Tons of tones

zhanglihua
 July 21, 2008, 02:26 PM posted in General Discussion

Chinese is a tonal language. No big deal, right? ;-)

In fact, 4+1 tones aren't that much, other languages or even dialects have more or different kinds of tones. Would you say Mandarin tones are comparatively simple? How do you cope with different tonal systems? If your native language is a tonal one, would you consider the transition to be easier or trickier than for someone whose mother tongue is non-tonal?

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auntie68
 July 21, 2008, 02:32 PM

Hi zhanglihua. Have you tried learning any tonal languages, other than Chinese dialects? Why not have a go at Thai tones, which I didn't have an particular problems with (*what killed me was the hellish alphabet and the complicated and irregular sanskrit spelling system!!!), and let us know how you found it:

http://www.learningthai.com

There is a link somewhere in the left-side list, which is entitled "Learn the tones". It has audio! Good luck, and please keep us in the loop if you can! 

P/s: The thing to bear in mind about Thai is that the "tone marks" are not fixed, like the tone marks in Mandarin. What tone a particular tone mark denotes depends on (i) consonant class (eg. high, low, medium etc) AND (ii) whether the syllable concerned is "live" or "dead"... not to mention maybe also any of the quirky rules governing Thai spelling, which are based on Sanskrit/Pali spelling but applied to a basically tonal, analytic language...

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pinkjeans
 July 21, 2008, 03:03 PM

Wow, I never knew Thai was such a complicated language. The only anecdote I have is when my sister and aunt were shopping in Bangkok. Seeing how inexpensive the goods were at a bazaar, they whispered among themselves in Cantonese "hoe peang, hoe peang" (very cheap, very cheap), and the proprietress thought they were saying the goods were expensive. Apparently in Thai that's what 'expensive' sounds like. Subsequently, they got a hefty discount from the lady desperate to make a sale. I don't know Thai at all, so am not sure if I got the essence of this story right.