Mandarin Chinese TONES GUIDE That Schools Don't Teach You

Hey you! Rita aka Fàn lǎoshī here! This video is part one of my How To Sound Chinese series: ALL-YOU-NEED-TO-KNOW about Chinese TONES. It’s not hard to tell you what tones are (in theory), but how to practice so you can speak like a Chinese person is the question I really wanna answer.

It’s not only about the cliche that you have already seen in the textbooks or have heard elsewhere 1000 times - which is possibly not helpful enough - you need to see the tones with your eyes first, hear them with your own ears, then practice moving towards the right direction!

So in this video, I wanna share answers to all these common questions regarding Chinese tones along with/beyond how to pronounce the tones correctly:

1. What does it mean when someone says “Tones don’t matter”
2. Why is it hard to practice listening and speaking?
3. Why are tones important in Mandarin Chinese?
4. Why do I believe that you have already been using tones everyday before you start learning Chinese?
5. What is the difference between tones in English or your native language and in Chinese?
6. Do you really think we all speak in the same tones?
7. Why do people crack their voice when speaking the 1st tone?
8. Why do some people think Chinese people sound so aggressive and angry?
9. Is the 3rd tone a dipping tone? And Fàn lǎoshī’s bonus tip!
10. How to distinguish the 2nd tone and the 3rd tone in Chinese?
11. How to hone your tones
12. Why do people quit learning if they don’t speak correct tones and pronunciation?
13. Is it true that “I can get away with tones if I speak fast enough?”
14. Is finding a native Chinese girlfriend/boyfriend really helpful for learning Chinese?
15. Why should you practice tones in pairs? (Showed in tone contours)
16. How to master neutral tones in 1 minute

(And bonus Beijing dialect listening practice...)

Remember, Chinese makes perfect sense!

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#声调 #LearnChinese #ChineseTones #MandarinTones #ChinesePronunciation #HowtoLearnChinese #LanguageLearning #ChineseLearning #ChineseTeacher #languagelearningtips
#Mandarin #StudyTips #LearningTips #AprenderChino #AprenderMandarin #LearnChineseWithRita

[RonaldMcPaul]

This is an awesome explanation of all the individual tones, better than 90% of the ones you'll see.

My note to all the viewer in the comment second is this: Learning the individual tones and then they to add them piece but piece, one by one, into a sentence and sounding like natural does. not. work. at all.

I'll prove it you, when you say the word "recital" do you think about the vowel property of the first e, like reh, then stop, load into your brain the vowel sound of ci like sigh and then the a like ahll ? No! You absolutely never, for starters that process is way to slow, impossibly too much mental processing power to rapidly switch between quickly coming syllables.

An elementary school teacher will do this: they say "sound it out, " they will have you repeat out a syllable so that you don't have to stop and mentally perform the operation of taking a syllable in your head and then applying the in this case 'vowel appropriate transformation" then the next one, to the end, and then and this is important they speed it up, and repeat more and more untill I the whole chunk is a in your auditory memory. The the word gets put in a sentence that you know the rest of the worst for and you over that until you can get it down.

Chinese teachers, none them do this. You never get built up to the whole verbal segment at the same time you learn them. The most progressive of all, all they do is increase it to tone pairs. Then they have you read or listen aloud and because that's what their own teachers did which is the stupidest thing you could possibly do with foreigners because foreigners can pronounce it yet like every native Chinese kid.

Don't believe me as an intermediate learner that focused in tones they way I was told as hard as I could? The top 4 famous polyglot Luca Lamparaielo says the same thing. The way tones are taught like this is wrong. Tone pairs is slightly better but sentences do not present this way where even numbers of tone pairs form a sentence with no other separations with commas and neutral tones and drawn out particles and deemphasizations.

[uniquexie]

Tones are REALLY IMPORTANT!!! I'm a Chinese teacher and I've been telling my students the importance of tones over hundreds of times! 😂 I'm going to recommend this video to my students! 范老师讲得太好啦！

[QuizmasterLaw]

This is DEFINITELY worth watching no matter your level of Chinese. 1) Rita uses tone contour charts so you can see what the tones look like 2) Rita provides SERIES OF CHARACTERS USING THE SAME TONES INCLUDING HANZI not just pinyin 3) Rita explains how to enunciate your tones Properly including the neutral tone 4) Rita includes examples of Westerners trying to speak the tones so you can see you're not the only one having trouble at this 5) Rita is super cute. I think it's one of, maybe the, best videos on this important topic. If you want to speak Chinese you Must get the tones right.

[lillia.jitianu]

I have just started learning mandarin a few days ago and honestly the tones were giving me a headache. No video explained why it sounds a certain way, no video explained HOW to produce that sound...however after your video I can positively say, that I went from 0 to 80. BIG BIG HUGE THANK YOU!! ♥♥♥♥♥

[unchilgisam]

6:47 exaggerate
8:40 tone pairs
8:45 connecting tones
9:02 neutral
9:22 sample pairs, neutral

[Alrak]

You explain so good!! I can see myself watching this over and over

[KeithHoranParkour]

Such great advice! It's hard to realize what someones "natural" tone should be relative to their voice. The examples you give take out all the guessing work! I think I've been going way too high on my first tones this whole time! I can only imagine what it sounds like to a native speaker 😂😂😂

Thanks again!

[nonglouie]

Of all the videos on learning Mandarin this really worked for me. thank you

[Madcowe]

Just wanted to say I love your energy :D

Subscribed!

加油！

[damarisalberto]

My kindergarten daughter just started her Chinese classes today, so I’m here trying to learn this to help her with her homework. Keep in mind I have no idea in speaking Chinese, but I love her ❤️

[RJ-hipw]

So glad to see you explain the third tone properly. It's always bothered me how it's been taught as 'falling and rising'. This causes learners to pronounce it as 2nd tone in sentences. I was expecting you to teach that way too, but you explained it perfectly; It's the lowest point of your throat, to the extent that sometimes the syllable gets cut off.

[bobster]

Thanks for this! I'm literally at day 1 of learning mandarin and your videos have given me more insight than anything I've found! Please keep making videos!

[Tokyoilyba]

im a thai learnerrso i got some basics knowledge from thai tone🥰🥰

[swt]

I love everything about this video and many people commented on all the awesome aspects, but I just want to add, I love the real life examples with pinying, character, translation and you pronouncing it right after explaining something PLUS, the "other" tones against it to contrast! So helpful!!

[TheZenytram]

Hi, I'm 29yo Brazilian, i got unemployed bc covid and for some reason i got interested in learning i lil bit of Chinese.

Tones are easier then i thought it would be, idunno if me being a sorta mediocre guitar player helped with that, but from the get go i got it right. I recorded myself saying every Chinese sentence you've said here and i was able to replicate it at full speed, although the pronunciation was all over the place the tons i nailed it down hahaha

[jesusherrera]

That is the key: to find my chinese tone in my natural voice! I think I got it, now Google Translator can understand me better, you gave me more motivation.
Both your style and explanation are excellent... Gracias ;)!

[jwaggoner]

This is the first time I’ve heard to find my own vocal range and it was always frustrating trying to repeat after the women I was watching 😭

[tazbod]

Madame Rita, you are fantastic. That was clear and helpful. Thank you, sweetheart.

[midinette]

Perfect explanations! For a long time it was difficult for me to connect the two syllables of a word because I didn't have the notion of adjustment of the tone of the second syllable to the first one...really important. Very good job 👌👌👌👌👌

[mdsixteen]

Wish I had this video 5 years ago, I had to learn this unconsciously and after years of struggling this video still helps me to keep this in mind