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> No, these are distinct words that have different tone contours. "bat" and "pat" ... "stoop" and "stop" the same word I don't want to repeat but your examples

> No, these are distinct words that have different tone contours. "bat" and "pat" ... "stoop" and "stop" the same word I don't want to repeat but your examples are not the situation in Chinese speaking system. When you write out the sound of different words, they are literally the same e.g. "stop". The distinction is whether you pronounce it in C major or E or G. Same goes for many southeast asia languages although not an expert on those. > Japanese speakers must have awful trouble speaking with one another in that case. In fact large chunk of jokes (either modern of traditional) from Japan is due to different vocabularies share the same prounciation. Even not a small proportion of detective stories' twist comes from different interpretation of the same prounciation. Like someone say something on the phone but misunderstood by the others, or someone writen down a message before dead in Kana (prounciation) instead of Kanji (meaning). The whole story is just playing with those linguistic hash collisions.

greiskul 3y ago
Yeah, I don't speak chinese, but there are many european languages that use accents to change sounds of vowels. In portuguese, the difference between grandmother (avó) and grandfather (avô) is just in how you pronounce the o. I am extremely skeptical that any language that humans speak could be impossible to create a phonetical writing system for. It may need features that the latin alphabet lacks, but it should be possible.
deadfoxygrandpa 3y ago
no, this is not correct. you don't need perfect pitch to speak proper chinese, it's about the relative pitch contours. C vs E vs G has nothing to do with it. and native chinese speakers are not conceptualizing it as "pronunciation" + "pitch" as two separate things that exist alongside each other. the pitch is a fundamental part of the pronunciation, not external to it i dont know japanese but it sounds like your example is just saying that japanese humor has a lot of puns

greiskul 3y ago

Yeah, I don't speak chinese, but there are many european languages that use accents to change sounds of vowels. In portuguese, the difference between grandmother (avó) and grandfather (avô) is just in how you pronounce the o. I am extremely skeptical that any language that humans speak could be impossible to create a phonetical writing system for. It may need features that the latin alphabet lacks, but it should be possible.

deadfoxygrandpa 3y ago

no, this is not correct. you don't need perfect pitch to speak proper chinese, it's about the relative pitch contours. C vs E vs G has nothing to do with it. and native chinese speakers are not conceptualizing it as "pronunciation" + "pitch" as two separate things that exist alongside each other. the pitch is a fundamental part of the pronunciation, not external to it i dont know japanese but it sounds like your example is just saying that japanese humor has a lot of puns