Tonal Relativity
The main problem people have with tones is that they think about them too much.
Your goal is to accurately produce Mandarin tonal flow without consciously thinking about it at all. The only way to attain this ability is through mimicry, so after today, mimicry will be the ONLY thing we do here.
The reason we are talking about tones now is because you may need a "sense of direction" while you train your tonal perception and mimicry. There are only 3 ways you can mess up a tone, so when you get feedback, it is very simple to identify what the mistake is.
There are three features to tones. What's most important to note is that tones are identified in relationship to other tones, NOT absolutely. In other words, we're actually concerned about the following:
- Movement
- Relative Pitch
- Relative Duration
Relative Pitch
In the audio track below, I say the word "hey", then I say the word again with a higher pitched voice, then a third time in a pitch lower than both the previous two. While listening to this, you should have had the feeling of the second "hey" going up, and then the third "hey" going down.
The ability to listen to two pitches and identify one as higher or lower than the other is the most basic ability in tonal perception.
Some mandarin tones are ALWAYS higher/lower pitch in relation to others. Even when a Mandarin speaker doesn't hear the full tone, her brain can automatically perceive it based JUST on its relative pitch.
Movement (Up vs. Down vs. Constant)
Within a given syllable, the pitch can either:
- Go up
- Go down
- Stay constant
Movement is the tone feature that most people focus on when they study Mandarin, but it's actually not as important as people think. When people speak fast, they might not execute the movement fully. Or they might even do a different tone than normal all together. While it's important to perceive the basic up/down of pitch movement, try not to think about it too much. Otherwise you'll overdo it.
Relative Duration (Short vs. Long)
In the audio track below, I say "hey" two times. You should be able to perceive that the second "hey" is longer. You can even perceive this on the visual waveform of the audio player.
Some Mandarin tones are ALWAYS longer/shorter in relation to others. Even if a Mandarin speaker doesn't fully hear the movement of a tone, her brain can automatically perceive it based JUST on the duration of the syllable.
In the next section, we are going to review the five tones of Mandarin. While listening, keep these three relationships in mind.