Tâigí Phonics 9 - Rethinking tones in stereo, and 9th tone

00:00 Introduction
01:09 Stereotonicity
02:24 Tone 1
05:00 Tone 2
07:08 Tones 3-8
08:40 Tone 9

👉 Don't forget to check the last page for regional variations of the 8th tone, which is the only tone with major differences between accents.

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In this video, I talk about a different way to look at the tones in Tâigí without using tone changes, tone sandhi, or arrow diagrams. Instead, we can say that each tone is a "stereotone" with two different pitches, called "running" and "standing". We use the running tone while we are in the middle of talking (e.g., we're running through this tone straight to the next one), and the standing tone only at the end.

Of course, this is just another way to look at tones, and whether you think in terms of sandhi or "stereotones", the net result is the same. However, I think this way provides a bit more insight and clarity. Especially since the "sandhi" (or "running") tones are used something like 80% of the time, it's perhaps even a more accurate way to describe the tones in Taigi.

I also cover the 9th tone which wasn't mentioned in previous videos.

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[verrenyeux]

this is seriously revolutionary. this needs to be an updated addendum in all taigi learning materials. I was sitting there trying to memorize the tone changing rules and feeling like I was back to memorizing the time tables or something-- so much effort and steps compared to the elegant solution of stereotonicity.

[mngyng]

This is way better than the confusing tone-changing rules. Comparing to the two almost different sets of 51 characters in Japanese, two sets of tones in Taiwanese would be a piece of cake.

[rauhamanilainen]

This way of looking at the tones is revolutionary. Although I learned and understand the traditional model of "tone sandhi" (for my own Hokkien dialect; I'm not a Tâi-gí speaker if Tâi-gí refers to Taiwanese Hokkien), it seems incredibly difficult to teach practically; teaching and explaining this feels so much easier. Thank you for making this video and spreading this knowledge to all of us.

I natively speak Philippine Hokkien (which came from Jinjiang, Quanzhou), and as you may know, the Hokkien spoken in different places (outside Taiwan) can have wildly different running and standing pronunciations for the 8 tones, resulting in completely different "tone sandhi rules" that seem completely foreign to Tâi-gí speakers (and vice versa). But this model works perfectly fine for any dialect of Hokkien spoken anywhere, since it's a general feature of the language no matter where it's spoken; each dialect just needs to fill in their own pronunciations for each running and standing tone. I feel there's so much worth exploring here that can make understanding the tones a lot simpler for learners.

By the way, wouldn't "polytonic" (or "ditonic" to emphasize two specifically) be a better word rather than "stereotonic", given that the opposite of mono- (one) is poly- (many) (or di- (two) as a partner), not stereo- (solid)? As far as I know, "stereo sound" was only named that way since the two audio channels create a more "solid" type of sound (thus "stereo" for "solid"), and the fact that the alternative is called "mono sound" doesn't mean the prefixes mono- and stereo- are opposites in any way (since I don't really see how calling these "solid tones" makes sense).

[raymondfrias]

Thank you for teaching us. I also watched your previous Taigi phonics videos. It's just spot on and now I have a clearer perspective on how the Taiwanese system works.

[VarioTW]

Thanks you for all your videos ! and thanks for keeping the English version

[sarahvandy]

多謝！多謝！ It's really a kind of revolution in learning Taigi, and makes things more understandable ! Thank you for all your videos !

[paiwanhan]

I'm sold. This is the best way to teach intuitive understanding of the tones.

[joncaju]

Wow, I am kind of speechless that you came up with this stereotone concept. This is, and you are, amazing. All I can say is that Taiwanese is such a beautiful language and inherently a musical one.

[coen]

It took me like forever to finally feel comfortable to read Tâi-bûn with the super complex tone change chart in my brain... This method is a lot straight forward than the previous one, great job!

[lese]

This is amazingly insightful. With examples like 黑黑，慢慢，this approach makes it so much easier to remember the tone changes, which had always seemed to me mysterious and complex. The word "stereotonic" is so apt and descriptive. You need to patent the stereotonic approach to Taigi.

[guang-wen]

I stumbled across your older videos regarding the tone sandhi before I found your channel and these videos. I was literally thinking that a system like this would make more sense than trying to remember the tone rules. Especially since you encounter the “running” version of the character far more often than the “standing” version. It kind of reminds me of how when learning Japanese learners must memorize multiple readings for the same character.

[jessl]

Omg this helps so much for a heritage speaker! My problem is that I have the words and sounds in my head, but I've never been literate/have never properly learned what words = which tones. It felt like such a burden to first learn the actual tones, THEn learn the tone sandhi. Time to make flashcards! - but with the tones in stereo XD

[catsclub]

WOW This is really helpful, thank you!

[NonLeft]

Thank you for these informative videos! They're really helping me get started on trying to learn Tâigí. The google drive links don't work anymore, though. Would it be possible to have them relinked? I was really interested to see your example words for every tone combination that you mentioned in another comment.

[CeliaGoh]

what if there’s 3 characters in a phrase? there’ll be another running tone before the running tone? or does the first syllable always remain in the same tone regardless of the tone of the coming syllable? (i’ve tried to vocalise few of the examples in this video and noticed the first syllable all sounded the same🤔

[corinneong]

Awesome! A'iong. Thank you very much!

[YenHsunWu]

This stereotonic view fits amazingly well with the tones I learned from my parent and grandparent. Thank you for making this clip. I am wondering if there are peer-reviewed references about the stereotonic view since the reference listed did not have further references.

[Liliquan]

Initially I found this to be more complicated. Because I already got use to a particular simplification chart of tone changes that I quickly refer to.
1-7-3-2-1
5-7
4=8 (ptk)
4-2/8-3 (h)

[nickprendergast]

Great video. More language lessons please

[robertos]

Wait, so to name all the tones, we have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 9? Thanks a lot for the work. I feel like getting a music lesson.