Dude... tones piss me off, I think it is the most retarded way of describing the chinese language. It gives you too much to think about and just sucks suck sucks suck sucks suck sucks!!

How about this, forget the tones! tone 1 2 3 and 4 and the "neutral" tone, dude thinking about that stupid sh!7 is just going to frustrate us! The way I did it is I actively don't think about tones but just hear the way things are spoken, although I am memorizing tones through drilling vocabulary(i do sentences too of course) because undoubtedly when i take classes in China they'll make me rememember what character has what tones. But when it comes to reading, each character simply has a sound, and yea that sound has a specific pitch, but I just think about actual way it is sounds, instead of knowing the tone and trying to say things at the correct "tone" that never works. People will just say your tone is not correct, but if when I started to just worry about the sound of each character individually I was told my pronunciation was better, imitation I guess over inventing my own idea of these "tones". I have a passive knowledge of the tones for testing purposes in China(aug 20th it begins!), but forget trying to apply that you know the tone for words in my opinion, just say it how you heard it.
I don't even think that makes sense, but it has really helped me to pick things out in Chinese, and it pronunciation is a lot better already, and I'm just 2 weeks in to my Half day Chinese immersion environment.


SUMMARY: I just say the word how I've heard it, then if I want to show someone I know the reading and tone on paper then I did it out of my head, I found that before I looked at the character and thought about the tone, then said what was an incorrect representation of the pronunciation. Works better for me anyways.

Also, I don't know if you guys know about this, but I have this stuff running 24.7.
http://watch.squidtv.net/asia/china.html
Nothing like some state TV! Site has tv from many places though,
dl/use GOM tho it tends to be compatible with more of the streams than WMP

Want to add one thing, I can't believe it but I highly prefer on an overall basis CHinese TV to Japanese TV, censuring and all, I can't take a single more yokkata, I swear, a single more sugoi, a single more fake laugh... Japanese TV sucks, Probably has something to do with the fact that I am only exposed to major networks on the Japanese side but with Chinese I have that big list and there are plenty of learning and science focused channels, and I love all the nationalistic documentaries about Chinese history... I am always like OOUU! and AAAHH when I have the Chinese stuff playing, but when my Japanese stuff is going, I find myself breaking my face into the wall at the violent bleeding in my ears that was painfully induced by the horrid screech of the Japanese sirens yokkatas and sugois, I guess it's just because I can't get any sciency/historyeey stuff as far as live Japanese TV, I bet I would froth at the mouth in a positive but violent way, if I were exposed to the glory of a Japanese Science network.

Actually, chances are very high that they won't care at all about the tones in China, my friends studying Mandarin in Beijing claims tones aren't part of the curriculum at all at the university he studies at. You will have to pronounce it correct though.

It's like with Japanese. Pitch is important, but no one actively studies that stuff.

EDIT: Thanks for the site btw, always nice with good material.

Tobberoth Wrote:Actually, chances are very high that they won't care at all about the tones in China, my friends studying Mandarin in Beijing claims tones aren't part of the curriculum at all at the university he studies at. You will have to pronounce it correct though.

It's like with Japanese. Pitch is important, but no one actively studies that stuff.

EDIT: Thanks for the site btw, always nice with good material.

Well that is good! Tones are retarded like wtf, even the IME doesn't use them, so what the hell is the point of actively knowing them,I believe that's yet another bash at language Classes in the west, as I do know that my university I used to attend used tone memorization in their studies, I guess they would since those students have probably one source of the spoken language, the teacher, and their 4; 1 hour classes, per week is more than enough immersion for them, they'll be fluent in a week guys! Watch out！ I am going to continue with the tones though just until I get to china and see how they want it done at my particular school.

Want to add one thing, I can't believe it but I highly prefer on an overall basis CHinese TV to Japanese TV, censuring and all, I can't take a single more yokkata, I swear, a single more sugoi, a single more fake laugh... Japanese TV sucks, Probably has something to do with the fact that I am only exposed to major networks on the Japanese side but with Chinese I have that big list and there are plenty of learning and science focused channels, and I love all the nationalistic documentaries about Chinese history... I am always like OOUU! and AAAHH when I have the Chinese stuff playing, but when my Japanese stuff is going, I find myself breaking my face into the wall at the violent bleeding in my ears that was painfully induced by the horrid screech of the Japanese sirens yokkatas and sugois, I guess it's just because I can't get any sciency/historyeey stuff as far as live Japanese TV, I bet I would froth at the mouth in a positive but violent way, if I were exposed to the glory of a Japanese Science network.

Tobberoth Wrote:Actually, chances are very high that they won't care at all about the tones in China, my friends studying Mandarin in Beijing claims tones aren't part of the curriculum at all at the university he studies at. You will have to pronounce it correct though.

It's like with Japanese. Pitch is important, but no one actively studies that stuff.

EDIT: Thanks for the site btw, always nice with good material.

Funny because I was just reading this on another language forum. One of the guys that lived in China for about 4 years chimed in and said he never bothered learning the tones nor was it ever an issue with him being understood.

I know nothing about Mandarin but if that is the case why are tones considered the "hard" aspect of it? In my own mind I always thought "why don't you just pronounce the words the way they are pronounced?" but figured this was just some sort of ignorance on my part in regards to how tonal languages work.

activeaero Wrote:

Tobberoth Wrote:Actually, chances are very high that they won't care at all about the tones in China, my friends studying Mandarin in Beijing claims tones aren't part of the curriculum at all at the university he studies at. You will have to pronounce it correct though.

It's like with Japanese. Pitch is important, but no one actively studies that stuff.

EDIT: Thanks for the site btw, always nice with good material.

Funny because I was just reading this on another language forum. One of the guys that lived in China for about 4 years chimed in and said he never bothered learning the tones nor was it ever an issue with him being understood.

I know nothing about Mandarin but if that is the case why are tones considered the "hard" aspect of it? In my own mind I always thought "why don't you just pronounce the words they way they are pronounced?" but figured this was just some sort of ignorance on my part in regards to how tonal languages work.

NAH! It's true! That's what I am saying, it's just like English I think, difference words are said different ways, But it's even easier I think since most often words are often pronounced the exact same way every time. Well I really, must finish My studies, I'll be back aroun 11 ET(USA), F*#K peace(stupid thing I used to say in like 9th grade, me and my friends didn't like the whole "peace" to say goodbye thing so we started saying F peace, I forget the reasoning for that, but that's a good thing since I was some punk in those days.)

activeaero Wrote:

Tobberoth Wrote:Actually, chances are very high that they won't care at all about the tones in China, my friends studying Mandarin in Beijing claims tones aren't part of the curriculum at all at the university he studies at. You will have to pronounce it correct though.

It's like with Japanese. Pitch is important, but no one actively studies that stuff.

EDIT: Thanks for the site btw, always nice with good material.

Funny because I was just reading this on another language forum. One of the guys that lived in China for about 4 years chimed in and said he never bothered learning the tones nor was it ever an issue with him being understood.

I know nothing about Mandarin but if that is the case why are tones considered the "hard" aspect of it? In my own mind I always thought "why don't you just pronounce the words they way they are pronounced?" but figured this was just some sort of ignorance on my part in regards to how tonal languages work.

Well, tones are sort of extra important since it's more or less impossible to understand what someone is saying if they aren't using the correct tones perfectly. I mean in Japanese, it doesn't matter if you use the wrong pitch when saying 猫, everyone will understand you're talking about a cat even if your pronunciation sucks. In Chinese, it becomes impossible to communicate.

However yes, I don't see the point in making such a big deal out of it. Focus on it a lot in the start, get it right, understand it. Then stop caring about it so much, it SHOULD become more or less second nature. It's just a language where pronunciation is more important than usual, I guess.

Tobberoth Wrote:

activeaero Wrote:

Tobberoth Wrote:Actually, chances are very high that they won't care at all about the tones in China, my friends studying Mandarin in Beijing claims tones aren't part of the curriculum at all at the university he studies at. You will have to pronounce it correct though.

It's like with Japanese. Pitch is important, but no one actively studies that stuff.

EDIT: Thanks for the site btw, always nice with good material.

Funny because I was just reading this on another language forum. One of the guys that lived in China for about 4 years chimed in and said he never bothered learning the tones nor was it ever an issue with him being understood.

I know nothing about Mandarin but if that is the case why are tones considered the "hard" aspect of it? In my own mind I always thought "why don't you just pronounce the words they way they are pronounced?" but figured this was just some sort of ignorance on my part in regards to how tonal languages work.

Well, tones are sort of extra important since it's more or less impossible to understand what someone is saying if they aren't using the correct tones perfectly. I mean in Japanese, it doesn't matter if you use the wrong pitch when saying 猫, everyone will understand you're talking about a cat even if your pronunciation sucks. In Chinese, it becomes impossible to communicate.

However yes, I don't see the point in making such a big deal out of it. Focus on it a lot in the start, get it right, understand it. Then stop caring about it so much, it SHOULD become more or less second nature. It's just a language where pronunciation is more important than usual, I guess.

From context people can still figure out what you mean as well of course though.

edit: assuming someone didn't get every tone wrong of course! and if they did they obviouslly arent putting in much time!

tones are just part of the syllables, it's how they are pronounced, kinda like vowels.. do you worry to get the right vowels in your syllables? not really, it's just part of what they are... か and け are two different sounds, the same way 媽(má) and 馬(mǎ) are two different sounds, not "the same sound with different tones".
so yes, tones are important, just don't think of them in terms of tones, only in terms of "how is this syllable pronounced"... not like you can't figure out which tone it is once you know how to pronounce it.

dbh2ppa Wrote:tones are just part of the syllables, it's how they are pronounced, kinda like vowels.. do you worry to get the right vowels in your syllables? not really, it's just part of what they are... か and け are two different sounds, the same way 媽(má) and 馬(mǎ) are two different sounds, not "the same sound with different tones".
so yes, tones are important, just don't think of them in terms of tones, only in terms of "how is this syllable pronounced"... not like you can't figure out which tone it is once you know how to pronounce it.

Yep.

dbh2ppa Wrote:tones are just part of the syllables, it's how they are pronounced, kinda like vowels.. do you worry to get the right vowels in your syllables? not really, it's just part of what they are... か and け are two different sounds, the same way 媽(má) and 馬(mǎ) are two different sounds, not "the same sound with different tones".
so yes, tones are important, just don't think of them in terms of tones, only in terms of "how is this syllable pronounced"... not like you can't figure out which tone it is once you know how to pronounce it.

Ok that is exactly how I've always thought of it. So I assume the difficulty really just stems from the fact that Mandarin has a large number of sounds?

activeaero Wrote:

dbh2ppa Wrote:tones are just part of the syllables, it's how they are pronounced, kinda like vowels.. do you worry to get the right vowels in your syllables? not really, it's just part of what they are... か and け are two different sounds, the same way 媽(má) and 馬(mǎ) are two different sounds, not "the same sound with different tones".
so yes, tones are important, just don't think of them in terms of tones, only in terms of "how is this syllable pronounced"... not like you can't figure out which tone it is once you know how to pronounce it.

Ok that is exactly how I've always thought of it. So I assume the difficulty really just stems from the fact that Mandarin has a large number of sounds?

I've always thought of mandarin as a lot easier than Japanese as I'm going through it personally, the sounds aren't really very difficult for an English speaker to pronounce, and each Hanzi tends to have one reading, I am easily learning at the very least 60 readings per day through sentence and vocabulary SRSing, I will probably be able to read mostly anything in just 2 months from now, and being able to read should allow me to access chinese readily, I honestly think 1 year is a doable amount of time to be pretty fluent, I mean I am learning 100 words per day, in a frequency based way, plus each word usually has 2 reading but some don't, and I am only putting the 60 readings learned per day on the conservative side of the estimate. I don't know , am I missing something, or is it really just plug away and get it done. With chiese the whole method seems much more systematic because of the lack of different readings for the vast majority of Hanzi, is that just me?

Someone flip CTV1 on right now, this show is hilarious they make like highschool age kids come on and try their handyman skills out and build something or solve some problem in some amount of time...there are stupid kids everywhere...Now I know... I will never give into the asians are smart stereotype again! hhaha Not that I did before anyways. maybe a little since I am partly asian.

Now their goal is start a fire and boil water.. these kids are retarded, it's official. I mean come on ! Come on! They've never tried the outdoorsy things before, seems like.
弟三关　I think that's the shows name, the hostess is kind of a hottie.

HAHA they had to frame a picture at perfectly level... and are given like ten different onld levelings tools incliding a transparent plastic tube and a full bottle of water... and they are too dumb to use it... All you have to do is pour water in the tube and bend it back up on itself on the edges of the picture and check if the water is level at each... too difficult for them... ふあははは！ CHINESE TV KICKS FACES, it's official, tell your friends.(just don't watch the news of course, now that I bother with mainstream news even here, their tendency to give options on viewpoints to hold, and being often times open opinionated is amazing, the vast majority of the pop doesn't notice it! how is that even possible tho...oh well)

I am watching the CCTV channels linked to in the first post right now. They are all working fine except for the 730k-ones? My player says "stream does not exist" anyone else having trouble?

HerrPetersen Wrote:I am watching the CCTV channels linked to in the first post right now. They are all working fine except for the 730k-ones? My player says "stream does not exist" anyone else having trouble?

Some tend to not be available at certain times.

Yonosa Wrote:Dude... tones piss me off, I think it is the most retarded way of describing the chinese language. It gives you too much to think about and just sucks suck sucks suck sucks suck sucks!!

How about this, forget the tones! tone 1 2 3 and 4 and the "neutral" tone, dude thinking about that stupid sh!7 is just going to frustrate us! The way I did it is I actively don't think about tones but just hear the way things are spoken, although I am memorizing tones through drilling vocabulary(i do sentences too of course) because undoubtedly when i take classes in China they'll make me rememember what character has what tones. But when it comes to reading, each character simply has a sound, and yea that sound has a specific pitch, but I just think about actual way it is sounds, instead of knowing the tone and trying to say things at the correct "tone" that never works. People will just say your tone is not correct, but if when I started to just worry about the sound of each character individually I was told my pronunciation was better, imitation I guess over inventing my own idea of these "tones". I have a passive knowledge of the tones for testing purposes in China(aug 20th it begins!), but forget trying to apply that you know the tone for words in my opinion, just say it how you heard it.
I don't even think that makes sense, but it has really helped me to pick things out in Chinese, and it pronunciation is a lot better already, and I'm just 2 weeks in to my Half day Chinese immersion environment.


SUMMARY: I just say the word how I've heard it, then if I want to show someone I know the reading and tone on paper then I did it out of my head, I found that before I looked at the character and thought about the tone, then said what was an incorrect representation of the pronunciation. Works better for me anyways.

Also, I don't know if you guys know about this, but I have this stuff running 24.7.
http://watch.squidtv.net/asia/china.html
Nothing like some state TV! Site has tv from many places though,
dl/use GOM tho it tends to be compatible with more of the streams than WMP

Want to add one thing, I can't believe it but I highly prefer on an overall basis CHinese TV to Japanese TV, censuring and all, I can't take a single more yokkata, I swear, a single more sugoi, a single more fake laugh... Japanese TV sucks, Probably has something to do with the fact that I am only exposed to major networks on the Japanese side but with Chinese I have that big list and there are plenty of learning and science focused channels, and I love all the nationalistic documentaries about Chinese history... I am always like OOUU! and AAAHH when I have the Chinese stuff playing, but when my Japanese stuff is going, I find myself breaking my face into the wall at the violent bleeding in my ears that was painfully induced by the horrid screech of the Japanese sirens yokkatas and sugois, I guess it's just because I can't get any sciency/historyeey stuff as far as live Japanese TV, I bet I would froth at the mouth in a positive but violent way, if I were exposed to the glory of a Japanese Science network.

OMG, I can't believe you guys don't care about the tones! It IS important. I remember my 老外朋友たち trying to say something to a Chinese who doesn't understand him, then he tries to say it in any pitch he can think of. It does provide a funny scene though
But honestly, it is quite important especially when you have specific words. Like Japanese a lot of words are pronounced the same, but the tone gives it more distinction (I know, there are still lot's of words with the same pronunciation and tone)
So the tone narrows it down to something more specific.

I think his point was not to specifically learn the tones seperately from everything else, but rather allow it to come naturally through imitation of words.

nadiatims Wrote:I think his point was not to specifically learn the tones seperately from everything else, but rather allow it to come naturally through imitation of words.

Oh oh? I think you got it!

Maybe you just have a musical ear. Tones are probably made into a big deal because many people cannot properly distinguish the different sounds without a certain amount of training.

You also got me wondering: do speciality channels exist in Japan?

To really get good at tones you have to focus on the combination of tones as opposed to single tones. Practice going from 1->3, 2->1, 3->4, etc. When you've mastered all possible transitions then it will gradually become second nature. I agree that listening practice helps, but making a conscious effort will speed your progress considerably.

Language Technique 101

Yonosa Wrote:I don't even think that makes sense, but it has really helped me to pick things out in Chinese, and it pronunciation is a lot better already

So do Chinese people have any trouble understanding you now?

stehr Wrote:To really get good at tones you have to focus on the combination of tones as opposed to single tones. Practice going from 1->3, 2->1, 3->4, etc. When you've mastered all possible transitions then it will gradually become second nature. I agree that listening practice helps, but making a conscious effort will speed your progress considerably.

These are my thoughts exactly. Tones are a necessary pain, just gotta deal with em.

Kinda unrelated - lol, my chinese friend was teaching me tones the other day. She said I could only speak in 'two' tones, and that was pretty common for foreigners, but once they get used to the pronounciation (keyword here) it becomes second nature.

It's a good thing that you mention this because many languages have 'tones' but not as systematic as they appear to be in chinese.