A Language Epiphany: Chinese Tones

When I first started learning Mandarin Chinese, I thought is was the most fun thing ever. Even trying to master the tones was fun. I learned simple vocabulary and simple phrases that I could reproduce correctly, but at a very unnaturally slow speed. I didn't mind. After attending a summer programme which had a Mandarin component, I was ready to pick back up Chinese since I had taken a long break from it.

Moving forward in my study, I wanted to have a more native-like speaking speed, but this brought a lot of frustration. In order to speak more smoothly, I figured that I would need to practise combinations of tones and not only separate words. At that time, I could not find any websites that would allow me to practice tone combinations the way I wanted. Perhaps I didn't look hard enough. However, last year,  I came across a video series called Break Through Chinese Pronunciation by Chris Parker from Fluent in Mandarin which did exactly what I was looking for. I only actually watched it in detail this week. In addition to providing basic pinyin explanations, it also covers all of the 20 tone pair combinations, giving various example of each. In this playlist there is a video where you can check to see if you can identify these same tone pairs. When I watched the video, it was clear that identifying the tone pairs is A LOT harder than just saying them.

In this same video series, Chris also offers his advice on saying sentences in Chinese. His main piece of advice was to break the sentences in to "units of meaning". It was after watching this same video however, that I was reminded of one of the main things that put me off Chinese. In spoken Chinese, with the exception of the first tone, most times the tones just seem to disappear. It seemed like a waste to even learn them. In one of the sentences in Chris' video, "mei2 you3" came up. From what I heard, the third tone was completely gone. This was so frus-tra-ting. I was about to give up again when I saw a video from Chinese with Yang Yang in the video suggestions. The title was "Chinese Tone Pairs: How to Practice and Master Chinese Tones". I know that Yang Yang always has quality material, so I decided to give it a watch. I really love how she uses words in English to show learners that tones indeed exist in our own language. This video really cleared up a lot for me. The main thing that it cleared up, was the whole crazy third tone thing. In her video, Yang Yang described the third tone simply as a low tone and not the typical falling and rising tone. She however emphasized that the third tone is only a falling and rising tone when used in isolation. (Unfortunately in Chris' videos as well as the sound-file Anki deck from Yang Yang herself, the third tone is emphasized as a falling and rising tone in the tone pairs).

A little more searching led me to Hacking Chinese's blog post on the third tone. Apparently he did a whole thesis on this - how interesting. He had even more detail on the third tone and its usage in relation to the other tones.

1. Before a 1st, 2nd or 4th tone, the 3rd tone is pronounced as a low, falling tone
2. Before another 3rd tone, the first 3rd tone is changed into a 2nd tone
3. In final position, the 3rd tone is often (but not always) realised as a low, falling tone
4. In isolation or when stressed, the 3rd tone is usually pronounced as a falling-rising tone      

**Other wonderful posts by Hacking Chinese on How to Discover Your Problems With Tones AND   Focusing on Tone Pairs to Improve your Mandarin Pronunciation.

I feel extremely good that I came across all of this wonderful material. I don't know how much Chinese I will study in the near future but understanding and getting better at Chinese tones is something I want to be able to say that I finally conquered. Better understanding of tones could aid other language learning as well.

My Plan:

Use Yang Yang's tone chart that has commonly used words for each tone pair to help pairs stick in your brain.

Use Sinosplice's tone pair drill files for both speaking and listening practice. (Sinosplice's tone pair files third tone is stressed the least in my opinion)