Comments on: The First Tone

By: lustchina

lustchina

Obeying tonal rules like here - keeping it mono-tone is counterintuitive for us English speakers who want to use inflection to expression "tone" as we understand it - like surprise, or dissatisfaction. Sounding robotic as is the case here misses the "tone". I guess speed and volume at which something is said is a way to understand the emotion behind what is being said, within the confines of tonal rules.

By: calkins

calkins

Classic!!! Barry Manilow floating in the clouds over the desert...best mnemonic ever!

By: John

John

lustchina, I found that I was understood much better when I abandoned English sentence intonation altogether. It feels really weird to ask a question without adding the question intonation (which totally feels necessary to English speakers), but it works. You don't normally ever have to do ALL first tones, though, so you don't actually have many opportunities to sound like a robot when speaking Chinese... :)

By: vann0000

vann0000

This is probably the best lession you have ever had.

By: changye

changye

The first tone is really easy, and I don’t know why but the second tone is most difficult for me. I think those notorious “third tones in series” are actually not so hard. Once you get used to them, you can pronounce them properly (and easily). In fact, if it were not for “the third tones rule”, speaking Chinese would be much more difficult.

By: architpol

architpol

Great lesson, and great timing. Tonight in my Chinese class, our teacher was stressing the importance of tones. So next week I will be a robot!! (or a floating Manilow). That will be quite a contrast to fourth tone because the teacher likes to stomp his foot and say get mad with fourth tone!

By: architpol

architpol

In the lesson "Time to Go", the word gàn 干, (to do) was used. In this lesson 干 means "dry." Is it only context that tells them apart? It's bad enough when they sound alike, but when they look the same but mean something else....!

By: bingge

bingge

Wow, you guys are magicians - you made a lesson about the first tone interesting!! :)

By: bingge

bingge

oh, hey, look at that - the words for magician are both first tone! 巫师 wu1shi1 - 对不对? (dui bu dui)

By: amber

amber

hi architpol, 干 is a 多音词 (duōyīncí) which is a character with more than one possible pronunciation. In this case: 干 (gān) dry 干 (gàn) to do

By: xijunw

xijunw

Think about in English "you light a light, and it is light"...you will probably never get confused. Don't worry, get used to it.

But you are right, sometimes we may be confused. Acctually, there are many chinese jokes about the words with different meaning, the most famous one for Americans would be 干货(dry goods), in some selling counters of Chinese in US, it is translated as "fucking goods" :P (http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=79881281973)

By: xijunw

xijunw

You are right!