Tones question

[realmayo]

Can anyone help me understand this feature of Chinese, as I understand it, more fully:

 

A dipthong like "bei" in pinyin requires the speaker to start of making one vowel sound and move it into another vowel sound.

In "bei" the direction of travel is from "e" to "i", so the direction of travel is going upwards, a rising pitch.

 

However in putonghua the overall sound might need to sound level, or falling, etc, to the listener.

How exactly is that achieved? Is it simply by putting the "tone" on the first sound, here the "e", before finishing off on the "i"?

 

Or, put another way, would "bei" in first tone sound like a level tone to a putonghua speaker, but sound like a rising tone to someone who'd never encountered a tonal language before?

 

Or is there a whole field of linguistic theory that distinguishes between, say, tone versus pitch, and in which case is there material in English that I can read about it?

[Moshen]

Are you sure that "bei" is a dipthong?  I have always understood it as simply indicating an exact single vowel sound, a long A.  (I am not a linguist, so someone please correct me if I'm wrong.)

[realmayo]

I'm not sure at all!

[markhavemann]

On 3/12/2022 at 6:39 PM, Moshen said:

Are you sure that "bei" is a dipthong?  I have always understood it as simply indicating an exact single vowel sound, a long A.  (I am not a linguist, so someone please correct me if I'm wrong.)

It is definitely a dipthong. Here are all the finals not ending in consonants (n, and ng) and their IPA in square brackets. 

 

 

On 3/12/2022 at 4:50 PM, realmayo said:

A dipthong like "bei" in pinyin requires the speaker to start of making one vowel sound and move it into another vowel sound.

In "bei" the direction of travel is from "e" to "i", so the direction of travel is going upwards, a rising pitch.

Are you confusing pitch and tongue position? Your tongue is moving to a higher position in the mouth (vowel chart below) but as far as pitch goes I think you're still in control of that. 

 

Someone once told me that it's not only mouth position but also frequency that determines vowels. It kind of makes sense since all sound is just frequency but I think it's complicated enough to ignore and understand vowels as mouth positions and not pitch. Especially since you can say any vowel at a high or a low pitch without it becoming a different vowel. If it wasn't the case then singing would be impossible and everyone would be talking at exactly the same pitch or risk just making random sounds that nobody else can understand. 

 

[suMMit]

I don't know if this is at all useful

CME Pronunciation L02 (2013).pdf

[realmayo]

If you play one note on a piano, the sound will have a certain frequency. If you play a note to the left of that one, it will have a lower frequency. If you play a note to the right, it will have a higher frequency. I think here, frequency refers to the sound waves, or rather, the frequency of the repeated vibrations that constitute a sound wave.

 

Anyway, "i" is a higher frequency sound than "e". So if you pronounce "e" and then "i", you will be rising in pitch. At least that's got to be right, hasn't it?

 

So I'm trying to work out how that rise in pitch is different from the rise in pitch of a typical "second tone in 普通话" ... I can't get my head around it (although I know for sure that I can pronounce 给 as a first or second or third or fourth tone, should I choose.

 

I also wonder whether complete beginners to Chinese would hear gei1 as a second tone. And indeed hear lou1 as a fourth tone.

 

 

The best I can come up with at the moment is the theory that what we call "tone" in Chinese is generated by the speed of vibrations from the throat, whereas the different frequencies associated with vowel sounds are generated by the shape of the mouth/tongue etc.

 

[TaxiAsh]

On 3/12/2022 at 10:39 AM, Moshen said:

Are you sure that "bei" is a dipthong?  I have always understood it as simply indicating an exact single vowel sound, a long A. 

I

 

On 3/12/2022 at 12:05 PM, markhavemann said:

It is definitely a dipthong. Here are all the finals not ending in consonants (n, and ng) and their IPA in square brackets. 

think as an English speaker we mostly would pronounce it as a dipthong sound, (I know i do, but I'm not a good speaker of Chinese yet)

 

but one of the most common words we hear on tv is hello 'wei', so thousands of examples online of the similar final.

 

and I don't think native speakers make a dipthong noise, it's more like a long A as Moshen says...

 

 

 

[Jan Finster]

I am not sure I am understanding your question. Are you asking if in both Běijīng  and bēizi there is a tonal movement upwards from e to i?

To me "ei" is one  sound not two sounds (e-i). So, there is no movement IMO.

[Moshen]

Quote

To me "ei" is one  sound not two sounds (e-i).

 

Me too.  That is why I find it hard to understand how it is a dipthong - either in English or Chinese.

[realmayo]

 

My understanding of these diagrams from one source on wikipedia is that they are diphthongs and that the vowel sound changes over time.

 

On 3/12/2022 at 2:46 PM, Jan Finster said:

To me "ei" is one  sound not two sounds (e-i).

 

I don't think you should be pronouncing any kind if "i" sound at the beginning of this vowel, but I think you should be pronouncing some kind of "i" sound at the end of it. Therefore, to me, that suggests that there should be two sounds.

 

In English, "ay" as in "lay" is a diphthong. If you are hearing a 'long a' like the "ay" in the English "lay" or "hay" or "may" or "day", then I believe you are hearing a diphthong.

[Jan Finster]

On 3/12/2022 at 4:46 PM, realmayo said:

I don't think you should be pronouncing any kind if "i" sound at the beginning of this vowel, but I think you should be pronouncing some kind of "i" sound at the end of it. Therefore, to me, that suggests that there should be two sounds.

 

In English, "ay" as in "lay" is a diphthong. If you are hearing a 'long a' like the "ay" in the English "lay" or "hay" or "may" or "day", then I believe you are hearing a diphthong.

 

OK, possibly that is true. It is just spoken quite quickly in succession, so it seems to merge (more so than lǎo).

 

Anyhow,  are you asking if in both Běijīng  and bēizi there is a tonal movement upwards from e to i? Maybe it does. To my ears it is unnoticable, but if you use an app that displays your pitch, you might find your answer.

 

[EnergyReaper]

On 3/12/2022 at 11:46 PM, realmayo said:

If you are hearing a 'long a' like the "ay" in the English "lay" or "hay" or "may" or "day", then I believe you are hearing a diphthong.

Maybe it's true, and it may be even more clear when you hear someone say the word "pain" or "name" slowly.

I also know [ei] is a diphthong in Chinese in theory, but I usually can't hear the diphthong. 

I just found three videos. The first one was trying to imitate the tongue movement of (e->i) clearly, and it really sounds a bit weird to my ears.

the first one: 汉语拼音发音口型视频动画.

I'm more used to the way of pronouncing [ei] in these two videos as I really can't hear the diphthong:

前响复韵母ei的发音图

跟我学：复韵母ei

 

 

[realmayo]

On 3/12/2022 at 4:16 PM, EnergyReaper said:

I'm more used to the way of pronouncing [ei] in these two videos as I really can't hear the diphthong:

 

I can hear it in all those videos, but only because I've been worrying away it: a couple of hours ago I had no idea that "gei" in pinyin, or "day" in english, could be described as diphthongs.

 

Here's the experiment I was doing myself. Say "gei". Then say it but extend the very end sound for 10 seconds, drawing it out. Now reproduce that end sound. Finally, make a hard "g" and then pronounce that vowel sound. I don't think it will sound like a normal "gei". That indicates that the end of "gei" is different to the start of "gei".

 

Alternatively: try saying "day" but keeing your mouth and tongue completely rigid. Shouldn't be possible. You have to raise the back of your tongue towards the roof of your mouth, in order to go from the "e" to the "i"

[EnergyReaper]

On 3/13/2022 at 12:26 AM, realmayo said:

try saying "day" but keeing your mouth and tongue completely rigid. Shouldn't be possible.

It's possible when I pronounce pei in Chinese as what you suggested. At least, I can do that without moving my tongue up to my palate, though it's not the right way ?.

I just found a video which seems more clear in explanation. As it said, the tongue movement of [ei] is not exactly the same as the combination of the tongue movements of single [e] and single "i". That's the reason why I felt the first video I posted above sounded weird. And it's also not the same as pronouncing [ei] in English. Forgetting how to pronounce [ei] in English may be helpful when you imitate the [ei] pronunciation in Chinese.

普通话发音指南(名师精讲&宝典配图)

[realmayo]

If I understand it right, that video is saying there are two different sounds, an "e" (which the speaker says is higher than a normal "e") followed by an "i" (which the speaker says is lower than a normal "i")? I fully agree that the English and Chinese sounds are different. But I can't find anyone telling me that [ei] in pinyin is a single, unchanging sound. The begining of [ei] in Chinese sounds different to the end of [ei] in Chinese, right?

 

[realmayo]

OK just for fun I took the "ei" spoken by the guy in that video - the last "ei" right at the end.

I selected and copied an early part of the sound, here:

Then I selected and copied a later part of the sound, here:

I pasted the first part several times, so the first part goes repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat.

Then I pasted the second part several times.

So it looks like this:

 

So you can hear: "ei" spoken normally, then the first part repeated several times, then the second part repeated several times.

It's clearly a different sound - have a listen.

 

 

 

 

 

[889]

Of course it's a dipthong but not always sounded clearly as such. To hear it more clearly put it at the end of a word at the end of a sentence instead: 我想去东北.

[realmayo]

Having established it's a diphthong, what is pitch? I previously thought the difference in sounds e.g. vowel sounds, was the difference in their frequencies. "gei" has two sounds so shouldn't there be two different frequencies? But if there are two different frequencies, how come you can say "gei" in the first tone i.e. a level tone?

 

Someone who knows linguistics should be able to answer this really quickly I'm sure. Currently I'm digging around online but would be nice if someone could explain.

 

 

[realmayo]

OK I've basically worked it out, I'm sure it's super basic linguistics 101, but it would be nice to hear what others think or know. And please tell me if and where I'm wrong.

 

(a) Air starts from our lungs and gets pushed up.

(b) It goes through our vocal cords (vocal folds) which vibrate.

(c) It continues through the vocal tract (which is the space that begins down in our throat, right after the vocal cords, and includes everything up to and including our lips/nose).

 

(a) Don't know much about that. Presumably loud/quiet.

 

(b) The vocal cords vibrate as air goes through them: you can count how many times (the frequency) they oscilate per second and that gives you a number in hertz. This is the fundamental frequency (F0). By moving muscles in that area we can intentionally change the speed at which the vocal cords vibrate when we speak: this gives changes in pitch (i.e. tones in Chinese).

 

(c) Everything above the vocal cords is the vocal tract (tongue lips etc). The vocal tract is of course manipulated loads: this is what makes different vowel sounds. Different frequencies emerge simultaneously: to help analyse them, linguists band them up into what are called formants (formant 1 is F1, formant 2 is F2).

 

So for Chinese:

Tones: F0, high or low frequencies etc, comes from controlling the vocal chords

Vowels: F1, F2 etc, high or low frequencies etc, comes from controlling different parts of the vocal tract above the vocal cords.

Pitch: is the perception of F0.

 

More on formants:

As far as I can work out:

Any vowel sound from our voice involves multiple sounds produced at the same time, at different frequencies. Just changing one of them can result in a different vowel. But usually several or all of them change for different vowels.

They change depending on what we do with our vocal tract. (And they will naturally vary from person to person depending on head shape, height (because taller people have longer vocal tracts) etc.).

 

F1 describes one of the frequencies that our voices produce simultaneously with various others. F1 refers to the sound that will vary from vowel to vowel but will always be in the region of 1000Hz. F1 is the lowest formant.

F2 refers to the frequencies that move around the 2000Hz region. F3 the 3000Hz region etc.

F1 and F2 are enough to describe most vowels.

 

This is the picture of the original [ei] from the video earlier. The blue line is the pitch or tone which remains level.

The bottom red line is F1. The second-bottom red line is F2. Those clearly change as the speaker moves from the "e" in "gei" to the "i" in "gei".

(the left axis is for the red lines, the formants, and goes up to 5000Hz. The blue line, pitch (tone) is the right axis and up only 500Hz. So the frequency of the pitch (tone) is way lower than F1, even though they seem to be about equal in the picture).

 

 

So that answers my question on why vowels can sound higher or lower but the tone can sound the same. I doubt anyone will read this but it helped me to write it out.

 

(And I think for musical instruments: F0 is the pitch, whereas the 'sound' (what is F1/F2/F3/F4/F5 in a human voice) depends on the instrument and its size, materials etc.)

[markhavemann]

On 3/13/2022 at 4:40 AM, realmayo said:

So that answers my question on why vowels can sound higher or lower but the tone can sound the same. I doubt anyone will read this but it helped me to write it out.

Thanks for posting that, nicely summarised and really informative. 

 

One thing I think might be slightly affecting an English ear's ability to really hear these as diphthons is they are definitely slightly different to English diphthongs, as the PDF posted earlier said. 

Possibly our ear is used to listening for some small change at the end but it never comes since it happened in the middle of the vowel sound. Maybe in fast speech it's even harder to detect. 

 

I will add that in Sichuan dialect here, the "ei" often does change to a "e" sound (at least I think that's what I'm hearing) and it's very obvious when it does.