(Pt 2)The SECRET to Perfect Mandarin Tone Pronunciation

[@jan_languagestudyen5820]

You remember me the channel Rachel's English. She teaches everyday pronunciation with all the variations that even native speakers don't realize they do, far from the pronunciation taught in theory. You seem to be doing the same for Mandarin Chinese, something I've never seen on KZbin. Thank you so much for the content 💛

[@leiterfurkundenzufriedenhe1884]

Please make a video about the topic of your masters thesis! It sounds beyond interesting and it's something I was always wandering about! I can't believe this channel is so small, I found you through the reaction video metatron made! Great content and I'm looking forward to watching all of it!

[@JahRave]

+1

[@neurotic_bunny]

+2!

[@julesytooshoes]

Omg, thank you for your kinds words! I will keep trying to make (hopefully) useful and entertaining videos :) Will consider the master's thesis topic for the upcoming videos!

[@galelichter2619]

I have studied Mandarin Chinese for more years than I care to admit. I found your first video on the four tone extremely helpful. I was aware of the low flat 3rd tone, but what I did not know was the pitch outlines of the 2nd and 4th tone. Thank you so much for explaining this so clearly.

[@MC-hx6xn]

Ditto, she pointed out things I didn’t even know I was doing that I somehow picked up from my in-laws and work. This will help tremendously with my kid taking 1st-year Mandarin

[@neurotic_bunny]

YES please do a video on your masters thesis topic! I wrote a paper during my bachelor's in my developmental psych class about phoneme acquisition in infancy, and I didn't care much back then but I'm really into phonetics now (I read so much about phonetics for random languages on Wikipedia just for fun lol). It would be amazing to hear about it from a legit linguist!

[@Harry-io8pd]

Great no nonsense content on pronunciation. It would really help me if you did a future video on physical mouth, tongue, and breath for better pronunciation. And how effective is it to shadow accurately for better pronunciation

[@SinergiasHolisticas]

Love it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[@julesytooshoes]

Thank you ☺️☺️☺️

[@pohlpiano]

Wow, great charts! Very illuminativ. Interesting to see more varied tone contours in females speech

[@James_zai_dongbei]

A video about sentence stress in Chinese would be very welcome

[@yeroca]

anticipatory tone effects sounds like what I've noticed and called (just for myself) "backward propagation of tone changes"

[@gowithkob]

My Chinese friend and I used to play a game trying to make as long a sentence as possible using only 3rd tones....I'll call it "tone sandhi train game" : P

[@julesytooshoes]

Would be fun to see that 😂

[@MC-hx6xn]

Yes please post both of your theses :) 😊 Does critical period 1. apply to dialects/accents within a language (cf. Erik Singer’s videos on Wired reviewing actors’ performances-but he attributes it to the lack of an actor’s prep time) and 2. Can it apply only to speaking and not listening? (Trivial example: I hear the correct* native* “rr” trilled in Spanish but I can’t even “fake it” on an unstressed syllable, having started Spanish at 22😢) But your subs are a self-selecting group maybe there’s more hope for us? (Context: L1 English). *=I know, I know…

[@jochenrudolph530]

Many thanks for explaining these questions so detailed and understandable. By the way: when it comes to a combination of third and second tone like 美国 my language partner isn’t satisfied. Can you explain how to pronounce it correctly? I try to imitate, sometimes it’s okay, sometimes not.

[@julesytooshoes]

美国 should be half tone 3 for 美 and full tone 2 for 国. After assimilation, it should be like 美 (2-1) + 国 (2-4), based on the standard 1-5 tone heights. This is just an approximate - there is no 100% specific way to pronounce every word in context 😅

[@jochenrudolph530]

@@julesytooshoes I didn’t expect a reply so quickly. Perfect! Thank you 😊

[@dissonance798]

I have a question regarding the comments about whispering and other phonological properties: how does this apply to sung Chinese music? It seems unlikely that the same argument about interpreting meaning based on syllable duration and tones would apply here. In sung lyrics, the words are often pronounced more freely, with the artist prioritizing what best fits the melody in terms of duration, extension of sounds (like phoneme finals), and other stylistic choices. Wouldn’t this make the interpretation highly contextual rather than based on actual phonological properties in such cases? Once again, thank you for providing such an interesting perspective on tone pronunciation and its nuances!

[@julesytooshoes]

Hello, great question! This requires further reading into literature surrounding this topic. I’m pretty sure the researchers who had people listen to singing only listened to individual syllables, not sentences or phrases, which would make context not available to help them determine the tone. However, I haven’t read these papers in full yet - one of this is in the references section, and if you good about this topic and write “academic article,” lots more will appear. Hope that helps!

[@RealHebrewMonk]

I have a question - How do you pronounce the 一 in 一劳永逸? Is it yī or yì? Thanks. Great Video!

[@julesytooshoes]

It should be yì 😊

[@RealHebrewMonk]

@@julesytooshoes Oh, I was really hoping it would be yī in the first tone. This way it would have all the four tones in order in a single expression. 一劳永逸就把四个声调都练出来了。

[@banbangu]

thank you for your clear explanations and a very pleasant neutral intonation. could you make a review on tones variations, f. e. 一会，where hui can be the 4th or the 3 rd tone. as i understand some variations can be regional, some convey different meanings, some mark conversational or ancient style. it is not always clear from the dicionaries.

[@julesytooshoes]

Hello, do you mean the phrase “一会儿,” meaning “in a bit” or “shortly”? 一会 (without 儿) is not really used. When said with the 儿, it’s still tone 4 but the 儿 adds a tone 3-like retroflex, so it might sound like tone 3 together. If you want, I can make a video about 儿化 in general.

[@songtraveler]

What about a sequence of three third tones, as in 我很好? Also, I would be interested in how tones and sentence intonation work together.

[@julesytooshoes]

This would fall under the section where I talk about looking at word boundaries. 我 is separate from 很好. It’s pronounced as wo3 (half tone 3) + hen (tone 2) + hao (tone 3).

[@songtraveler]

@julesytooshoes Thank you for your clear explanation. That is the way I pronounce it, but I didn't know why.

[@glennicol1361]

How does it work if say a Malaysian is speaking to a person from Beijing? As Malaysians change many words to the 4th tone... As well as other differences... Thank you!

[@julesytooshoes]

Do you mean a Malaysian Chinese person? I’ve never studied Malaysian Chinese, but I can look into it!

[@samaval9920]

Very interesting eating. BYT, at least some other dialects have more tones, so have less pitch room to have 1 tone +’several variations. For example, Cantonese has 3 level tones z55, 33; & 22, Hokkien has 3 level tones 55, 33, 11, etc.

[@julesytooshoes]

Yes, many southern Chinese dialects/languages have other tones, including several level tones. I don’t speak those dialects/languages, so it’s hard for me to say anything authoritative on them, but I can do a compare and contrast for a future video.

[@UUBrahman]

Thanksgiving day in Florida I was in a "language party" which is a group chat on Tandem language exchange talking to a group which included someone in Hong Kong and someone in Taiwan. I recommended your channel, they could not access it. We double checked the channel name spelling..nothing. We were all quite surprised as you are a language specialist teaching foreigners Mandarin. For some unknown reason, your channel cannot be viewed in Taiwan and Hong Kong.

[@julesytooshoes]

Oh really?? That’s so strange! Thanks for bringing up my channel though, that’s very kind of you 🥹🥹🥹

[@mafen7600]

I asked a colleague and native Mandarin speaker to help me with tone pairs and he gave the qingsheng actually a 1-4 tone. So, they do not necessarily know what exact tone they speak.

[@julesytooshoes]

Yes, it's true. I think the reason Mandarin speakers can speak Mandarin easily is BECAUSE they don't think about what tones they're saying. If they had to pre-plan the specific tones for every syllable before they open their mouths, it would be difficult to speak. I think this is what makes Mandarin difficult for learners too ^^;;

[@francisnopantses1108]

Neutral tone is life the schwa in English. Formal instruction usually doesn't touch it, but it's why kids struggle to spell Latin loan words correctly.

[@julesytooshoes]

Very interesting perspective!!

[@francisnopantses1108]

What about 第一次，isn't that tone 1?

[@julesytooshoes]

Yup! It follows the first rule I mentioned, which is 一 as a number :)

[@JohnnyLynnLee]

The critical period does exist then? Funny 'cause I, as a Brazilian, learned English as an adult and it happened that I could (not intentionally) fool Americans to think I was also an American for some minutes. Like discussing the US elections and he saying to me that I should vote and me needing to clarify that I wasn't an American. There were many instances like that with Americans along the years. In simpler conversations (without showing my face in this case, of course) and for a shorter period of time I could fool 2 Japanese people into thinking I was Japanese as well. In all of those cases I wasn't TRYNG to do so. They just assumed I was a native. In ITALIAN it's funny cause my Italian is weaker and they often point out my mistakes and stuff, BUT, since Italy has so many languages it happened in one stance that a guy thought that my weird Italian was the result of some Italian language/dialect.

[@MC-hx6xn]

I wonder, do you hear perfect pitch? (I’m not a linguist)

[@JohnnyLynnLee]

@@MC-hx6xn Are you asking if I can "hear" or if I "have" perfect pitch? Anyway the "secret' to have good pitch (or good pronunciation n general) is to be able to listen to it FIRST. In standard Japanese my pitch can fool a native for some minutes. It can range from 2 minutes only until I make my first mistake (either with pitch or another thing) to, I guess, 20 minutes tops. Or I can even make a mistake but as I can speak fluently and fast he won't even notice. It also counts the fact that we are in a REAL conversation and focused on the SUBJECT. If, let's say, he was aware it was some kind of "test" to see if I was a native or not and therefore LOOKING for incongruences I guess he wouldn't be fooled anyway. In OOSAKA BEN I can do it, for fun, and even naturally because I like it, with people from Oosaka, but my pitch, or anything, honestly, about my Oosaka dialect would fool anybody. It's perhaps decent but not that I could be taken as someone from Oosaka not even for less than a minute. But they say it's good and generally they make sure to show they are pretty amazed and happy and laughing they azz off that I'm speaking Oosaka ben.

[@JohnnyLynnLee]

@@MC-hx6xn ANOTHER "secret" is that there's no such thing as "neutral" or "standard" accent really, in any language. Everybody has an accent. So it varies from place to place and person to person. So you should lock into some regional accent, and someone you really like to listen a lot from that region, and mimic that person. Although I said it in this way when trying to do that you should do the REVERSE. Don't try to chose a person BECAUSE of the accent. Find, like, an actor, or KZbinr you like a lot, that you listen to everyday, or even a friend, because you like to listen to WHAT the person says. Then find out WHERE that person comes from so you know that is or her accent will be your accent. That's called "language parent" sometimes. In English people guess I'm from Los Angeles (but maybe born in Kentucky!- and there's a reason for that). Because of the people I use to or used to listen all day long everyday when learning.

[@JohnnyLynnLee]

@@MC-hx6xn You'll never sound like a native with a "neutral American accent" or "standard Japanese". To sound like a native you must sound like you came from SOME SPECIFIC PLACE in the country. And even MORE THAN THAT, more like an specific PERSON from there. You don't need to be perfect. If you KINDA sound you are from some specific place they'll assume you are from there (for some minutes at least).

[@JohnnyLynnLee]

@@MC-hx6xn IF you are trying a "neutral/standard" accent, like, in the case of Japanese, the NHK accent or something, you can be a THOUSAND times "more perfect" in your accent than me that you still won't sound like a native. If you KINDA sound like someone from an specific place, with an specific personality, with an specific word choice and way of saying things you'll look WAY MORE like a native than someone that is way better than you but sounds like a robot. I LOVE Dogen, I'm not bashing him out here but that's his case. His pitch accent is PERFECT. But TOO perfect. He'd hardly be taken as a native. Dogen doesn't look like he come from some place in Japan. He sounds like "standard Japanese". And no Japanese really speaks like that.

[@MatthewSmith-ss1yi]

There's an amazing movie called 一 一.

[@julesytooshoes]

Is this a riddle? I think we need more hints lol.

[@MatthewSmith-ss1yi]

@@julesytooshoes Not a riddle. I just made the comment since you mentioned that 一 一 is pronounced as two first tones. I'm glad I know how to pronounce the name of the movie now. I had already read about the tone of 一 changing depending on the tone of the following syllable, but that source did not mention all the contexts where it preserves its first tone. Thanks

[@MatthewSmith-ss1yi]

@@julesytooshoes Oh I understand the confusion now. Those straight horizontal lines are yi1 yi1, not two blanks. We'd all better stop mixing scripts like that until somebody figures out what's going on.

[@julesytooshoes]

@@MatthewSmith-ss1yi Haha, I'll go check out the movie!

[@MatthewSmith-ss1yi]

@@julesytooshoes You definitely should. In case there are multiple movies with the same title, I am talking about the 2000 film directed by Edward Yang (楊德昌).

[@Jote_09]

my friend from beijing told me that it's optional to apply the third tone sandhi and thats she doesnt change her third tones into the second tone

[@rhezer]

Don't trust natives, they "just know". I asked my native Chinese friend about tone sandhi and she had no idea that she changed her tones within a sentence

[@GeorgAnkar]

@@rhezer Exactly. There are a lot of Chinese natives who will assure you that "tones are not important", which is, of course, not true at all. They just grew so accustomed to the tone that they don't perceive them as a big deal and an important matter.

[@xuexizhongwen]

She doesn’t know what she’s talking about.

[@LerySarti]

I noticed that if you are speaking fast without separating the syllables by silence, it is challenging to speak two third tones in a row. This because you would be coming straight out of a vocal fry to go into another vocal fry.. it's not natural and your voice is gonna wanna go up before dropping back down into a vocal fry :)

[@SamTheChipmunk]

Secrets to Perfect Mandarin Pronunciation @Julesytooshoes @Chinese with Ben @Spongeflower @Outlier Linguistics

[@xuexizhongwen]

Are you saying that the secret to perfect pronunciation is to watch videos about pronunciation on these channels? (I have watched all of them.)