Questions tagged [tones]
Questions about the tones used in Chinese.
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Generalize consecutive third tones change rule
井井有条 (to be neat and tidy) we have a sequence of the third tones. Why is it pronounced as
jing2 jing2 you3 tiao2
and not
jing2 jing3 you3 tiao2
After all, the first half goes together, and the ...
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words where it is important to distinguish between the neutral tone and the citation tone
I'm working through the HSK vocab lists, and sometimes I find it hard to remember if a character should be pronounced with the neutral tone or with the citation tone.
It would help if I knew when it'...
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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 ...
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How does tone sandhi apply in people's names? [duplicate]
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 ...
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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 ...
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What difference(s) does it make to use the citation tone instead of the neutral tone, for the tail character in these words?
Here’s my list: 队伍, 成分, 身分, 才力, 呼噜, 亮堂, 好处, 种子, 妥当, 爽快, 痛快, 记性, 出息, 佩服, 分析, 哈欠, 寒毛, 活泼, 鼻涕, 道理, 滑稽, 考究, 讲究, 打算, 正经, 裁缝, 得罪, 意识 (and also意识 形态), 熟识, 见识, 体谅, 兴趣, [东/西/南/前/后/那/上/下/头/里/外/左/右]边, 知道, 父亲 and ...
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How do Chinese speakers convey emotions by speech?
In many languages, a tone conveys emotion. Thus, a word in the first tone might be perceived as conveying an easy-off emotion by a native Russian speaker; a word in the second tone might be most ...
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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 ...
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Do acronyms borrowed from English use neutral tone (aka tone 0 or tone 5) 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 ...
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Is there a tone sandhi rule that "4 3" changes to "4 0"?
This is a followup to my earlier question about the tones in the word "豆腐":
On their own "豆" and "腐" have the tones 4 and 3: dòu, fǔ
As a two-syllable / two-character word, "豆腐" has tone 4 but "fu" ...
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Authoritative source for 一 changing to 4th tone before 1st, 2nd or 3rd
In another users answer https://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 first,...
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How do natives pronounce the 2nd tone in regular conversation? (Pitch levels: 35, 33, or 434?)
In the thread Do tones change at the end of an interrogative sentence?
, one of the answers asserts:
SCALE KEY: 1 (low) to 5 (high). So 55 is a high level tone, 51 is a falling tone, 35 is rising, ...
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What is the proper pronunciation of 等等？
Is 等等 pronounced:
deng2deng0 (2nd tone and neutral) like 老子、孔子
OR
deng3 deng0 (3rd tone and neutral) like 椅子、法子
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Does 芋頭 have a different pronunciation in Taiwan Mandarin vs Mainland?
My friends in Kaohsiung just taught me the word for "taro" 芋頭.
I looked it up and found yu4 tou5 but my friends here insist it's yu4 tou2.
Is this a pronunciation difference between Taiwan vs the ...
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What software can correct pronunciation?
What software is available which can record my voice and warn me about problems with my pronunciation and tones?
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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 four ...
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Is "一“ in 一线城市 first or second tone?
Quick question: Is "一“ in 一线城市 first or second tone?
If it is first tone, is this because it is being used as a number?
Cheers,
Stephen
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Cantonese sandhi
In Mandarin, there is limited tone sandhi, mainly about third tones and the tone variations of yi1 (one) and bù (not). By contrast, Min has sandhi rules for all tones, as illustrated by this diagram. ...
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Zhuyin IME and tone 0/5 syllables
I'm teaching myself bopomofo/zhuyin keyboard while I'm in Taiwan. My Chinese level is raw beginner too.
I just came across the word for tofu:
Hanzi: 豆腐
Pinyin: dòufu
Zhuyin: ㄉㄡˋㄈㄨ· (or ㄉㄡˋㄈㄨ˙)
We ...
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What happens with tone sandhi with consecutive third tones, e.g. wo3 hen3 hao3?
If there are two third tones in a row, e.g. ni3hao3, the first one is pronounced as a second tone, i.e. ni3hao3=ni2hao3. At least, that's what I was told in a course. What happens with more ...
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non-standard tone pronunciation
After carefully listening to the tapes of Assimil "Chinese with ease", I noticed that the pronunciation by the native speakers of a few characters differs from the standard tones: 多 pronounced with a ...
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Where can I find a full list of combinations of sounds and tones used in Chinese?
I heard that there are roughly 400 sounds in Mandarin plus four tones. Are all combinations of those used in Chinese vocabulary, making it 1600 possibilities per single-sound word? If not, how many ...
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What is the best way to learn tones?
I still have difficulty to identify tones when I listen to Chinese. Moreover I have difficulty in saying second tone.
Could you guys advice me some way to improve my tone?
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Should tone sandhi be written in pinyin?
Tone sandhi is a phonological change occurring in tonal languages, in
which the tones assigned to individual words or morphemes change based
on the pronunciation of adjacent words or morphemes.
...
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Tone of 和 in 暖和
For words like 衣服 and 朋友, we can pronounce either with full tones as yi¹fu² and peng²you³, or with neutralized tones of the second syllable like yi¹fu⁰ and peng²you⁰.
Then comes 暖和 which confuses me. ...
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Where does the 4th tone go on wan3shang (evening)?
I see the character for evening are wan3 and shang4, but when the word is written in pinyin, the fourth tone disappears from shang and it becomes neutral. I've read the rules of tone change but I don'...
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Mandarin Neutral Tone: Tone Value?
One of my dialectical dictionaries takes tone value 21 and compares it to Mandarin's neutral tone.
The same tone, coincidentally enough, had been described in the same way to me by a local native ...
Mou某♦
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Pinyin to Chinese characters
I'm trying to learn Chinese from books, online tutorials, but mostly from Rosetta Stone. I'm just starting, so there's still a lot I'm probably not understanding - so I don't know if I'm even asking ...
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質: when to pronounce in 2nd tone or 4th (Mandarin)?
In Mandarin, sometimes 質 is pronounced with the 2nd tone (e.g., 質地, 特質) and other times it's pronounced with the 4th tone (e.g., 質疑, 質量, 品質).
Here are two words pronounced with the 2nd tone:
質地 http:...
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Do tones change at the end of an interrogative sentence?
At 0:57 in the link below, the woman says "餐" in what sounds to be the second tone, which is rising (Edit: on second thought, it sounds more like a toneless tone, like "么" in "什么." The girl says "餐" ...
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How to pronounce words with double fourth tones?
So I know for certain words, such as 不对, the fourth tone changes, but I believe 不 may be a special case.
Some words such as 部队 seem uncomfortable to pronounce if I strictly follow 4th and 4th tones,...
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Is Cantonese a better choice in looking for characters in rime dictionary (韻書)?
I ask this question, and provide my opinion as an answer, to reply to the comment of another tread in stack exchange:
Pronunciation of Tang Dynasty Poetry
The rationale is that it is difficult to ...
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Is it true that the tones of some of the most common words are glossed over in regular speech/turn into neutral tone?
Examples include:
是、去、在、要、就、但、没有、如果
Not sure how to back up this question, except to mention that I've received feedback from natives that I tend to overdo these words' pronunciations (especially 是）. ...
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Do native speakers learn about 4 tones in school or do they naturally pick them up without formal education?
Do native speakers explicitly learn about 4 tones in school or do they naturally pick them up without formal education? If so how does the school test it? By having students write appropriate tone ...
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