How to learn Chinese tones quickly
As we know, Mandarin Chinese has four tones: 1,2,3 and 4. Foreign students who are interested in mastering Mandarin Chinese will soon find that these tones are difficult to reproduce. Some students will want to put in extra practice to master the tones. Many teachers of Mandarin insist on their students paying close attention to the tones from the very beginning of their studies.
In fact it is not necessary to pronounce tones like native Chinese speakers when foreigners start learning mandarin.but you can practice with easy methods as follows.
When you start learning Mandarin, you won't sound like a native speaker, but the following easy methods will help you to pronounce well and be understood.
First try to find a few easy-to-pronounce words such as country names. Zhong guo (China) gives you the first and second tones; Mei guo (United States) gives you the third and second tones. People usually find it easy to pronounce the name of their own country.
Next, try to find a sentence that contains all four tones. For example: zhong 1 guo 2 hen 3 da 4 (China is vast). This sentence is easy to pronounce. When you meet first-tone words, think of zhong and you'll remember how to pronounce them. If you apply this method of using example words to all the new words you meet, you will not find tones as difficult as you may think.
Zhong guo, Mei guo, etc. are model words which will help you to pronounce the tones.
March 22, 2017
