Importance of Tones and Practical Examples

In today's podcast , I'm going to talk more about tones in Chinese language. I believe that they are very important and you should make sure you pronounce them right from the very beginning . Otherwise it might be hard to correct your pronunciation later and people may not understand your Chinese So here 's the basic characteristic of four Chinese tones . First tone and it sounds like this. I will use the syllable ma as an example . First tone maop it sound is high and level Mop Ma Mah econd tone Mah Mah it starts from medium and then rises to the top Mah Mah So it's first tone Ma Second tone Ma Good Third Tone it starts low , then drops to the bottom and then rises to the top . Mah Mah and fourth tone . It starts at the top then falls rapidly to the bottom . Mah Okay , let me say all four tones all together . Mah first tone Ma Second tone Ma thir,d tone Ma , fourth tone One more time . Ma Mah Mah Well, you can sing it as a song if you want Mah Mah ot excellent . Okay, so I hope you will practice your tones. Otherwise you can really get into many awkward situations when you're in China . There was a joke about a foreign student who went to a restaurant in China . When he was ordering food and he wanted to order dumplings instead of saying Xiao Xie , Waiao , Shui , which means miss I want dumplings he said Xiao Xie Wa Ya Shui Zia Which means Miss I want to sleep Well, so you gotta be careful . Alright, and please don't forget to check out the script for this lesson on my on my blog . Okay, this is the end of this lesson and please stay tun ed . Bye bye.