like muscle memory. You do it enough times and you can do it instinctively.

I'd personally leave the fast talking for when alchohol has been imbibed.

I've found time and time again that when you're in your comfort zone--say on campus, or at the office-- chinese people are more able to understand your mistakes, but as you move away from those places and leave the big cities behind Chinese people will understand poor mandarin less and less.

[Jizzosh]

I would suggest getting the tones right when you speak because it greatly helps understanding, especially when your Chinese is poor. I'm still an elementary student when it comes to my Chinese, only 600 or so words, but when I listen to clearly spoken Mandarin, I can follow much better than when I hear quickly spoken non-tonal Mandarin.

It is especially important when you listen to students that struggle with the concept of the tonal system. I have a classmate who hates tones and having to use and remember them, but is constantly being confused by the native speakers who listen to her speak.

I think it's just as important as being able to correctly differentiate the sounds of sh and s and x, and zh and j and z, etc. Sorry by the way if you're Taiwanese and don't pronounce your mandarin the "standard" way.