Chinese Language Stack Exchange
Chinese Language Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [tones]

Questions about the tones used in Chinese.

Every language has a sort of intonation, but in Chinese, changes of tones are phonemic, which means that they bring "meaning".

The same character pronounced with two different tones might change meaning completely.

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tones when singing a chinese song?

if tones are so important in chinese as to even distinguish shades of meaning, how can a chinese sing a song? in music every syllable has its own note/tone, so when we sing a song, we must disregard the appropriate tone and apply the musical note to…
user5949
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What tone is 杆 in 扶杆？

According to pleco 杆 in the third tone means shaft or arm, while in the first tone it means pole or staff. 扶杆 is in one of our exercises. It is not contained in any of the pleco dictionaries I own (PLC, CC, TL, UNI) and seems to mean armrest. I…
Ludi
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What is the best way to learn tones?

I still have difficulty to identify tones when I listen to Chinese. Moreover I have difficulty in saying second tone. Could you guys advice me some way to improve my tone?
Gerel tumen
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How modern Chinese singing works if Chinese has tones

Since Chinese is a tonal language, I'm wondering how this affects Chinese singing. Specifically wondering about the modern Chinese version of modern American pop music, which has relatively simple structure and chords. But if Chinese lyrics require…
Lance
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Are tones sometimes glossed over?

To elaborate, although ni3 hao3 has a double third tone, when I hear native speakers say it, it's said so quickly that they definitely are not using that tone, nor is there feasibly time to use the third tone when it's said that quickly; I mean…
temporary_user_name
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What are these tonal markings called?

Below are four tonal markings for 四川话: with a tone value of 55 (first tone) with a tone value of 21 (second tone) with a tone value of 53 (third tone) with a tone value of 213 (fourth tone) I believe these are an older form of the tonal…
Mou某
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Duration of tones in Chinese?

What are the durations of tones in Mandarin? Do all tones have the same exact duration? Other dialects can be noted as examples...
Mou某
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Where does the 4th tone go on wan3shang (evening)?

I see the character for evening are wan3 and shang4, but when the word is written in pinyin, the fourth tone disappears from shang and it becomes neutral. I've read the rules of tone change but I don't see anything about this. I see similar things…
temporary_user_name
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why does 生 and 先生 have different tones when it's part of a word?

The pinyin for 生 is: shēng. The pinyin for 先生 is: xiān​sheng​. why does the tone change when it's part of a word?
mrzulu9000
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Why is the first tone less common after m, n, r, l?

In Gwoyeu Romatzyh (国语罗马字), the first tone uses the basic spelling except when the initial is a sonorant (响音) m, n, l, r. For example, ba (八) bar (跋) baa (把) bah (爸) Sonorants mark the first tone by adding h an after the initial (聲母) and use the…
Greg Nisbet
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Tone of 和 in 暖和

For words like 衣服 and 朋友, we can pronounce either with full tones as yi¹fu² and peng²you³, or with neutralized tones of the second syllable like yi¹fu⁰ and peng²you⁰. Then comes 暖和 which confuses me. In the Taiwanese dictionaries that otherwise show…
gnucchi
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Why do some parents pronounce 妹妹 as měiméi instead of mèimèi or mèimei?

I have heard some Taiwan (and maybe Mainland) parents call their daughters měiméi. I'm wondering what is the reason for that.
Dan
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Mandarin Neutral Tone: Tone Value?

One of my dialectical dictionaries takes tone value 21 and compares it to Mandarin's neutral tone. The same tone, coincidentally enough, had been described in the same way to me by a local native speaker (i.e.: tone value 21 - Mandarin's neutral…
Mou某
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上[將] in 4th tone instead of 1st tone?

My understanding for the pronunciation of 將 is 4th tone for verb (e.g. 將數百之衆，轉而攻秦) and 1st tone for noun (e.g. 將軍; 將 in 象棋). So why is it that for 上將 as in 海軍上將, the character is in 4th tone? My hypothesis is that it is from the usage of 將領 as a…
Vibius
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Do tones change at the end of an interrogative sentence?

At 0:57 in the link below, the woman says "餐" in what sounds to be the second tone, which is rising (Edit: on second thought, it sounds more like a toneless tone, like "么" in "什么." The girl says "餐" there in the same manner as she says "欢"…
key_asdfg
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