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Those tonal shifts are a lot more obvious than the ones in Chinese. Despite being a "heritage speaker" of Mandarin, I still sometimes confuse words with the sam
by zhemao 13y ago
Those tonal shifts are a lot more obvious than the ones in Chinese. Despite being a "heritage speaker" of Mandarin, I still sometimes confuse words with the same pronunciation but different tones. I remember my mother once asked me to bring her the "bēizi" (cup) and I instead brought her the "bèizi" (blanket). The difference between the two is quite subtle. Chinese speakers rely on context as much as tonality to distinguish similar-sounding words.
- gohrt 13y agoMy mother once asked me to bring her a pin, and instead I brought her a pen. Are tones more problematic than homophones (and accent-induced homophones) ?
- wonderzombie 13y agoYes. In Mandarin, there's a much smaller set of sounds than in English. There are many, many words which sound exactly the same -- same pronunciation, same tone, different hanzi -- before you even get into the issue of same pronunciation, same tones. Hence the reliance on context.
- bane 13y agoHow about this example, "bring me the má má http://mandarin.about.com/library/audio/tones/2.mp3 http://mandarin.about.com/library/audio/tones/2.mp3 vs. "Bring me the mǎ" mǎ http://mandarin.about.com/library/audio/tones/3.mp3 http://mandarin.about.com/library/audio/tones/3.mp3 One will get you some hemp, the other a horse.
- vqc 13y agomy favorite one is: mā ma qí mǎ, mǎ màn, mā ma mà mǎ. Which translated literally is: mom rides horse, horse slows, mom scolds horse.
- footpath 13y agoThat's the first line of a classic Chinese couplet (duìlián). The second line usually goes: Niūniū qiān niú， niú niù， niūniū níng niú. It translates to "little girl leads along the cow, the cow is stubborn, the little girl pinches the cow".
- vqc 13y agoI had no idea. Even as an ABC who still speaks semi-competently, I'm having trouble figuring out Niūniū, niù, and, níng. What are the characters? Isn't pinch 捏?
- footpath 13y ago妞妞牵牛，牛拗，妞妞拧牛。妞 means girl, 妞妞 is a common name for little girls; 拗 has two different pronunciations, ao and niu; the ao pronunciation is usually used as a verb for bending something, while the niu pronunciation is usually an adjective for stubbornness. I guess 拧 is better translated as to wring or to squeeze and twist, but you get the idea.