Help for the tone deaf

I'm not sure of any specific exercises, but I would just say (in my experience) constant repetition was the key. Eventually, the tones just fell into place in my head (of course I still mishear them sometimes, but so do Chinese people). I'm sure the Academic Team can give you a better answer, but that's my take -- the more your do it, the easier it will become.

Unfortunately, my difficulties with tones still linger, too.  I think I have improved, but it is a long road.

Hi Dave, it indeeds comes after a while - I felt the same as you for a very long time. But there seem to be limits. For myself I came to the sad conclusion that it will never be as natural as for a native speaker. When listening to new vocab, identifying the tones still involves conscious thinking and concentration. Only my two year son old pronounces tones so crystal clear there is no ambiguity at all. His 马s and 牛s are just brilliant. Well, but therefore 鸭子 turns into a "yabe".

Hi Mark, uh, Dave, no, Mark... I've been working with Chinese on and off for a shamefully long time (well, shameful given how low my current level is), and living in a Chinese environment, and I still can't for the life of me listen to a word and say "Oh, that's 3rd 4th". BUT, if someone says a phrase, and I repeat it back to them right away - without trying to think what the tones are - I say it correctly. This skill did develop eventually. No tricks, just time and practice. Amusingly, I do get in trouble if I try to think: "Oh, I guess that's... 3rd 4th?", so I use 3rd 4th, and I'm wrong. And, when I speak, apparently my tones are ok. Not perfect, but not much of a hindrance to communication. My Taiwanese friends actually keep telling me to worry more about my sh/ s/ x and ui/ umlaut-ue (學 and 水, for example, which blur way too much when I'm speaking at speed). All those, er, reflexive (?) sounds - in pinyin, the "ch", "zh", "sh". I guess my point is, not recognizing the tones when listening to them need not be that much of a hindrance. When I'm learning a word I still need 老師 to tell me "that's 3rd 2nd", but once I've been told, my pronunciation is apparently ok. And sometimes my worries about tones stop me from recognizing other problems that may be more important. Like you, I've wondered if being unmusical is part of this... in elementary school, the choir teacher suggested I just mouth the words, and, believe it or not, super-polite Asians have admitted to me at KTV that I'm right when I say I can't sing. (Also to put this in perspective: look at an English-English dictionary, and check out the phonetic symbols listed at the bottom of the page. Could you tell a student which sound is used in a word? I know I can't; I can just say it for them. But I don't notice any problems with my English pronunciation.)

Mark, LostInAsia. of course i was addressing Mark. Don't get mad at me, I always confuse names! I also need the explicit tones given by a teacher - to check if I guessed correctly. But that guessing got a lot better over time - in the majority cases it works now. *Speaking* is a different subject altogehter. In the heat of the fight I always mingle up tones. Especially rarely used vocab is prone to be affected by that. But in general my tongue is not really that flexible. You should hear my English. Ouch.

I envy you henning! My tone guessing doesn't seem to have improved at all. Following up on this: I just tried downloading Rosetta Stone's demo, and while I don't intend to buy the program, I DO like how you can speak and the program can graphically "show you" your tones. (And apparently my 2nd and 3rd are close to identical. Oops.) And their examples really draw out the "er" sound, as well as giving 個 a very strong fourth tone, both of which contrast with what I've learned. The question: does anyone know a program where I can record my speaking and "see" how my own pronunciation matches a native-speaker recording? I sometimes use Audacity (I believe it's both Mac and PC) to play something from ChinesePod or wherever, then record my own voice, and I compare by listening - but I do like how with Rosetta Stone I can see a more objective comparison of my pronunciation. Who knows, maybe I can even do this inside Audacity or GarageBand, programs I already have - both programs have lots of technical parts that I understand somewhat less than I can understand a ChinesePod Media lesson. (Mark, I don't *think* I'm hijacking this, am I? A program like this would help out with your issue, wouldn't it?)

My sugestion would be to try to learn cantonese, Get frustrated at the fact that there seems to be know structure to the tones, come back to mandarin and you will be ecstatically happy with the langauge and tones. At least that is what happened with me. My Cantonese tones are terrible and I have finally just decided i am going to say it however I hear it. I used to feel that way about Mandarin but when I came back to it the tones just seems so much more structured and logical that I was abler to pick them up easier. I also have no musical talent at all but I have been blessed with good ears. I can pick up something that is out of tune in music or a tone pronunciation very quickly. I still have tone problems some times but I am able to fix it quickly after having it pointed out by someone. LostInAsia- I still get the Shui and xue thing wrong a lot. But I have made a conscience effort now to Change it over the last few weeks and I see it quickly disappearing. It also helps to have someone pointing it out every time you make the mistake to embarrass you into it. It might be annoying at first but it will help you change. Finally, I think it just takes time and exposer. The tones are not something that you are just going to wake up one morning and they are perfect. If you keep working at it and become more conscious of it you will get it. I started by not worrying about them much and was able to be understood quickly but I now something find myself going back to vocab I learned in my "non-tonal" phase and fine tuning it to make sure everything is correct.

Man I wish there was an edit tool for our posts. I know I should be more careful bit I always get carried away and want to post it right away and when I go back and read it I always find typos.

Hear Hear for john老师's suggestion on tone pairs. Try doing them like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzgB__eagVM Repeat them often enough and muscular memory should kick in. It's how I learned to play the piano.

Mark, Sorry to be all self-promoting on you, but I've written a bit about the tone topic on my own website: 1. The 5 Stages to Learning Chinese (short) 2. The Process of Learning Tones (short) 3. Tone Pair Drills (involved) Basically, I second John B's point that repeated exposure is key, and I also feel that there's the issue of progression of complexity. I talk about this in the Tone Pair Drills package, but the main point is that the first thing you need to do is learn tones in isolation, but after that it's key to focus on tones in pairs. If you try to go straight from individual syllables to entire sentences, the leap is too great. I hope that helps. Be patient with yourself.

John, no problem about the self promotion. You sold a tee-shirt and I've started to try the tone pairs. If I payed more attention to previous posts, maybe my question would be unnecessary. Your description of Chinese learning steps doesn't fit my case exactly, but it would have to be an idealized scenario. I'm a little ahead in communication ability and behind in tones from your description (I can read and write and find circuituous ways to get my meaning across on most subjects). I hope that the more advanced levels don't require moving to China and marrying a native speaker, because I'm happy with the family I have. I hope techy things like CPod can help me emulate the experience here in America. LostinAsia, I use a shareware program called GoldWave to record and edit sounds.

aeflow, I don't see that happening in the immediate future, but who knows. Yeah, the online Flash content can be flaky; I recommend downloading the whole package and playing the files from your hard drive.

Mark, Thanks a lot! I'm sure the process doesn't necessitate a move and a marriage, but I'm a little biased in my observations of the process, obviously. We're always working on a more complete digital emulation of the acquisition process, so stay tuned...

maxiewawa this is realy great the video is great though I have to say those guy should take less drugs if you know what I mean...;-)

http://www.jsedu.net/szty/xpy/lesson1.htm

My feeling for what it's worth is that analysing tones will get you only so far. Somehow they have to be learned naturally. By that I mean that you speak out a whole phrase with correct tones without thinking ahead about which tones to use. In my case I've even noticed identifying the tone is often a recipe to get it wrong.

By the way I think that if you understand spoken mandarin it implies that you *do* distinguish tones. However distinguishing tones is one thing, implementing them in your speech is quite another. It's like appreciating Beethoven vs playing the piano.

I love how a conversation on the web can lapse into silence for two and a half years and then just continue as if nothing happened.

Web conversations are like the geological record: episodes of deposition seperated by huge time gaps.

John, Any possibility of migrating the tone pair drills material from your personal website into ChinesePod itself? By the way, when I visited that page I had trouble loading it and getting it to work, perhaps it uses a lot of memory, possibly because everything is on one single webpage.