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Tones are to native English speakers what L's and R's are to native Japanese speakers. Because tones don't carry semantic information in English, we tend to ign
by yen223 11y ago
Tones are to native English speakers what L's and R's are to native Japanese speakers. Because tones don't carry semantic information in English, we tend to ignore it, which leads to English speakers sounding really weird when speaking any Chinese dialect.
- talideon 11y agoIt's not good to confuse your mother (mā) with your horse (mǎ).
- philh 11y agoUnless we're talking about different things - tones carry semantic information, just not the same kind as in Chinese. They indicate things like "I'm asking a question" and "I'm being sarcastic". This does make it hard for English speakers learning Chinese, but I don't think it's quite the same as L/R in Japanese.