Overview

Pinyin is the system of symbols for the phonetic notation of all Chinese characters. Each Chinese character has its corresponding syllable, and each syllable is composed of three parts which are called the Initial, the Final, and the Tone. In the Chinese Pinyin system, there are 21 initials, 36 finals, 2 semi-vowels, 4 basic tones, and 1 light tone.

21 Pinyin Initials

(You can check the Pinyin Chart for the pronunciation of each initial.)

36 Pinyin Finals

(You can check the Pinyin Chart for the pronunciation of each final.)

There are 6 main finals in the table of finals: a, o, e, i, u, ü.

Others are called compound finals.

It`s said that the Final is the most important part in a pinyin syllable. We can`t compose a syllable without the final part. Sometimes, the final itself can be an independent syllable without the initial.

Rules about spelling:

1. The three compound finals, “uei”, “iou”, and“uen”, are composed of “u+ei”, “i+ou”, “u+en”,   We should compress the syllables as “ui”, “iu”, and“un” in writing.

e.g.

对 right, correct: [duì] √,  [duèi]ⅹ

秋 autumn：[qiū] √,  [qiōu]ⅹ

春 spring：[chūn] √,  [chuēn]ⅹ

2. When the finals “i”, “in”, “ing”, and “u” form pinyin syllables by themselves without any other initials, “y” and “w” should be put before these finals respectively to make it as “yi”, “yin”, “ying”, and “wu”. For example:

一 one：[yī] √,  [ī]ⅹ

音 sound：[yīn] √,  [īn]ⅹ

应 should：[yīng] √,  [īng]ⅹ

五 five：[wǔ] √,  [ǔ]ⅹ

3. The compound finals with “i”or “u”as the beginning and which form syllables by themselves, the “i”and “u”should be changed as “y” and “w”in writing. For example:

爷 grandpa: [yé] √,  [ié]ⅹ

我 I，me：[wǒ] √,  [uǒ]ⅹ

4. Rules about “ü”

• When a final that begins with “ü”meets “y” in one syllable, the two dots of “ü”should be omitted. For example:

鱼 fish: [yú] √,  [yǘ]ⅹ

月 moon, month: [yuè] √,  [yüè]ⅹ

• The final “ü”cannot be spelled with the initial “j”“q” or“x”. Thus, when “ü”, or the finals that begin with “ü”, meets one of the three initials, the two dots above “ü”should be omitted. For example:

举 hold: [jǔ] √,  [jǚ]ⅹ

去 go：[qù] √,  [qǜ]ⅹ

学 study，learn：[xué] √,  [xüé]ⅹ

5. When the second syllable begins with “a”, “o”, or“e”in a word, the two syllables should be separated by the mark (’). For example:

先 first [xiān]  VS 西安 Xi`an [xī’ān]

Tones

Tone is an aspect of learning Chinese which can be difficult for many learners. Many Chinese characters share the same Pinyin syllable but have different tones, and therefore have completely different meanings.

The basic tones:

• The 1st tone: (—)

It`s pronounced very high and level with a natural prolonging. For example:

ā, ō, ē, ī, ū, ǖ

• The 2nd tone: (/)

It`s pronounced as a rising sound, from low to high, which sounds like asking a question. For example:

á, ó, é, í, ú, ǘ

• The 3rd tone: (∨)

When pronouncing this tone, you should first fall down and then go up; it is a relatively long tone. For example:

ǎ, ǒ, ě, ǐ, ǔ, ǚ

• The 4th tone: (\)

This tone is pronounced short and strong, and is a falling tone. For example:

à, ò, è, ì, ù, ǜ

• Neutral tone

Besides the basic tone, there is another special tone which is called the light or neutral tone. It has no tone mark in writing and it`s pronounced very light and short. It`s usually used as the last syllable of a word or a phrase, such as 谢谢 [xiè xie] (thanks), 妈妈[mā ma] (mom).

Note:

The tone mark should be put above the finals. When the final is a compound one, the tone mark is usually put above the main vowel which is based on the following order: “a”-> “o”-> “e”-> “i” -> “u”-> “ü”.

The rules of tone changes

In a word or phrase, when a third tone is followed by another third tone immediately, it should be pronounced as a half rising tone. For example:

体检 physical examination

我很好 I`m very good.

While a third tone is followed by a first, second, or third tone immediately, the third tone should be pronounced as a half falling tone. For example:

很新 very new:

很强 very strong:

很旧 very old:

Note that the tone changes only orally, and the written version will keep the original tone marks.

Practice

After learning the rules of Pinyin above, it`s time to do some practice. Try to pronounce the following syllable:

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No matter which level are you in, making sure your pronunciation correctly is definitely necessary and never too late. All in all, a good beginning is half the battle. With this guide, you can learn Chinese pronunciation easier in a correct way.

Part 1: What is Pinyin?

Chinese is not a phonetic language. The pronunciation is not related to the writing of Chinese words (characters). Pinyin is the special system, created for people to learn Mandarin pronunciation. Pinyin transcribes the Chinese characters so people can pronounce it. It may be used as an input method to enter Chinese characters into computers or electronics as well.

The writing of Pinyin is similar to English alphabet. You can pronounce every single sound out in Chinese using pinyin. However, you should aware that the Chinese pronunciation and spelling of pinyin letters are different from English letters. The sounds, which the letters of pinyin represent, do not correspond exactly to the sounds that the letters of English represent. So you can`t pronounce pinyin as if they were English. E.g

One Chinese sound is associated with one syllable and each Chinese character has its own pinyin syllable.

There are three parts in a pinyin syllable, which are the Initial, Final and Tone. Initial and final represent the segmental phonetic portion of the language, rather than letter by letter.

Chinese PinYin Chart with Audio (click here)

Part 2: What is Tones?

Mandarin Chinese is a tonal language, which means that the way a sound is pronounced directly affects the meaning of what is said. Mandarin’s tones give the language a very distinctive quality, but the tones can also be a source of miscommunication if not given due attention.

There are four main tones and one neutral tone in mandarin Chinese (or, as some say, five tones). Each tone has a distinctive pitch contour, which can be graphed using the following Chinese 5-level system.

I’ve seen some posts claim that the Chinese tones are just like English, which convey the attitude or feeling of a speaker, however, it`s not the case. This idea is mixing up two different concepts. English doesn`t have tones since words don`t change the meanings when you pronounce them with different intonations. However, in Chinese, even with the same initial and final, different tones represent different characters and meanings. There are many Chinese characters with the same initials and finals. E.g.

Common Tone Rules

• Third Tone Sandhi

When a third tone followed by another third tone, it should be pronounced as a second tone automatically. But the writing script should remain unchanged as the third tone mark. For example:
你好 (nǐ + hǎo)  ->  你好 (ní hǎo)

我很好 (wǒ + hěn + hǎo)  ->  我很好 (wó hén hǎo) 

• Tone sandhi of “不”

“不” becomes a second tone when followed by a fourth tone character. It is a fourth tone syllable by itself and when followed by other four tones then the following will happen.

• Tone sandhi of “一”

“一” is pronounced in first tone when it`s by itself, at the end of a word, or used as a number. When it is followed by a first tone, second tone, or third tone character though, “一” changes to the fourth tone. It is pronounced in the second tone when it precedes a fourth tone.

Part 3: Why Tones Matter?

If you can`t recognize the tone, you might always struggle figuring out what Chinese people said. And there are also many embarrassing situations you will encounter when communicating with Chinese people.

I met many Chinese learning quitters. They told me that they did want to learn mandarin. After they read the pinyin chart for two or three times in the first two lessons, they thought these Romanization letters were a piece of cake and it was time to move forward to learn more “real Chinese“. As a result of spending too little time on mastering the tones and proper pronunciations, the subsequent overload of similar vocabulary ruined their confidence, so they had to quit. Enough practice on your ears and mouth will help you survive, even though the beginning might be tedious and tough. Once you go through this essential part, you will lay an unbreakable foundation for your Chinese learning.

That`s why the tones matter.

Common Difficulties You Might meet

The purpose of this section is to clarify some common mistakes and difficulties you might meet when learning mandarin Chinese pronunciations. There are some distinct sounds in Chinese that are tricky to non-native speakers. Let`s conquer them one by one, thus there is less barrier in your pronunciation path.

Most of the difficult pinyin sounds are initials, like zh/ch/sh, z/c/s, j/q/x and r.

There is also a final “ü” that most foreigners can`t pronounce very well.

Part 4: Tips and Suggestions: How to improve your Chinese pronunciation

1. Master the basic rules of pronunciation and tones.

Knowing basic greetings like “你好” “你好吗” in Chinese is not hard, but advancing beyond the warm up greetings is quite different endeavor. As a beginner, the most important thing is be familiar with all pinyin sounds, spelling rules and tone changing rules. If possible, you`d better find a professional teacher who can speak standard mandarin Chinese and explain the differences among those similar sounds properly.

There are many learning experiences sharing about how to improve your Chinese pronunciation. Regarding the tones, besides the regular tones practice, there are some learners who share their methods like mastering without using tone marks.

2. Having Enough input: Make your own language environment

If you are learning Chinese in China or luckily be surrounded by a group of native speakers, just try to talk to them with what you`ve learnt. If you can`t follow them at the beginning, don`t feel embarrassed or upset. It`s a quite common phase. What you need to do is at least distinguishing the words you`ve learnt and be more familiar with the intonation Chinese language make. Gradually you can connect all the words and figure out what they are talking about.

If you don`t have the language environment, make it yourself! There are tons of online learning resources (well, surely you can find them at Dig Mandarin. :) ) No matter Chinese learning audios or videos, you can make use of your fragment time to listen. Sometimes, the learning content is a little bit tedious, afterwards you can find some Chinese songs to perfect your accent.   Also, learning from movies and TV shows is also a great way to train your sense of the language, and know more about Chinese culture as well.

3. Having Enough output

i. Practice in words, phrases and sentences

Don`t just practice the individual characters. There is phonetic change in the flow of speech, especially the tones. When you first begin to study Mandarin Chinese pronunciation, it is beneficial to practice pairs of tones. Begin with a word you already know, such as很好(hěnhǎo, very good). This phrase uses the second then the third tone. Say this phrase out loud several times and listen for the tone and rhythm of the syllables. Studying this natural rhythm of the language will help you pronounce new words you come across. Also, the increased accuracy of your Mandarin pronunciation will help you say sentences more smoothly.The start is of course tough, however after going through it; the longer sentences will be much easier for you.

ii. Slow down and be clear

Pay attention that you do not speak too fast. It`s very natural to speak in a normal speed just like the native speaker. But you are just a beginner who might not pronounce the standard sound. Speed is the last thing you should care about. Just SLOW DOWN! Make your sounds clear and correct. If people can`t even understand you, do you seriously care about your speaking speed? After all, a successful communication is the goal and accuracy is the most important thing.

iii. Practice makes perfect

As we mentioned above, you need to cultivate a keen sense of Chinese language by enough input. Some when you are practice by yourself and not with others, you are creating the illusion that you are speaking Chinese well. The truth might be only you yourself can understand or of course your teacher can guess what you are trying to say exactly. So the only key is practice, practice and practice. If once doesn`t work, then do it twice, triple…… You will finally get it.

4. Learn from your mistakes

As you know, Chinese people are very kind, so encouragement and compliment will be the main trend of their comments to your speaking. Confidence is necessary, but their kindness is not your reason to ignore the mistakes and your foreign pronunciation. Ask your Chinese friends to point out your inaccuracy and specific problems directly. Of course, it can`t be better if the one friend is a professional teacher. Then take down the notes of your common mistakes and analyze them one by one. This process will help you conquer your problems. It may be discouraging sometimes to hear about so many mistakes, but you will learn a lot from them quickly and it will help you to improve much faster than you think.

You also can observe if other people understand you. Regardless their kindness, understanding is a good start anyhow. In addition you can try to prepare a paragraph on a specific topic, then record your own speech. Listen to it several times to see if it`s weird in your perspective. Then ask your Chinese friends or teacher help you checking it. If possible, you can also compare your own recordings with the native speaker`s. It`s very clear to hear the differences of sounds, rhythms and intonation. Adjusting and improving your pronunciation is what you can do naturally. Focusing on the difficulties and repeat it slower. Just make sure you are pronouncing the right way.

5. Review all the time

Acquiring accurate pronunciation is a long-tern battle. Don`t be naïve as if you can master the authentic pronunciation in one shot. Record all your mistakes and misunderstanding of some specific concepts. Review your notes from time to time. It will call your attention and remind you the right way you should act. One day you will finally master them all.

Part 5: Resources

1. Video Lessons

a) Learn Complete Chinese Pronunciation in 16 Days! – This pronunciation course is produced by DigMandarin. With this course, you will:

• Know how to pronounce every Chinese sound clearly with the proper accent.
• Understand the phonetic alphabet (Pinyin) and how it relates to pronunciation.
• Learn each of the 21 Pinyin Initials.
• Learn each of the basic 6 Finals, as well as the 30 compound Finals.
• Know how to reduce your accent and sound more like a native.
• Learn and understand the trickiest letters that trip up most beginners, including the dreaded Mandarin tones.
• Experience detailed explanations which show you how to shape your mouth, place your tongue, and produce the required sounds.

b) Fluent Forever – Just as I illustrated above, these 3 videos provide instructions to lead you get basic understanding about Chinese pronunciation, tones and spelling rules. Its whiteboard illustrating way is quite clear and easy to follow.

c) Yoyo Chinese – With an interview by Dig Mandarin. This group offers over 100 YouTube videos designed to help you learn Mandarin more easily. An addition 300-400 videos are available if you pay for the premium membership on the website. Beginners can make great strides in language learning with the systemic video organization that naturally builds world knowledge and pronunciation skills.

2. Audio Lessons

 ChineseClass101 – ChineseClass101`s lesson number is pretty big. Regarding the pronunciation part, they provide the learners 5 episodes to illustrate the Chinese word construction, tones, related tone rules and difficult sounds. It basically covers the main idea of mandarin Chinese pronunciation.

3. Tools & APP

a) Pinyin Tools – If you want to learn about how to use Pinyin to aid your Chinese verbal language acquisition, Dig Mandarin recommends for apps: pinyin chart, tone chart, Pinyin to Chinese character converter app.

b) Pleco – This dictionary is one of the most useful and frequently used ones for people learning Mandarin. You can search by either the Chinese character or pinyin spelling. If you have heard a new Chinese word that you do not understand, you can easily search through this site to figure out what it is. There is a premium version as well which includes audio pronunciations.

4. Book

New Practice Chinese Readers – This Mandarin Chinese textbook is my personal favorite. It combines a carefully laid-out learning structure ideal for language with audio files for better pronunciation and understanding. The lessons include vocabulary, pronunciation, grammar and sentence structure and even cultural information. New Practice for Chinese Readers is available on Amazon and from major book retailers.

The post Chinese Pronunciation: The Complete Guide for Beginner appeared first on .

When it comes to learning any skill, you need to frame it in a way you can understand before you can truly learn and master the skill. Quite often, I’ll use the analogy of playing music when teaching my students about tones.

If you think about it, learning the Chinese tones is like learning how to read music. You might be able to read the musical notes, but if you don’t know how to play those notes with the instrument, you won’t be able to pay the song. It’s the exact same challenge with Chinese tones.

So recently, I’ve been using the concept of Morse code to teach my students how to pronounce 3 out of the 4 Chinese tones, and it’s been working very well.

If you’re not familiar with Morse Code, you’ll need to read this article (otherwise, the concepts in this article won’t make any sense to you!).

HOW TO PRONOUNCE THE FIRST TONE (OR HIGH TONE)

The first tone is very similar to the “dash” in Morse code. A common teaching cue for the first tone is to pretend like you’re singing a high note. This cue isn’t completely inaccurate, but quite often, people will exaggerate too much and the tone won’t sound natural.

Instead, imagine you’re standing in a crowded subway, and you’re trying to hum a high-note without drawing any attention.

Drill 1

Hum a high-note 10 times, each time for about ¼ of a second

Drill 2

Now, repeat what you practiced in Drill 1, but apply that high note to the following sounds (imagine you’re on the crowded subway)

BA       DA      MA      LA       PA       TA       ZA

HOW TO PRONOUNCE THE THIRD TONE (OR LOW TONE)

Similar to the first tone, I think the third tone is also very similar to the “dash” in Morse code, except in the lowest pitch of your voice. Despite the fact that the third tone looks like a “U,” natives rarely go “down and up” as the tone mark indicates. Instead, it’s more of a sustained sound in the back of the throat. Again, imagine you’re standing in a crowded subway, but this time you’re trying to vibrate your uvula (the dangly thing at the back of your throat) without drawing any attention. This sound is almost identical to when you make the sheep sound, “baaaaah.”

Drill 1

Vibrate your uvula 10 times, each time for about ¼ of a second

Drill 2

Now, repeat what you practiced in Drill 1, but apply that “vibrating” to the following sounds (imagine you’re on the crowded subway)

BA       DA      MA      LA       PA       TA       ZA

HOW TO PRONOUNCE THE FOURTH TONE (OR DROP TONE)

Finally, the fourth tone is almost identical to the “dot” in Morse code. If you’ve never heard the dot in Morse code, it’s a quick, forceful tap.

Drill 1

Say the “duh” sound 10 times with a quick, forceful tap sound.

。        。     。      。       。      。       。       。      。       。

Duh    Duh    Duh    Duh    Duh    Duh    Duh    Duh    Duh    Duh

Drill 2

Now, repeat what you did in drill 1, but apply that quick, forceful tap sound to the Chinese sounds below

。       。       。        。        。        。        。

BA       DA      MA      LA       PA       TA       ZA

There you go! Now you have a simple framework in order to correctly pronounce the first, third and fourth tones.

I recommend that you practice these drills several times so you can get these tones into muscle memory!

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If you’re on this site and reading this post, then you’ve probably at least heard of the four tones, so I won’t go over what they are in detail here – but if not, I’ve explained them in detail in this video.

In this post I’ll want to give you a strategy for practising the tones so that you can get them sounding right, and some tips for how to fix them in your head. A lot of beginners learn about the tones, but find they are difficult, give up on them and just try to speak Chinese pretending that they don’t exist at all. This is a really bad idea, because it’s so much more difficult to correct your pronunciation mistakes later on, and it’s really worth taking the time to get them right early on.

Learn to say the tones right by practising them in pairs

The key to getting ‘into the feel’ of how the tones work in words and sentences is to practice them in pairs and different combinations. Luckily, most ‘words’ in Chinese have just two syllables and therefore two tones, and with only 4 tones there are only a small number of different combinations (even when you factor in the syllables that are unstressed).

I’ve produced videos that will help you practise all the combinations of the tones. All you have to do is to listen and repeat after the examples to see how they work. The most important thing is to get your mouth moving and give them a try!

If you get used to what the different tone combinations ‘feel like’ to say, then you will become much more familiar with them and also be able to able to pick them out more easily.

When you are familiar with the tone combinations in two syllable words, then it’s just the same for three syllable words, there’s just an extra syllable on the front.

And full sentences can generally be divided down into two or three syllable ‘blocks’, which makes them easier to say correctly.

Fixing the tones in your head

One common difficulty that beginner learners of Chinese face is remembering what tone each character or word should be.

This is also why many people decide to ‘give up’ on the tones.

Each Chinese character has a tone, and if a word is made up of two characters, then that makes two tones you have to remember.

The problem is that there aren’t normally any clues from the character or the word itself that will tell you the tone.

This is why you have to pay special attention to the tones of words right from the beginning, and integrate them into your learning, and continue to reinforce them so you don’t forget them.

After all, native Chinese speakers wouldn’t normally ‘forget the tones’, except for really rare words, so it’s definitely possible to remember them, even though it might seem really tough on your brain.

My strategy for remembering the tones of characters and words

1. Be disciplined about using the correct tones whenever you say anything in Chinese

One of the best ways to remember the tones is not to try to remember them from a list of words, but to simply use them.

It’s easy just to try to ‘muddle through’ by saying things without using the tones at all, but it’s important to try to be disciplined and pronounce every word and sentence you learn with the correct tones right from the beginning.

Even if it slows you down at first, it will pay off in the long run.

2. Analyse your use of tones as you speak Chinese

Don’t worry if you make tone mistakes, everybody does, and it’s normal for any learner, but try to recognize when you’ve made a mistake, and correct yourself, or go and look up the tones of the word again later if you’ve forgotten them.

3. Always learn the tones when you learn a new character or word

Whenever you learn a new character or word, always remember to learn the tones at the same time. Don’t just try to copy a native speaker roughly, always ask what the tones are or look them up in a dictionary.

4. When you learn a word, use that as an opportunity to reinforce the tones for the characters in it

Chinese ‘words’ are usually two or three characters. You might recognise the characters individually, but have forgotten their tones.

For example, if you know that 法律 is law, and it is pronounced “fǎ lǜ”, but you only remember that the first character is in the 3^rd tone, then you could use it as an opportunity to refresh your memory about the pronunciation of the second character (lǜ in the 4^th tone).

5. Focus on tones during Chinese listening, rather than just trying to pick out words

You may find that native speakers speak very quickly and it is hard to pick out the tones of words from a constant stream of speech, but whenever you can, try to also listen for the tones of words, or at least for parts of the sentence.

Obviously not everybody speaks in a clear standard accent, so this tip works better for classes or when you are listening to TV/radio etc.

6. Keep double checking the tones of characters/words in a dictionary as you speak

As I said, forgetting the tones of words is completely normal.

If I look back at myself a few years ago, I was constantly checking the tones of words in a dictionary because I had forgotten them, but the more you double check words and then use them correctly, the more likely you are to remember them. It takes time, but you will get things right in the end.

Now, with smartphones, it’s really easy to look up a word quickly anywhere, using an app like Pleco. If you were unsure of the tones in the word for pencil, say, you could just type in qianbi, and see that it should be pronounced in the 1^st then 3^rd tone. Simple!

7. When you read, read out loud with the correct tones

Reading texts out loud in Chinese can be more difficult than other language, because you have to remember all the pronunciations of the characters, and it can be quite slow.

However, it’s a great exercise to help you to reinforce the tones, and it gives you a chance to look up any that you have forgotten. It’s a great memory exercise, and will help you improve quickly!

8. Use colours and mnemonics as well as the tone symbols

If you are the kind of person who likes to rely on visual prompts to remember things, then feel free to use mnemonics or different colour pens to represent the different tones.

Who knows, it might make things easier for you.

As with all aspects of learning a language practice makes perfect. The more you practise the tones, rather than wishing they didn’t exist, the more you will remember them. You might forget the tones of a word 5 times, but if you accept that, and the end result is that you remember it forever, then it’s definitely worth it!

The post How to Get the Tones in Chinese Right, and then Fix Them in Your Head! appeared first on .

Why is it that so many Chinese language students struggle with this aspect of the language?

Well, without a doubt, tones are a very foreign concept to learners who come from non-tonal native languages. When you’re learning a tonal language as a second language, tonal languages certainly require a level of discipline when speaking the language that you don’t experience when learning many other languages.

However, that being said, I personally think a big culprit is the tone marks. To me, the fact that so many students struggle with the tones indicates to me that there might be a problem with the tone marks. So, when I started teaching Chinese, I ditched the tone marks and started working on my own approach.

I personally never liked the tone marks for several reasons:

• The names (first tone, second tone, etc) are not intuitive. If you look at the name “first tone,” you have no idea what that means.
• Most Chinese language learners come from languages that read left to right. Yes, pinyin is also read left to right, but you also have to refer to the tone marks while you’re reading, which creates a sort of dissonance in your head.
• Finally, one thing many beginners don’t realize is that mā, má, mǎ, mà are actually four different words, not just one sound you’re changing with tone marks.

So, let me tell you about the approach that I’ve developed: tone scales.

As you can see, a tone scale looks like a musical scale with three ranges: high, normal and low. I should emphasize that these ranges are within the normal range of your voice.

Let me introduce how I show the different tones with the tone scale system:

First tone mǎ (I refer to the first tone as the “high” tone with my students)

Second tone má (I refer to the second tone as the “rising” tone with my students)

Third tone mǎ (I refer to the third tone as the “low” tone with my students)

Third tone sandhi (as in when there are two “third” tones in a row)

Fourth tone mà (I refer to the fourth tone as the “drop” tone with my students)

And finally the neutral tone ma (I refer to the neutral tone as the “tap” tone)

As you can see, the tone scales are very intuitive, and they also give you a visual reference of how you need to manipulate your voice and pitch.

If you want a more in-depth explanation, please check this video:

Here are a few examples so you can get a sense of how the tone scales work with phrases and sentences.

Numbers

yī èr   sān sì wǔ   lìu qī bā jǐu shí

Long Time No See

hǎo   jǐu   bú   jiàn

Nice to meet you

hěn gāoxìng   rènshì   nǐ

In my next few articles, I’ll go over each tone in detail and offer some more tips on how to master each tone using the tone scales.

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Firstly I’d take a look of the words with their pinyin, tones, their characters and their meaning in your native language. Usually when you are a beginner it is around 10 to 15 words in the first lessons and then until 30 new words in the last ones. These examples are the words proposed in the chapter 5 of my book:

有 (yǒu) to have

几 (jǐ) how many

本 (běn) used for books of various kinds

两 (liǎng) two

都 (dōu) all

多少 (duōshǎo) how much, how many

个 (gè) Measure word

朋友 (péngyou) friend

班 (bān) class

男 (nán) male

女 (nǚ) female

留学生 (liúxuéshēng) international student abroad

和 (hé) and

Once I have looked at the new words, I’d read the sentences proposed by the book or by the teacher. I would try reading the characters instead of the pinyin under the sentences examples. What I do then is write the pinyin in my notebook of every sentence proposed, with the appropriate tones in each word. If I don’t remember the character I will look for it because the main point is to grasp the tones.

Here are some examples:

1-我们 班 同学

2- 一 本 书

3- 他 有几个好朋友?

Then we should write the pinyin with the tones as exercise:

1-Wǒmen bān tóngxué

2-Yī běn shū

3-Tā yǒu jǐ gè hǎo péngyǒu

Typically in textbooks we may find exercises like these ones:

Give quick responses to the questions or Ask each other questions and give responses according to the actual situation:

他们 班 有 多少 人? (How many people are there in their class?)

我们 班 留学生 是 哪国人? (What nationalities are the international students in our class?)

你 有几本词典? (How many dictionaries do you have?)

都 是 汉语 词典 吗? (Are they all Chinese dictionaries?)

Before working on the speaking part, I will do the same process as the prior exercise. I will do the translation again and write the pinyin in my notebook.

Conclusions/ Suggestions:

This way of studying and learning, it is been so useful to me because by doing this process I can work on a lot of aspects. I learn how to remember the tones, the characters and their meaning along with learning to speak Chinese.

At the same time I have learned the sentence structures and I now understand that I just need to make substitutions of the words for the sentence to be correct. I also realized that by learning sentences it is easier to remember the tones that are not word-by-word. If you learn word by word it does not make too much sense to me, because also depending how we combine words and tones, which can change the intonation.

Now that I have been studying Chinese I realized that it is such a musical language due to the 4 tones. Before taking classes and just by listening to what my friends and coworkers were saying, I learned to just imitate the sounds perfectly without knowing that they were using tones. So I encourage everyone to study this beautiful language and hope that my experience as a student will be helpful for other learners!

The post Learning Experience Sharing: Remembering Chinese Tones appeared first on .

Most of the time, secondary speakers of Mandarin just don’t understand how bad they actually sound to a native speaker. I think that this is due to several reasons, and can be helped.  Here are a few of the things that I think cause a bad Mandarin accent.

1) No one has ever mentioned that your accent is terrible.

Accents are often viewed as something that just can’t be helped, something that we are born with.  This perception is completely untrue.  If this were true, there would be no need for speech pathologists or diction coaches.  An accent is something that you can tweak and intentionally craft.  When most people speak a language they are not thinking actively about how to manipulate how they are sounding, they first imprint a sound and then focus on the output of the memorized sound. Accent training requires that we be more active in our output.  The view that it is something that can’t be helped does make a bit of sense because it is very hard to change the way we sound, however it is not impossible. So we should try our hardest to improve our accent.

2) You imprinted yourself with sound patterns that you self-developed without hearing them from a native.

The problem with learning from a book and not speaking to, or listening to natives, is that you will not be able to get a feel for where words begin and where they end.  Cadence and timing are just as important to sounding like a native as tones. If you’ve learned the wrong cadence and timing, it’s very hard to change that without having to think about each word.  If you are not including listening to native speakers and speaking with them in your learning routine and making it just as important as learning new vocabulary, you should listen to more Mandarin.

3) There is a “culture block”.

Some people just can’t bring themselves to make an effort to sound like a native.  They may try to imitate it with about 65% effort.  This lack of effort is because they fear that if they try their hardest to have an authentic accent, they will either fail, someone will think that they are mocking or they are “not being American”.  This is just my opinion but after speaking with people like this and asking why they don’t seem to try to have an authentic accent at all, they usually answer that they don’t want to be rude.  I have also seen that after being immersed in the language their accent does improve over time.  So I believe this is mostly a mental problem.

These are all reasons that Singing is a great way to improve your accent.

Singing helps you develop a natural timing and cadence, it gives you a feel for tones, and it`s a powerful memorization tool.

Don’t believe me? Let’s do an exercise: how many songs can you currently sing from memory in English? How many times has a song come on the radio and you were able to effortlessly sing along with it even though you had put no concentrated effort into learning it?

Human Beings have been using songs since songs were invented to pass down oral traditions of history and language. Also, most early stage language acquisition occurs through song with native speakers.

On top of that, it’s really fun, and singing along is an objective way to measure progress and set goals. Too often we get sidetracked with learning because we are unable to see any real progress and we get discouraged. Singing along with a song is something that you can rapidly see progression in, so it acts as a great motivator. Plus it`s really fun to perform in front of your native friends.

Below, I have included a list of Karaoke Songs that helped me when I was first learning. Please try to follow along with the pinyin and sing out loud, because not only is it fun, but you’ll notice in a few weeks that you won’t feel as tongue tied when learning new vocabulary:

曲婉婷 – 我的歌声里

那些年 – 胡夏

心跳 – 王力宏

愛我別走 – 張震嶽

The post Recommended Chinese Songs for Perfecting Your Accent appeared first on .

It was also through my article that I found out about the great work being done by the folks over at SensibleChinese, who coincidentally published an article at about the same time, championing tone pairs as an essential tool for mastering Chinese pronunciation. They put together the very useful chart below, showing the 20 tone pairs in standard Mandarin, with a familiar example for each. The 20 comes from the fact that a 2-character word can begin with one of the four tones, and end in one of the four or the fifth neutral tone.

(For extra credit, note that 3-3 pairs are pronounced exactly the same as 2-3 pairs, so really there are only 19 unique Mandarin tone combinations – you can read more about why here.)

To review the concept – if a Chinese 2-character word begins with 1^st tone and ends with 1^st tone, we put it in the 1-1 tone pair bucket. All words in the 1-1 bucket have the same intonation, so if you know one well, you can apply that pronunciation to all other words in that bucket. It helps to pick one familiar word as the label for that bucket. So you may call 1-1 words the “today” bucket or the “airplane” bucket. Let’s give it a try.

Let’s try another, the 1-2 tone pair, you may call this the “forest” or “China” bucket. Here, there is a distinctive jump from the 1^st tone down to the start of the rising 2^nd tone.

We covered the 3-2 tone pair in the last article, but it’s worth revisiting. It is a beautiful phonetic pattern, with the 3rd and 2nd tones blending together in a smooth curve. Notice that the 3rd tone is not falling and rising, as often described – it is a deep, throaty sound.

Now let’s have a look & listen at tone pairs that include the 4th, falling tone.

You can check out app Trasee! for Chinese, packed with exercises to help you practice visual as well as phonetic patterns, and several word collections specifically built around the concept of tone pairs.

Here again is a useful word list for illustrating tone combinations. Use it in addition to the “mā má mǎ mà” example, to not only impress your friends, but give them a more realistic point of reference for understanding Chinese pronunciation.

And let’s close with another useful example, of two common words that sound alike except for the difference in tone pairs – also two of my favorite things after a long day of studying Mandarin:

The post Tones Prefer Company! Part II – An exciting new audio-visual way to practice Mandarin tones appeared first on .

When you hear someone discuss the basics of Mandarin pronunciation, they usually start with the four tones, and give an example like the famous (mā má mǎ mà).  To be fair, they might also mention the fifth, neutral tone.

Learning the basic tones is a good start, but it misses two important points:

1. Chinese is not simply a string of syllables – the meaning of the characters evolves when they are combined into words and phrases;

2. Similarly, the true rhythm of spoken Chinese emerges as the tones are combined with one another.

I realized early on in my Mandarin studies that it is helpful to learn to pronounce pairs of tones.  All the words that use a particular tone combination have the same sound pattern.  And these sound patterns can be stacked together to form fluent phrases and sentences of any length.

For example, to practice the 3-1 combination – a deep third tone followed by a high first tone – think of a commonly heard 3-1 word, such as ‘cell phone’ (shǒujī).  If you’re not sure you’re pronouncing it correctly, ask your teacher or a friend who is a native speaker to practice it with you.  Now when you come across other 3-1 words, such as ‘Good Morning!’ (zǎoān), ‘Good Night!’ (wǎn’ān), ‘Beijing’ (běijīng), ‘seafood’ (hǎixiān), ‘seaside’ (hǎibiān) … think back on the original word that you already know well, and pronounce these confidently with the same rhythm.

Of course you can use any word that is familiar and easy for you to remember, to associate with a particular tone pair.  I personally refer to the 3-2 combo as the strawberry group.  Notice how ‘strawberry’ (cǎoméi), ‘United States’ (měiguó), and ‘actor’ (yǎnyuán) all have the same rhythm, a smooth wave that starts deep and rises at the end.

Let’s try one more, the 4-4 combo, you might call this the ‘Goodbye!’ group: ‘Goodbye!’ (zai4jian4), ‘consultant’ (gu4wen4), ‘forget’ (wang4ji4>).

Next time someone asks you about the tones in Mandarin, instead of the old standby (mā má mǎ mà), why not give this slightly more complex – and more fun – example using tone combinations:

• (zhǔjiǎo) 3-3 means ‘lead actor’
• (zhùjiào) 4-4 means ‘assistant professor’
• (zhùjiǎo) 4-3 means ‘footnote’
• (zhūjiǎo) 1-3 means ‘pork knuckle’.

You can also check out the APP Trasee! for more tone pairs and exercises devoted to phonetics. Feel free to share us your tone learning experience and comment below!

The post Tones Prefer Company! – A New Way to Practice Chinese Tones appeared first on .

Rules for Changing Tones in Chinese

(written Chinese)

The situation when “一” (yī) needs to be a changed tone:

1. Before the 4th tone, “一” should be changed to 2nd tone（yí）.
一样： yi + yàng -> yí yang

2. Before the 1st tone, 2nd tone and 3rd tone “一” should become 4th tone.（yì)
一般： yi + bān -> yì bān

一年： yi + nián -> yì nián

一起： yi + qǐ -> yì qǐ

3. If “一” is between two verbs, it should be 5th tone.
试一试 (shì yi shì)

4. If “一” is between a verb and a measure word or between an adjective and a measure word, generally it should also be the 5th tone.
好一点 (hǎo yi diǎn)

The situation when “不” (bù) needs to be changed tone:

1. Before the 4th tone, “不” should be changed to 2nd tone.
不是：bu + shì -> bú shì

2. If it’s used as verb complement or used between two same words, it should become 5th tone.
贵不贵(guì bu guì)

The situation when 3rd-tone needs to be changed tone:

1. If an entry’s tones are double 3rd-tones, the first tone needs to be changed to 2nd tone.
很 (hěn) 好 (hǎo) -> (hén hǎo)

2. If it’s a three or more 3rd-tone entry, the basic rule is that all the 3rd tones before the last 3rd tone need to be changed to 2nd tone.

For example, the tone of “处 (chǔ) 理 (lǐ) 厂(chǎng)” which means treatment plant needs to become “chú lí chǎng”.

But sometimes, we need to analyze the structure of the word or sentence to pronounce it correctly.

However, the changing 3rd tone is a complicated case. Sometimes, it depends on how you separate the word or sentence that will decide if the pronunciation is correct or not.

Focusing on communication to learn Chinese

(Hacking Chinese)

There are many people who focus mostly on communication and very little on form. In order to be able to communicate in a language, you need certain basic knowledge, which takes longer to acquire in Chinese.

It’s all about efficiency

As we shall see, the problem isn’t really that communication isn’t a good way of learning, it’s that it’s hard to do it enough for it to work properly!

Focusing on communication as a beginner

If you focus only on communication, you run the risk of neglecting some aspects of Chinese that are actually very important. The same can be said about many other areas of Chinese, such as writing characters, pronunciation in general and perhaps also grammar and word choice.

A balanced approach

Communication is great for a number of reasons. I want a lot of communication, but I want it mixed with actual studying.

Communicate as much as possible

The fact that it’s hard to communicate doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t do it. If you don’t, you’ll never learn Chinese.

Focusing on communication as an advanced learner

Once you reach an advanced level, focusing mainly on communication is the smoothest and most common method both of maintaining and expanding your ability.
You need to study and make your passive vocabulary and knowledge of grammar is equal to your active skill.
You need spaced repletion software. You need focused practice to improve and avoid fossilization.

Conclusion
I think we should use the language as much as possible, but I also think we need to study hard to overcome our weaknesses and learn more efficiently, regardless if we are beginners or advanced learners.

Comparing language courses: Private vs Group vs Online Lessons

(Study More Chinese)

Private Learning:

Pros:

• provide the perfect opportunity for quick progression due to having the sole focus of a teacher.
• devise a learning plan not only based on your language level but also to your personal learning goal.
• you pay as you learn.

Cons:

• Can be expensive.
• Lessons are usually intensive so you need to be focused at all times.
• less practice of conversational skills with a variety of people.

Group Learning:

Pros:

• Meet new people with the same interest of learning a new language.
• Improve your use of spoken language.
• The cost is cheaper.

Cons:

• Less flexible.
• You may not study as quickly as you wish.
• Travel to classes may add to your initial cost

Online Learning:

Pros:

• Online learning materials are easy to access.
• Learners have access to a variety of multimedia.
• The cost and payment cycle may be flexible.

Cons:

• You’ll need lots of motivation and determination to study alone.
• There’s the possibility that you could fall behind with your study plan.
• The lack of personal interaction presents less chance to practise your speaking skills.

How to learn to understand spoken Chinese

(Yoyo Chinese)

Three common problems with listening ability in Chinese

Problem #1 – Listening speed:

The time in between you hearing a sound and recalling its meaning is immense. Since this happens often, you’re likely to fail to understand what someone says even though you know all the words.

Problem #2 – Phonological awareness:

You need to be able to correctly distinguish the different sounds in Mandarin. Research suggests that you should try to listen to many different native speakers, not just your teacher.

Problem #3 – Vocabulary:

This isn’t a listening problem! It’s because you don’t know enough words. Expand your vocabulary by reading and listening more, preferably using text or audio that is at or slightly above your current level.

Context plays a very important role. You should strive to understand meaningful sentences said within context, because that’s the kind of listening ability you really need.

An Introduction to Cantonese

(Chinese language blog)

In Hong Kong, the official language isCantonese (广东话 – guǎng dōng huà), while the mainland and Taiwan both useMandarin (普通话 – pǔ tōng huà). Cantonese is also an official language in Macau, and it is the lingua franca of Guangdong Province.

• Mandarin is the official language of mainland China and Taiwan. Cantonese is the official language of HK and also one in Macau.
• Both are considered “Chinese language” – they use the same written language, but they are mutually unintelligible when spoken. Some people used the “the chicken talking to the duck” (鸡同鸭讲 – jī tóng yā jiǎng) to describe a Mandarin and Cantonese speaker talking to each other.
• Mandarin uses simplified Chinese characters, while Cantonese uses traditional. If you know traditional characters, it’s easy to understand the simplified ones, but not the other way around.
• Mandarin has a mere four tones compared with the six of Cantonese.
• There are tons of words and phrases unique to both Mandarin and Cantonese. For example, a large number of English words made their way into Cantonese when HK was a British colony.
• Many Chinese who have immigrated to other countries are Cantonese speakers.

As there are many more Mandarin speakers (960 million) than Cantonese (62 million), learning Mandarin will enable you to communicate with a lot more people. Mandarin is the official language of the PRC, so it is used in government offices, schools, companies, and on TV.

Basically, you’ll have much more exposure to Mandarin than Cantonese in China. Unless you’re planning on settling in Hong Kong or Macau, it’s a better idea to study Mandarin. Even if you visit these areas or decide to live there, Mandarin is commonly used and many people can understand and speak it these days.

We hope you enjoyed our selection of useful blogs for the month of September. Keep up the learning and remember that DigMandarin is here to help you find all the resources you could possibly need.

The post Monthly Digest of Chinese Learning – September 2014 appeared first on .