Name: Learn Mandarin Chinese - How to Pronounce 4 Tones (Lesson 1)
Uploaded: 2019-09-01T10:12:42.000Z
Duration: 11 min 50 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Hi, I'm Fame Ketover of Lenguin com, and this is Mandarin Chinese

The imperative

Get ready because we're going to be talking about tones

Future simple

Listen to these four Chinese tones, which we'll do in their traditional order

Ok, so you're an English speaker, you're probably like,

they just said the same word in four different ways

And that'd mean like, "is that you, mom?"Then I could say, "Ma!!"

Which would mean perhaps, "mom, you're embarrassing me!!!"

But in both cases the word "ma" is refering to the same thing

The way you say the word, determines which word it is

Now listen again to what we said are different words in Chinese

To a speaker of Chinese each of these words is perfectly distinguishable from the others

The different tones keep them apart the same way that

in English different consonants set off "ma" from "pa" and different vowels set off "ma"

from "me" So giving a word a wrong tone can be just

as disastrous as giving it a wrong consonant or vowel

For example, if you say this: ma, when what you meant was this: ma,

you basically just called your mother a horse

So, let's take a look at the visual representation of each tone

The vertical scale covers about an octave Just which octave it is, of course, depends

on your voice Now this is a somewhat greater range than

you would use in English Since the top of the range will seem slightly

too high for comfort and the bottom's going to seem slightly too low

The first tone, or high tone, word "mother" and the third tone, or low tone, word "horse",

will help you locate these extremes Have a listen:

ma ma Again, "mother" and "horse", high versus low

má mà People often equate Chinese tones to notes

on the musical scale And like you just heard, the distinctive difference

between the two tones is that one is high and one is low

But you may have noticed that while the high tone was like a single steady high note,

the low tone was lower in the middle than at either end

For a more dramatic example of such a difference in contour,

listen to the second tone, or the rising tone, word "hemp" and the fourth tone, or falling

má mà Again, "hemp" and "to scold", rising versus

má mà Can you see the distinctive contours of the

tones? You can also see it suggested in the accent

mark used to indicate the tones of the romanization Tones also differ in length, the third tone's

the longest and the fourth tone is the shortest They also have different patterns of loudness,

which you can see in the width of the curves So let's go through the tones in their traditional

order By the time we're done we'll have contrasted

The first tone is called the high tone It's pitch is near the top of your speaking

range and it's contour is level Listen to the high tone word which means "mother"

ma ma ma We don't really use such high level intonation

in English, so the high tone might seem sung rather than

ma ma ma Try repeating "mother" after the speaker

Make sure you stay on the same high note throughout

ma ma ma If you're getting it right, it should feel

a bit unnatural Try saying the high tone word "mother" and

ma Notice that the mark in the romanization shows

its level contour Try saying "mother" again, and repeat after

ma The second tone is called the rising tone

It starts in the middle of your range and almost immediately rises sharply to the top

of your range Listen to the rising tone word, which means

má má má In English, if you want to ask, "Is that YOU

mother?", you can say, "ma????", with a rising intonation

So, think of that question, "ma????", and it may help you pronounce the rising tone

word which means "hemp" But remember that it's not a question and

it has nothing to do with mother Try repeating "hemp" after the speaker

má má má Now try saying the rising tone word "hemp"

má Notice that the tone mark in the romanization

rises from left to right Try saying "hemp" again and repeat

má Now let's compare the high tone with the rising

tone Both are in the upper part of the pitch range

But the high tone stays level, while the rising tone climbs sharply,

staying slightly below the high tone and then reaching the top of the range

ma má Let's turn them around now, "hemp" followed

má ma The third tone is called the low tone

It has a slightly dipping contour It starts fairly low, and then dips to the

very bottom of your range You can almost feel and hear it scraping bottom

At the end it swoops up a bit The most important part, and the part to listen

for and the part to really emphasize, is the low part in the middle

Remember, also, that this is the longest tone Listen to the low tone word, which means "horse"

ma ma ma Try repeating horse, concentrating on getting

ma ma ma Now try saying the low tone word "horse" yourself

ma You can see the the dipping contour in the

tone mark Try saying "horse" again and repeat

ma It's pretty easy to tell the high tone and

the low tone apart, since they contrast in contours as well as