Questions tagged [tones]
Questions about the tones used in Chinese.
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How can I improve my tonal range?
While people in China generally understand my tones (unless I use the wrong tone by mistake), I find I do not match either the height of their highs or the drop-off of their falling tones. My voice ...
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How to pronounce 调 in 同调代数?
Certainly 同调代数 means the mathematical subject of homological algebra. But different sources disagree as to whether the first two characters in that sense of the term are pronounced tóngtiáo or ...
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Bigrams ending in third tone where first syllable is second tone vs. third tone
This is regarding tone sandhi for consecutive third tones.
I notice CC-CEDICT has over 200 bigrams with tone pair 3-3 where there also exists a separate bigram 2-3.
One such example is:
白果 bai2 ...
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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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Which is the most frequently used tone?
The most difficult for me in learning Chinese is memorizing the correct tone.
I tried to find on web what the most frequently used tones are, but it seems to be hard to find.
I suppose if one tone is ...
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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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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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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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Which dialect of Chinese has the fewest tones?
Standard Cantonese has six tones, Minnan, spoken primarily in Taiwan and Fujian, has five to seven; and so on down to Mandarin, based on the Beijing dialect, which has only four. (I don't count ...
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Asterisks in Jyutping Cantonese
I have come across a couple of Cantonese words transliterated in Jyutping which had * in the tone number. For example, on CantoDict, the word 广东话 is transliterated as gwong2-dung1-waa6*2. What does ...
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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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Does Cantonese have a falling tone?
In all Cantonese romanization systems I could find, tone 4 is labelled the falling tone. However according to http://www.freehongkong.net/cantonese-pronunciation-cantonese-tones/ Cantonese does not ...
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Alternative notations for Cantonese tones
What is the list of diacritics used to denote the seven Cantonese tones (in pinyin or similar notation)? Is there a standard (or even, more common) convention?
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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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Sichuanese: When Is First Tone 55 Vs. 45?
55 and 45 are 调值 or tone values.
The Sichuanese first tone is sometimes 55, like mandarin (high & flat), and sometimes a rising 45.
Sichuanese: When Is First Tone 55 Vs. 45?
Mou某♦
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Neutral tone and erhua (儿化) working as a word distinguisher
I know there are some words in which the use of neutral tone distinguish them the word from their non neutral equivalent, like：
东西 - dong1xi1 - from east to west
东西 - dong1xi - thing
虾子 - xia1zi3 - ...
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Why the change in tones of the words in some phrases?
I am a native Cantonese speaker. I found that we have to change the tones of some words, when used in particular phrases. But I don't know why. It seems that it doesn't follow any "rules of changing ...
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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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Tones in Cantonese: 6 or 9?
Wikipedia has a tone contour chart for Cantonese with only 6 tones, but the table just below has 9. In fact, the table states 7=1, 8=3 and 9=6. From a historical point of view, there are 9 tone ...
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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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Zhuyin IME setting to make tones optional
When I type Chinese via a Pinyin IME, I can write "nihao" to get "你好". Writing out "ni3hao3" is not required.
But when I try to write "ㄋㄧㄏㄠ", the IME interprets this as "ㄏㄧㄠ". Basically I'm forced to ...
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Duration of tones in Chinese?
What are the durations of tones in Mandarin?
Do all tones have the same exact duration?
Other dialects can be noted as examples...
Mou某♦
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What are these tonal markings called?
Below are four tonal markings for 四川话:
with a tone value of 55 (first tone)
with a tone value of 21 (second tone)
with a tone value of 53 (third tone)
with a tone value of 213 (fourth tone)
I ...
Mou某♦
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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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Tone Sandhi: Sichuanese 四川话
Been trying to find the rules of tone sandhi in Sichuanese - but not having a lot of luck.
Wikipedia Talk:Sichuanese Mandarin
Tone Sandhi
Great improvements to the original article! Can we get some ...
Mou某♦
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Yale tone marks and low-level 'h' for vowel-less syllables
For tone-marked Yale, the tone mark goes over the first vowel and then (for tones 4,5,6) an 'h' is placed after the last vowel.
But what about the syllables without any vowels: hm, hng, m, ng ?
I'm ...
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tones when singing a chinese song? [duplicate]
if tones are so important in chinese as to even distinguish shades of meaning, how can a chinese sing a song? in music every syllable has its own note/tone, so when we sing a song, we must disregard ...
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Accidentally Saying Chinese Swear Words
So I saw a video on youtube about a guys experience in china. He said that people can often accidentally say swear words if they say the tones wrong. Like the word "ma"
It can heard as mother but 'ma'...
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Did ancient Chinese have tones (声调)?
This question has puzzled me since I have no training in ancient Chinese and ancient phonetics. What is puzzling me are the following facts:
The tones in different regions are quite different. If ...
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What's the pronunciation of 不在乎
All the dictionaries I've checked say
bu4 zai4 hu5
but should it actually be
bu2 zai4 hu5
I get different answers searching for 不对， some dictionaries say bu4dui4 others bu2dui4, but as far as ...
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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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Strategies to discourage uptalk in Chinese language learners?
In my beginning Chinese class, many students consistently pronounce tones incorrectly when answering questions aloud. I realize this is expected of beginners, but I've noticed that it happens most ...
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Resources listing polysyllabic Mandarin words with same pronunciation differing only by tones?
I'm interested in finding any webpages or books that list words and phrases of more than one character that share the same pronunciation but not the same tones.
For instance, here are some terms I've ...
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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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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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Tone sandhi before a toneless final syllable
In the name Kongzi, 孔子, it seems to me that people often pronounce Kong with third tone (low-falling form) and zi with no tone, like a lot of final syllables. Officially both syllables are third tone....
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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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Learning abstract "tone contours" for words and phrases
I'm having trouble acquiring both Mandarin pronunciation and tones (hampered by the opacity of Pinyin for beginners).
I've learned various languages to various degrees and some people consider me to ...
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Are there any initial consonants/syllables in modern Chinese dialects which are incompatible with some tones?
Are there any initial consonants/syllables in modern Chinese dialects which are incompatible with some tones?
Can certain tones occur only in certain syllables (that is, within open or close ones)?
...
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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 ...
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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 ...
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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 ...
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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.
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How do non-native speakers get to perceive tones in Chinese?
Recently I've been teaching an English-speaking friend some basics about Chinese, but inevitably he got stuck with the tones. I've demonstrated to him the 4 tones with audio files, yet it seems hard ...
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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 ...
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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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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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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 ...
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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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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 ...
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