Learning Tones

instantcalmer

March 29, 2011, 11:43 PM posted in General Discussion

Ok I'm confused

Should I learn the tones when I learn the word

(like when I learnt German I learnt the gender, umlaut accent and plural altogether)

or

should I just learn the word and believe the tones will come ffom conversations later?

I'm beginning to wonder. I ask the cabbie to take me back to the daxue (university) and half of them say or think shemne like I'm saying take me to the big snow!

Thanks if you can offer advice