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0:00
Anyways, as you could probably hear, saying yu3 san3 sounds robotic and unnatural. Not to mention it’s kinda hard to talk like that. Down down. Yu3 san3. Two tones going down. Not easy on the vocal chords. So what happens when you have two third tone sounds in a row? I’ll give you a hint. Da jia hao! Welcome to Sing & Learn Chinese. In this lesson we’re going to cover the Chinese tones. Now, you don’t have to care too much about tones when you’re singing Chinese, unless you’re rapping.
0:24
But when you’re speaking it, or listening to Chinese being spoken, ya definitely got to know your tones. And once you learn your tones, you can combine them with the Chinese syllables from this Chinese pronunciation chart to learn how to speak and understand every single sound that exists in Mandarin Chinese. Download the chart at singandlearnchinese.com right now, if you like, or after you finish watching this video. Okay. So. What are tones, anyway? The truth is, every language has tones.
0:52
Because human beings don’t talk like robots. For example, in English, changes in your speaking tone indicate mood, emotion, subtext, context, etc. Take a look at this phrase. “What happened.” If you understand English, you know what these two words mean. BUT, you can say these two words in a lot of different ways. For example, scared: What happened! Questioning: What happened? Getting angry: What. Happened. Sadly: What happened…? Or robotically: What-Happened.
1:26
As you can hear, the tone of my voice changes when the underlying emotion changes. But changing the emotion and changing my tone of voice doesn’t change the dictionary definition of these words. “What” still means “what,” and “happened” still means “happened.” Whether I whisper it or shout it, say it as a question or as a statement, the definition stays the same. But, in Chinese, that is NOT the case. Take this syllable. Two letters, M and A, form MA. In English, Ma means mother.
1:56
And in Chinese, Ma means mother as well. But ONLY if you say it in a certain way. If you say “ma1” then it means mother. If you say “ma2” now this word means “numb.” If you say “ma3” the word means horse. And if you say “ma4” the word means to scold someone. Ma1 ma2 ma3 ma4. Can you hear the difference? If not, don’t worry, that’s what we’re going to cover right now. So in Chinese, there are 4 main tones. (There is a 5th one, but we’ll talk about that later) We call the tones by their numbers.
2:29
First tone, second tone, third tone, and fourth tone. You can see them all here in this super handy color-coded chart. Now, let’s go over each tone individually. The first tone is high and light: ma1. The graphic representation of it is a straight line, as you can see in the diagram up there in the left hand corner. And I chose the color green to represent the first tone, because green makes me think of
2:53
spring and growing grass and leaves and cheeriness, and cheery voices are often higher pitched. So there. Quick warning: Now I’m going to explain what these four writings down below mean. If you’re not interested in the details, just close your ears for ten seconds. Now. When you’re writing the first tone, you can either write a short horizontal line over the vowel as you see here to the left with the pinyin spelling out m-a, and see how there’s a little line on top of the “a?”
3:19
That’s a tone marking for the first tone. Or you can just type the number 1 next to the syllable. Technically, the first way is the correct way, but if you don’t have a computer that can type in tone markings, the second is a shorthand, and most people should be able to understand what it means. As for the two symbols on the right, this is zhuyin, which is the syllabary system that the Taiwanese use to teach pronunciation.
3:42
The difference here is that in zhuyin, you don’t need a tone marking on top of the “a” vowel. In zhuyin, if there is no tone marking on the vowel, it’s automatically assumed to be the first tone. Learning zhuyin is optional, although if you ever plan to go to Taiwan, you might find it helpful to learn as a beginner. For a fuller explanation of the difference between zhuyin and pinyin and how Chinese pronunciation and the Chinese syllabary works, check out the “Learn the Chinese Alphabet”
4:07
video, link below. Note: even though the video title is “Learn the Chinese Alphabet,” the truth is that Chinese does NOT have an alphabet, not like English. We’ll talk more about the Chinese writing system in another video, but for now, know that pinyin and zhuyin are syllabaries designed to help with pronunciation only. They’re not the actual Chinese writing system itself. Okay, back to tones. The second tone is a rising tone, as you can see in the graphic to the top left.
4:37
It sounds like this: ma2. Kind of like what happens to your voice in English when you’re asking a question. “Did you steal my ice cream?” Hear how my voice goes up on that last word, “cream”? That’s what the second tone is. The rising tone. I decided to make this tone orange for the purposes of this presentation, because orange makes me think of a fire that is slowly growing hotter, just like someone who is about to
4:59
get angry will also sometimes speak in a rising tone, like “Did you steal my ice cream?” As you can see down below, the second tone marking is a small line going up on top of the vowel. Next, we have the 3rd tone, which technically goes down and then hooks up again, like this: ma3. But in reality, most Chinese speakers don’t do the whole hooking-up-again thing at the end. It takes too much time. So most of the time, 3rd tone words just sound like this: ma3.
5:30
I chose blue, because the way the 3rd tone goes down makes me think of someone dropping a pebble in a lake. Like: plop. That’s exactly what the 3rd tone sounds like in real life. Ma3. Plop. Ma3. Plop. Hear it? The way that you write the third tone is with a v-shaped check mark on top of the vowel, as you can see here. Okay, now for the 4th tone. This tone goes straight down, quickly, like an exclamation, or someone who is very angry. Which is why I went with the color red for this presentation.
6:02
It sounds like this: ma4. Just like if you asked someone “did you steal my ice cream?” and they said, “no,” but you know that they did steal your ice cream, you’d say “Yes you did!” Now do you hear the emphasis on the word “did”? That is the 4th tone. A fast downward sound. Ma4. Yes you DID! Ma4. Did! Ma4! Did! And the way you write the fourth tone is with a short line going down, on top of the vowel. Like so. Okey-dokey. Let’s hear them all together, once more. Ma1 ma2 ma3 ma4.
6:37
First tone, high and light. Second tone, rising. Third tone, down (and sometimes up, but usually not), 4th tone, going down fast, with emphasis. Ma1 ma2 ma3 ma4. Another quick warning before we move on. I am about to quickly explain the tones in a musical way, so if you’re not interested in that, just close your ears for another ten seconds, and after that we’ll talk about the 5th tone. So, one way that I explain the tones is to think about music.
7:06
If the first tone is a high E, then often the second tone in comparison sounds like a D, the third tone much lower, like a G, and the fourth tone, is no note at all, but a ghost note (you percussionists out there will be familiar with this marking) Like this: ma1 ma2 ma3 ma4! If this helps to think of the tones in this way, then go ahead and do that. If you find it confusing, then let it go. Because the tones are not really E, D, G, and a ghost note for those of you with perfect pitch.
7:39
They’re relative to each other, so I can say ma1 ma2 ma3 ma4 (high) or ma1 ma2 ma3 ma4 (low) and it all works. Okay, those of you who don’t like details can unclose your ears now. So, I mentioned before that there is a 5th tone. And the reason why I put it here instead of above with the other 4 is because you don’t see it a lot, and it’s used mostly for accessory words that don’t have a whole lot of meaning in themselves. They just add to other words.
8:07
But basically, the 5th tone, also known as the qing1 sheng1 is a bit like the 4th tone, only it’s cut in half. Like you’re in the middle of speaking, and someone cuts you off before you finish. ma5 Hence the picture of the scissors here, and the color gray. Because it’s more low-key. When people write it in pinyin, they often don’t include any tone markings at all. And you can just tell if it’s a fifth tone based on the context.
8:31
But in Taiwanese zhuyin, they sometimes use a dot above the vowel to show that it is the 5th tone. If you understand musical notation, think of it like a staccato. Okay, so here are some examples of 5th tone words. Only zi5, the word on the bottom right, is a word that can kind of stand by itself. It means child or son. Right above the word zi5, we have the character de5, which is a possessive character. What does that mean? Well, for example, the word for me is “wo3” so “wo3 de5” means “mine.”
9:03
The word for you is “ni3.” So “ni3 de5” means “yours.” The word for him is “ta1” so “ta1 de5” means “his.” Get it? That’s what I mean by a possessive character. It indicates possession. And the other two words you see here. Ma5 and Ba5 are more for emotional emphasis, they don’t mean anything significant by themselves really. So for example, for ba5, let’s say someone is trying to convince you to let them eat your ice cream. But you don’t really want to do that.
9:37
Yet they’re just too persuasive, so you go, “okay, fine.” That “okay fine,” in Chinese would be, “hao3 ba5.” If you were neutral about giving someone your ice cream when they asked for it, you would just say “hao3.” Okay. Here you go. No biggie. But if you were reluctant, that’s when you would add the ba5. “Hao3 ba5.” That isn’t the only way to use ba5, in fact, you can actually use it in a totally opposite way, but going into all of the nuances of these 5th tone words would be an entire video
10:04
in itself, and we still have a lot of other things to go through. So let’s go through them. Alright, time to combine some tones, and see how they work out in the wild wild world of real Chinese: But first, real quick for you musicians out there, here’s a musical staff representing how the tones work when combined together: ma1ma1 ma1ma2 ma1ma3 ma1ma4. And ma1ma5. If this helps, use it. If not, scrap it. The important thing is to listen closely to how actual Chinese speakers use tones when
10:38
they talk. Everything else, the color codes, the graphs, the musical notation, is just to support you as you are training your ears to listen for tones. Whatever’s helpful, use it. Whatever’s confusing, ignore it. Alrighty. Let’s take a look at tone combinations that start with the first tone. First, we have a first tone-first tone combination. Which sounds like this: ma1 ma1. For an example of an actual Chinese word that uses this tone combination, here is a fei1ji1 which means airplane.
11:08
Fei1ji1. Next is the first tone-second tone combination. Ma1ma2. An example word is tian1e2, which means swan. For our 1-3 combo, ma1ma3, we have hun1li3. Which means wedding. And for 1-4, ma1ma4, we have wan1dou4 which means peas. Weird pronunciation warning Uh-oh, we have a weird pronunciation coming up. So the word one hundred million, in Chinese, is made by combining the character for one, yi1, which is a first tone word, with the character for hundred million, yi4, which is a 4th tone word.
11:52
So, do you pronounce it yi1 yi4? The answer, of course, is NOT ON YOUR LIFE! Instead, when you have the word yi1 combined with a fourth tone word like yi4, the yi1 changes to a SECOND tone, like this: yi2 yi4. But what if the word yi1 is combined with a 2nd or 3rd tone word? Well, it changes again. But to a 4th tone this time. As in yi4 pan2, meaning “one plate.” Or yi4qi3, meaning “together.” Why does it do that? Well, when you’re talking fast, yi1 as a first tone word doesn’t stay in the first
12:30
tone very easily when you combine it with other tones. Kinda like earlier when we were talking about how the third tone, technically goes down and then up, like this: ma3. But in practice, most people skip the going up part when they’re talking because it’s too much trouble. So they just say ma. Same deal here. At least, that’s my best guess. Could be wrong. That’s just what it feels like to me when I speak Chinese. Anyway, last combination for words beginning with the first tone. 1-5. Ma1ma5.
13:00
Our example here is ta1de5. As in ta1de5 wai4tou4, meaning “his jacket.” And now, we move on to tone combinations that begin with the SECOND tone. Again, we have this musical staff here for those who want it. ma2ma1 ma2ma2 ma2ma3 ma2ma4. If this makes sense to you you can pause the video and look as long as you like. Otherwise, the rest of us are movin’ on. First up, we have a 2nd tone-1st tone combination. Ma2ma1. Our sample word is mao2yi1 which means sweater. Next is the 2-2 combo. Ma2ma2.
13:38
Our sample word is Korea! han2guo2 For our 2-3 combo, ma2m3, we have tuan2ti3, which means a group. Then there is our 2-4 combo, ma2ma4, and as an example word, we have tong2hua4 as in fairytale. And finally we end with a 2-5 combo. Ma2ma5. Our sample word is er2zi5, which means son. That was quick. Now we are moving on to the 3rd tone combinations. Here, again, is our musical staff for our musical people. Notice that the 3-3 combo is crossed out.
14:16
We’re going to talk about that in a bit, so keep an eye out for a weird pronunciation warning! First we have our 3rd tone-1st tone combo, ma3ma1. And our sample word is shou3ji1 which means cell phone. Then we have 3-2, ma3ma2, and the sample word, jing3cha2, which means police. And now we have the promised weird pronunciation warning. Take a look at this word. Yu3 means rain. And san3 means umbrella.
14:47
So the two words together mean umbrella, specifically, the type that you use to protect yourself from the rain. (The word for an umbrella that blocks out the sun is different) Anywho. If you put yu3 together with san3. Then do you say yu3 san3. The answer is No. And of course, you already knew that, because you’re very smart and you know how foreshadowing works obviously. Anyways, as you could probably hear, saying yu3 san3 sounds robotic and unnatural.
15:16
Not to mention it’s kinda hard to talk like that. Down down. Yu3 san3. Two tones going down. Not easy on the vocal chords. So what happens when you have two third tone sounds in a row? I’ll give you a hint. Look at the picture on the right. Okay, so the answer is: in the case of the umbrella, the first character changes tones to the second tone, like this: This is pronounced yu2san3. Umbrella. Yu2san3. Those of you who are particularly observant noticed that the umbrella picture is orange
15:49
on top, then blue underneath. Orange first, then blue. Second tone, then third tone. Yu2san3. But wait! We’re not done with the tricky third tone, just yet. Take a look at this word. Gou3. It means, dog. Now, in Chinese, people often put two words together to convey familiarity or cuteness. Just like in English, we add the -y sound to words to make them cute. For example, if you were talking to a small child you might say, “look at the doggy!”
16:19
In Chinese, “doggy” is created by doubling up the word gou3. And when you do that, instead of changing the first gou3 to a second tone, you change the second gou3 to a second tone. Don’t ask me why, I don’t know, that’s just the way it works. So it sounds like this: Gou3gou2. Gou3gou2. Doggy. How do you know when to change a 3-3 combo into a 2-3 and when to change it into a 3-2? Erm...for me, it’s just experience. Someone else might have a better explanation, if so, please leave a comment.
16:54
But for me, it’s just that you hear it a lot, and it comes naturally. Just like when people ask in English, when do you use “a” and when do you use “the,” a lot of times, I don’t know what to say, it just sounds right that’s all. If someone has a better explanation, please leave a comment! One final fun fact. In Taiwan, the 3-2 combination is often used with family names for the familiar, cutesy factor. For example.
17:20
The word “dad” is “ba4ba5” But Taiwanese kids will call their dads “Daddy” by saying “ba3ba2.” 3-2. Ba3ba2. Same with mommy: ma3ma2. And same with all the other familial names: Uncle shu3shu2. Auntie: ah3yi2. Big sister jie3jie2. Little sister mei3mei2. Big brother: ge3ge2. Little brother: di3di2, and so on and so forth. This is just the informal way of speaking in Taiwan. All of those names, with the exception of jie3jie2, have different formal pronunciations:
17:50
shu1shu5 ah1yi2 mei4mei3 ge1ge5 di4di5. But whatever, TMI. You’ll learn all of that in time. If this stuff hurts your brain, just ignore it for now. Okay, moving on. For our 3-4 combination, which sounds like ma3ma4, we have bi3ji4, which means notes. As in, taking notes. Which, maybe you want to do for this video if this material is new for you, or maybe not, maybe you just want to replay it a few times. That usually helps. And for our last third-tone combination we have 3-5, ma3ma5.
18:25
And our sample word is yi3zi5, which means chair. Holy mackeroli, we’ve made it to the last set of tone combinations. (I know, technically, there is a 5th tone, but this video is getting long, and there’s not a whole lot more you need to know about 5th tone besides what I’ve already told you. So, functionally, this is the last set. Whew!) Again, some staff images for you musical people, and now let’s get into example words. Four one sounds like: Ma4ma1.
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And an example of that is the rou4bao1 which means pork bun. Technically rou4 means meat, but most meat buns are made of pork, if you’ve ever eaten buns like this, so there you have it. rou4 bao1. Next 4-2. Ma4ma2. Mian4tiao2 means noodle, or noodles. Like in the picture here. I’m getting kinda hungry. Anyone else? Hang in there, we’re almost done! And then you can reward yourself with a snack. For the 4-3 combo, ma4ma3, we have ye4jing3 which means the night view. Or night-time scenery.
19:30
4-4 sounds like ma4ma4, and for this combo we have dian4shi4 which means television. And last but not least, we have our 4-5 tone combination. Ma4ma5. And the sample word is one that we mentioned before: ba4ba3 which is the formal way of saying “dad.” wo3de5ba4ba5. My dad. Ni3de5ba4ba5. Your dad. And if you want to say “daddy” in the cutesy taiwanese way, that would be ba3ba2. But be careful who you say that to. In certain parts of china, ba3ba2 doesn’t mean “daddy,” it means other things, one
20:07
of which is not something people often mention in polite society. And that’s it! You did it! you learned all four, well five tones. And you learned how people use them, and how they’re combined with each other, and you also learned a lot of new vocabulary. So, good for you! Now that you know the four tones, remember to combine them with the syllables from the Chinese pronunciation chart that you can get for free from singandlearnchinese.com.
20:33
The chart has all of the 400+ syllables that Chinese speakers use, so combine that with the four tones, and you’ll know how to say every sound that exists in modern Chinese. (And some classical chinese as well). And for more practice, check out the Sing & Learn Chinese song teaching videos, where we read and explain the meanings of Chinese song lyrics. You can also find English and Chinese covers of the songs, as well as karaoke versions to practice with. Because practice is good.
20:57
practice is key. So, remember to practice! And until we sing again, zai4jian4!
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