Lesson 3: Tones

Here are all the tones:

1st Tone: Your voice is level and stays on a single note for the whole syllable.  People often do the mistake of setting this note too high, making it harder to pronounce that it really is.  This should feel like a comfortable tone.

2nd Tone: Your voice rises.  This is often compared to in English when you raise the pitch of your voice at the end of a question like in this instance: "You went to be at 2 o'clock?"  A common mistake is to start too low that the sound becomes really hard to make with the amount of breath that you have.  

3rd Tone: Your voice lowers, then rises.  This can be one of the trickiest tones, along with 2nd tone for many learners.  It will start level, then go down, and then back up like 2nd tone.  There is more emphasis on the "going up" half.

4th Tone: Your voice cascades down.  Ever heard that Chinese sounds like people are constantly getting angry with each other?  This tone is where it come from!  In fact, the word 爱 ai4 means "love" and is in this tone!  So when saying this tone, think of saying something as if you were angry.

5th Tone: This tone does not have a way of pronunciation.  I think the best way to explain this is that you rush the syllable or just breathe it out.  This tone is usually seen at the end of a sentence or expression such as with 太贵了! (tai4 gui4 le5) "too expensive" or 你好吗? (ni3 hao3 ma5) "how are you?"  This is the tone with which you have the most freedom.  Since it usually comes at the end of the phrase or sentence, whatever breath you have left is just let go for this tone.  

A good tip when you are first trying to practice tones is moving your finger in the way you want your voice to go.  For instance, to say 你好, your finger would go down, up, down, and up.  Keep in mind that the "lines" you make with your finger don't need to be "connected."  Otherwise, consecutive 2nd tones or 4th tones would be really hard to make!  Just start fresh with each new syllable.

A question I often get asked is how to distinguish 2nd tone from 3rd tone since they end in the same way, and like I said earlier for 3rd tone, the emphasis is on the part that rises, making it nearly identical to 2nd tone.  The best way that I've found to look at this problem is that 3rd tone takes a lot longer to say, it almost sounds like two syllables, while 2nd tone is just like one and goes by quickly.  For 3rd tone, you need to make a conscious effort to go down and up.  

Practice! Try saying these sentences with the best tones that you've got so far.

你好 (ni3 hao3) hello

我爱你 (wo3 ai4 ni3) I love you

太贵了 (tai4 gui4 le5) too expensive

好久不见 (hao3 jiu3 bu2 jian4) long time no see

很好 (hen2 hao3) very good

Wow, that was a lot!  Make sure that you put this knowledge to use as soon as possible since it is very important in learning Chinese.  Try to detect tones in this video.  Good luck and have fun!  再见！