How do we know the tones just by looking at the characters?

[Yiheyuan2015]

Hi there,

Obviously this is a common first puzzle for beginners like me. Does a character give a physical clue of its tone?

If there is a thread already on this please help point me to it.

I am joining Tsinghua Chinese Language Program this Spring.

Thanks so much.

[jbradfor]

Just "一" :-)

 

Seriously, no.  In general, you can't tell the tone or the pronunciation from looking at the character, it is all rote memorization.

 

That said, you should learn about Phono-semantic compound characters (see here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_character_classification#Phono-semantic_compound_characters) For most characters, you can make an educated guess at the sound by looking at it.  However, there's no set rule when this does and does not work, it's really more an aid to memorization.

[AdamD]

Yeah, and even if a component of a character hints at its pronunciation, the tone could be anything.

 

I get around this by using tone colours to display characters. It works for me but doesn't suit everyone.

[m000gle]

 

How do we know the tones just by looking at the characters?

 

We don't

 

Characters are, by and large, make of smaller components which sometimes hint at aspects such as meaning and pronunciation; but not all do, and even at the best of times these can be quite abstract.  No aspect of the character either hints or indicates the tone, ever.

 

Don't be discouraged by this, though.  Far too many see this as an insurmountable challenge, and it is not at all!  This is especially true as you will be immersed during your time at Tsinghua.

 

I always found that most of my tonal practice came from two places, neither of which were your standard reading/writing, on your own:

1. The reading of the vocabulary lists and texts in class, where one would read aloud and a teacher would correct tonal mistakes; and
2. Speaking Chinese as much as possible, with everyone, always... Friends, taxi drivers, your teacher, or the dude who runs the local jiaozi shop.

The formalized, in-class component allows the rote memorization mentioned above and begins the process of committing it to memory; while listening/speaking constantly, in real-world usage, allows for the more natural language and tonal acquisition and confidence building through exposure, imitation, practice etc. While you will get some benefit from either in isolation; one will truly excel and enjoy the language when a balance can be found, and when each of the two styles of learning can be harnessed to reinforce the other.

[Walkingtree]

1. Speaking Chinese as much as possible, with everyone, always... Friends, taxi drivers, your teacher, or the dude who runs the local jiaozi shop.

The formalized, in-class component allows the rote memorization mentioned above and begins the process of committing it to memory; while listening/speaking constantly, in real-world usage, allows for the more natural language and tonal acquisition and confidence building through exposure, imitation, practice etc. While you will get some benefit from either in isolation; one will truly excel and enjoy the language when a balance can be found, and when each of the two styles of learning can be harnessed to reinforce the other.

 

This! The hard part is getting people to tell you to your face that your tones are wrong. Hence the indispensable role of a patient teacher.

 

Also, I found that at the beginning learning tones was a pain in the rump. However I think my brain is "getting used" to learning tones, so be patient but diligent and eventually you can train yourself to learn, listen for and ultimately use tones.

[Michael H]

You should also know that the pronunciation of a character, and in particular its tone, can vary depending on how it is used. For example a character may have one tone when it is (part of) a verb, and another when it is (part of) a noun. Anyway if you listen to native speakers pronouncing things correctly, then this may help you remember the correct tones, as they can stick in your head like a piece of music.

[Yiheyuan2015]

Ooo Shark! (excuse me)....okay.. okay. Hope my little brain can cope with the rote memorization. Will force myself to dare to speak with strangers in Beijing. Hope they believe me that I am a laowai too : )

Thanks to all of you for the valuable tips and encouragements. I won't give up easily.

Cheers,

[roddy]

Welcome to the site, Imelda. You might also want to have a look at improving tones and accent improvement - there's a lot of detail in there, so don't let it overwhelm you, but when you hit problems these are good places to look. 

[Yiheyuan2015]

Thanks Roddy, will certainly check the links soon.

Cheers

[Demonic_Duck]

Yeah, and even if a component of a character hints at its pronunciation, the tone could be anything.

This is misleading, because though technically correct, it implies that phonetic components of characters only give hints as to non-tonal aspects of pronunciation, which is not true.

 

The phonetic component (if there is one) gives a hint as to the pronunciation of the character as a whole. The problem is that it's not an exact science - even if two characters sharing a phonetic component were once homonyms, they may very well no longer be in the modern language. It's possible that the tone is the only aspect in which the pronunciation has diverged, but it's equally possible that the initial or final has changed slightly, yet the tone has stayed the same (there may very well be research out there as to which aspects of pronunciation tend to diverge most easily in characters that share phonetic components, in which case I'd be very interested to know what the conclusions were).

 

Take, for example, the phonetic “因”. It's used in the following common characters:

 

“因” [yīn] (just the base character)

“姻” [yīn] (exactly the same pronunciation)

“烟” [yān] (same tone and initial, different final; however, the traditional version is “煙”, which doesn't have the “因” component)

“恩” [ēn] (same tone, different initial and final)

“咽” [yān], [yàn] or [yè] (different pronunciation for different meanings, which vary in differing ways from the original phonetic)

 

I hope I'm using the terms “initial” and “final” correctly here. Anyway, I'd say “因” is a fairly representative example.

[Lu]

And on talking to people, do check out this thread, especially Takeshi's out-of-the-box advice.