The pinyin system and the tones
November 9, 2007 – 1:06 amThe Chinese language is useful and difficult at the same time. Especially their characters can make You feel lost in this language like You can get lost in a big City. The Chinese use two different systems of characters, traditional and simplified. Actually these are not the only ones, there are many more older character versions, luckily these are no longer in use. But the real bad thing is, that the Chinese characters have nothing to with the pronunciation of the word. Although certain persons like John DeFrancis try to tell You otherwise.
There is something special about Chinese words. They have tones. In English You can say a word with a high pitched voice or a low pitched voice. You can do this to bring emotions to Your words. However if You say a word word with a high tone and then the same word with a low tone it will have different meanings (actually there is no low tone in Chinese, I write it this way as an example). So You can’t put emotions in Your words through the pitch of Your voice, because You will change the meaning of a word. Sounds bad? It’s awful, but You will get used to it. Chinese words are made up of consonants and vowels like our western languages, then one of four(five) tones is added. Remembering tones will seem an impossible task to the newbie learner of Chinese. However there are methods to get around this problem and learn tones quite easily. I will elaborate on this in a later post.
After all this rambling about writing Chinese there is a rescue:
Pinyin
拼音 pīnyīn - Pinyin
Pinyin will rescue You to write down Your vocabulary without Chinese characters. And Pinyin will allow You to get the tones on paper. We will use the example word of ma.
Tone1 - The high tone
Spoken with a high pitched voice it will be first tone.
mā
Tone2 - Rising tone:
Spoken with beginning low, then rising to a high pitched voice.
má
Tone3 - Falling and rising tone:
You start with a high pitched voice, lower it and then go up again.
mǎ
Tone4 - The falling tone:
The word starts high pitched and falls down to a very low frequency according to some textbooks. I can hardly hear this falling but one thing that is clear. The word is spoken short with a aggressive voice.
mà
The neutral tone or soft tone:
This tone has no special pronounciation. Yet it is different from the other tones. It’s short, in a middle frequency and soft. Soft means no so loud as the other ones. Therefore I didn’t include it in the audio below.
ma
Now it’s time for some explanatory graphic:
And now some audio, so You get that straight:
audio: 4 tones of ma
You might think: “I can say this too, but is this correct what I’m saying?”. There is only one thing to get Your tones right. Consult a native speaker. I highly recommend the novice Chinese learner to join a course. Some people claim they can learn Chinese by listening to some online course only. You have to be super talented and very lucky to get it right this way. Learning something wrong in the very beginning will follow You like a curse for the rest of Your Chinese journey. So take a real course with real teachers (over the phone is not acceptable) until You have the tones. Once You have the tones right You could skip the paid courses. You could google all the other questions You might come across, but then a teacher can give You insights You won’t find in the net.
So what are the meanings of mā má mǎ mà ma?
妈 mā - mother . Mother is the meaning of the character, however if You want to say the word “mother” it’s 妈妈 māma.
麻 má - hemp
马 mǎ - horse
骂 mà - accuse, blame, curse, scold
吗 ma - a question particle best translated as: “…, or not?” Most teachers will just tell You “ma” will transform a statement into a question, however none of my teachers gave me the hint how to do it. I came up with “or not?” at a late night session of learning Chinese because I needed a donkey bridge for the ma.
One last exception to the above. If a 2nd tone follows a 3rd tone, then only the falling part of the third is used. Don’t think about this rule at the moment. You will bump into again, once Your Chinese is more advanced.
In the beginning a learner won’t understand the tones of a native speaker unless the speaker talks very clear and slowly. However after some months of learning one starts to hear tones. It’s like magic. The tones appear like a fairy can appear out of the mist of the morning. And then they stand clearly in front of You and You will feel endless enlightenment. This is something I can’t describe with words, You have to experience it Yourself. Pure magic. Now that You are a master of the tones You might want look into more ways on how to learn Chinese.
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