Questions about the tones used in Chinese.
1
vote
1answer
128 views
Are tones sometimes glossed over?
To elaborate, although ni3 hao3 has a double third tone, when I hear native speakers say it, it's said so quickly that they definitely are not using that tone, nor is there feasibly time to use the ...
2
votes
2answers
177 views
Adding tone marks to characters
I'm looking for a way of adding tone marks above characters. It's fairly easy to add Pinyin with tone marks, but I want to add only tone marks. I want to use this as a teaching tool, because even ...
2
votes
2answers
116 views
Cantonese jyutping Tone 4 question “throat should be vibrating”
I was wondering whether anyone could help me distinguish how to pronounce tone 4 (mostly low flat) and tone 3 (mid flat).
I read in tone 4, you should feel your throat vibrate. Honestly, I have my ...
3
votes
1answer
118 views
Why do some parents pronounce 妹妹 as měiméi instead of mèimèi or mèimei?
I have heard some Taiwan (and maybe Mainland) parents call their daughters měiméi. I'm wondering what is the reason for that.
1
vote
1answer
158 views
Does tone sandhi apply to 成语
In my previous question I found the following about tone sandhi and yī 'one':
yī on its own or not followed by other tones
yī → yí when followed by a fourth tone
yī → yì when followed by ...
1
vote
2answers
145 views
Authoritative source for 一 changing to 4th tone before 1st, 2nd or 3rd
In another users answer http://chinese.stackexchange.com/a/2046/38 they said:
一 is pronounced in the first tone when it stands alone. It is
pronounced in the fourth tone when it precedes a ...
5
votes
2answers
264 views
Pronunciation of 一 in 一个
When I first learnt the numbers, I learnt 一 with the first tone yi1.
But now, during a Memrise lesson, they teach me that 一个 should be pronounced yi2 ge4 or yi2 ge5.
Is this correct and, if so, is ...
3
votes
1answer
123 views
Tone of 竟 and 境 in Mandarin and Cantonese
竟 and 境 are both read ging2 in Cantonese, which usually corresponds to a third tone syllable in Mandarin (as is the case for 警, which is ging2 in Cantonese and jing3 in Mandarin).
However, both of ...
4
votes
1answer
105 views
How does tone sandhi apply in people's names?
Like the title says, the question is simple: what's the proper way to handle tone sandhi in names? Is there something like "pronounce the family name as-is, apply tone sandhi to given name"? Or is ...
-1
votes
2answers
122 views
How extensible is the tonal quality rule?
I'm starting a Chinese languange course now, I've just seen that ma can have four meanings, it depends only on their tonal qualities.
I wonder: How extensible is this tonal quality rule in forming ...
3
votes
1answer
61 views
Why is 相 pronounced with a fourth tone in some cases?
I notice that 相 is pronounced xiang1 in most cases, but xiang4 in a few, mostly less-common words and phrases. The most commonly-used examples seem to be 照相 zhàoxiàng 'photo'; 照相机 zhàoxiàngjī ...
7
votes
6answers
349 views
Do acronyms borrowed from English use neutral tone for all syllables?
I was just reading a Q&A here about Chinese words for DVD and the discussion also included other acronyms from English.
It struck me that nobody wrote the pinyin for any of the terms which made ...
4
votes
2answers
238 views
What are the rules of writing a 对联 (chinese couplet)?
I have looked at the wikipedia article "Couplet (Chinese Poetry)", but I think it poses more questions than answers.
So a 对联 (duì lián) is a "Chinese Couplet".
it is composed of two lines
each line ...
4
votes
4answers
628 views
How to convert from hanyu pinyin to IPA?
Where can I find a table showing the relation between hanyu pinyin spelling and IPA for all phonemes in Mandarin?
9
votes
3answers
208 views
When do the tones change?
Sometimes, in certain combinations of tones or words, the tones change. Where can I find a complete list of all tone changes that occur in Mandarin?
7
votes
5answers
489 views
What software can correct pronunciation?
What software is available which can record my voice and warn me about problems with my pronunciation and tones?
5
votes
2answers
151 views
我(也)很好 and tone sandhi
What are the (resultant) tones in those sentences, where all the words in isolation have 3rd tone?
我很好。
我也很好。
Reading tone shandhi rules on Wikipedia, there is no explanation about tree or ...
14
votes
5answers
521 views
Can native Chinese speakers distinguish tones in songs?
I already have a hard time distinguishing tones in normal speech. This gets significantly worse when I listen to Chinese songs, since the melody masks tones even further.
Yes, I understand that ...
13
votes
5answers
395 views
What is a good technique for remembering tones?
I find it a great struggle to try and remember tones for all the new vocab I learn, and aside from gradually picking up tones by listening and talking with native speakers, I can't really remember ...
11
votes
3answers
144 views
Character Pronunciation Clues
Is there any way to know what a character's pronunciation or tone is, based on the strokes or radicals that make up characters?
