Mandarin has FIVE tones (I said five, not four!)

Depending on what you read, different sources seem to disagree about how many tones Mandarin has. It's not a particularly big disagreement (and somehow, life goes on) but still ...

Some sources say Mandarin has four tones (No!).   Some say it has four tones plus a neutral tone (what does that mean??).   And others say it has five tones (like this post).

In this post I will *prove* that Mandarin has 5 tones!  :-)  Basically, I want to show you that the fifth tone is not just the toneless pronunciation of a Chinese character - the fifth tone actually changes the meaning of a character.

Brace yourselves.


The 5th tone is NOT the 1st tone

You can see from the MDBG screenshot on the right, the following words.

• 地方: If this is pronounced dìfāng (where 方 is a 1st tone), it means 'region' or 'local'. But when it's pronounced dìfang (with 方 being the neutral tone) it means an 'area' or 'place'. Clearly the neutral tone isn't simply the correct way to pronounce the word - it actually has a different meaning when you use either the 1st tone or the 5th tone. 
• 人家: Similarly, rénjiā means a 'family' or 'household', while rénjia means 'people' or 'other people'. 
• 工夫; And while gōngfū is 'casual labour', gōngfu is 'time' or 'effort'.

So yes, the 5th tone is not the 1st tone.

The 5th tone is not the 2nd tone

Similarly, the following words show that the 5th tone isn't just an alternative pronunciation, it actually changes the meaning of the word:

• 精神: jīngshén means 'spirit' or 'essence', while jīngshen has more of a 'vigour' or 'vitality' meaning
• 出来: This one is slightly different, in that it's the first of the two characters which can also take on the neutral tone, but we see that chūlái talks about something 'appearing' or 'arising', while chulai is added after a verb to show completion.
• 用人: This one is interesting - and it shows that I'm really skating on thin ice with this article, but in the MDBG dictionary (screen shot way above & right) only shows one possible pronunciation, whereas in the Pleco dictionary (slightly above and to the right) it suggests that while yòngrén means 'to make use of personnel', yòngren simply means a 'servant' 

The 5th tone is not the 3rd tone

I'm sure you're getting my point at this stage. Again, looking at the MDBG screenshot to the right, you can see that ...

• 吗: When it's mǎ it's more about a sound-word (used in the Chinese word for morphine, for example), but as a neutral tone it's the question indicator
• 起来: This can be qǐlai (to stand up) or qilai (placed after a verb to showing the process is beginning)

So yes, the 5th tone can't be the 3rd tone.

The 5th tone is not the 4th tone

I came up with a few more example here, showing that a neutral tone again totally changes the meaning of the word:

• 大意: We start with dàyì (main idea), but when we change the tone we get dàyi (careless)
• 生意: We first have shēngyì (vitality), but end up with shēngyi (business)
• 不是: And while búshi (fault) has the neutral tone, bùshì (is not) is a clear 4th tone.
• 世故: And again the one tone has one meaning with shìgù (the ways of the world), while the other tone has a different meaning with shìgu (sophisticated)

There is another one, but again MDBG is silent on the difference, whereas Pleco is very clear:

• 过 (or 過 in traditional):  When it's used as a 4th tone word then the meaning is about 'crossing' or 'spending time', whereas when we want to show that is is about putting after a verb to show completion, then we need to use it as a 5th (neutral) tone.

So there!   We have shown that the 5th tone is not any of the first four tones - and in each of the above cases we are talking about the same Chinese characters, and about a complete meaning change when the 5th tone is used.

So if you had any doubt whether there are 4 tones or 5 tones - now you now. There are definitely five distinct tones. And it's not just a pronunciation thing!

Sideline thoughts:

• As you can see, I'm thinking a fair amount about tones at the moment, and this follows the success of my previous article on the sneaky third tone.
• You might also see this as a confusing follow-on to my discovery that Mandarin is just a series of maths formulae!
• Do you know why I chose this particular photo - right at the top of the article - to be the header for my post? There is no prize - but people will love & respect you if you explain below specifically where I got the screenshot, and why I used it here.
• If you want an intelligent discussion of the neutral tone, as opposed to what you get on this blog :) then read some good stuff, like this Wikipedia article.

As (confusing) as possible

I was revising flashcards recently, and in a relatively short space of time there were sentences that included 尽可能 (jǐnkěnéng - as much as possible) and 尽力 (jìnlì - trying one's hardest).

Aside: 尽 (jin) means something like 'to the furthest extent', so since 力 means 'strength' and 可能 means 'possible', you can see how (尽X) words would work. 

Anyway, so my mind noticed - because the two sentences appeared just minutes apart - that in one I found myself saying jǐn (third tone - which is correct) and the other I said jìn (fourth tone - correct too). Chinese is always confusing - I've written about this plenty before - but I got to wondering when each would be correct.

The other word which then popped into my mind was 尽快 so I looked that up too ... damn!  The dictionary showed that it could be both jǐnkuài OR jìnkuài. So strange.

I was speaking to Judy about this oddity the other day, and she - as a HK'er who uses the traditional character system rather than the simplified system - pointed out the following ...

• This is a known oddity in Chinese, and even HK people note this when studying Mandarin
• If you use traditional characters, the words are written 儘可能 and 盡力, which shows us that actually they are not the same character in the traditional set (the 亻 component exists) - which partly explains why the one is third tone and the other is fourth tone
• 尽量 gets this right, because the one traditional variation is 盡量 which consistently uses the fourth tone (jìnliàng) while 儘量 consistently uses the third tone (jǐnliàng)
• However, when you look up 尽快 in the dictionary, you strangely find that not only can it be written using both forms of the traditional character (盡快 and 儘快), but even the matching tones that we observed above don't work here!

I guess this is a point of theoretical interest. It's nice to know, but if you're learning by listening & talking (and not just reading) then you'll get these points right anyway. Like in my case, I was actually correctly using the respective first & third tones without realising it - because that's how I learned each - and it was more coincidence than anything that I noticed it.

TL;DR:  Probably the right advice in this case is (a) listen to Chinese more (obviously!) and (b) if you're a flashcards kinda person (and you ought to be, if you're not yet advanced) then make a point of sometimes reading them out aloud - making sure the tones you're saying match the tones you're reading in the pinyin.

I've written before about words which - although the pronunciation remains the same - the meanings can be really flexible. But in this case it's about having the same meaning, but different pronunciations. Do you have any particular words which are as confusing as possible to you? Please leave a comment below ...

Mando-lish-nese: the trilingual bookstore name

In the heart of Hong Kong's Causeway Bay (the shopping district with the highest rent in the world, higher even than New York's Fifth Avenue, and double that of Tokyo's Ginza district), I saw this book store:

... and the name of the place really intrigued me. You can see it better here:

If I were to tell you that the English name is derived from the Chinese name, would you believe me? Possibly not, so let me take you through my logic ...

• 樂文 = Luck-Win  (In Simplified characters it's 乐文, but ignore that for now - this is HK)
• You probably know 樂 from 快樂 (kuàilè = happy, S=快乐) - and 樂 by itself means 'happy', not 'lucky'
• Similarly 文 is from 文化 (wénhuà = culture), and 文 by itself means 'culture' not 'win'

So what's going on?

• The first clue is that 文 is pronounced wén in Mandarin, and that sounds exactly like 'win'
• But that hasn't solved the problem, because 樂 is pronounced 'le' and not 'luck'
• So now we leap across to Cantonese, where 樂 is actually pronounced 'lok', and yes - that does sound a little like 'luck'

So I thought that was cute - like many Chinese brands, the name of the book store is so positive (Luck-Win), and actually the English name can be derived from Chinese ... but not from the meaning of the characters, only from the pronunciation.  And even better than that, one comes from Cantonese pronunciation, and one comes from Mandarin pronunciation.

I think my next project will be an online Mando-lish-nese dictionary. Clearly there is need for something like that :-)

The "strict photographer" guide to pinyin pronunciation

A couple of years ago, I wrote a post entitled The "sleeping cats" guide to pinyin pronunciation, which was actually one of my more popular posts, I guess because amongst all the beginners learning Chinese, it sometimes is the really simple stuff which is most confusing.

Today, while doing flashcards, the sentence below popped up again, which reminded me of a common pronunciation mistake I used to make (and probably still make, I'm just in denial!) - and that triggered a desire to write another "pinyin pronunciation" guide - which is this post.

 - "Hold that pose, don't move," said the photographer.
 - "Bǎo​chí nage zī​shì, bié dòng," shèyǐng​shī shuō.
 - “保持那个姿势，别动,” 摄影师说。

I can't remember where I found this sentence, but somehow it made it into my flashcard pack. And reading it today immediately reminded me of how much difficulty I had at the beginning differentiating between pinyin's 'she' and 'shi' - and both sounds appear in the word for 'photographer' which is why this is a particularly interesting word (for beginners) or interesting sentence (for intermediates).

The first syllable of ''shèyǐng​shī" is shè, which actually rhymes with the end of the word 'photographer' or perhaps I can even say 'photograph-uh'. The final syllable shī might best be written as 'shr' - sounding as if there is no vowel.

Perhaps if you hear it pronounced correctly, it would be easier to understand?  So visit MDBG.net​, (my favourite online dictionary, which I've written about before) and specifically look up the word photographer.  You can hear it pronounced by clicking on (>>) and then on the audio button. Do it.

So there you have it - a relatively common pronunciation mistake for beginners, but if you learn just one word correctly - photographer - you will have a clear picture of how to say it correctly. Forever.


PS. If you haven't read it already, I've written a post in the past about the mispronunciation of the word 'pronunciation'. Check it out.

The "sleeping cats" guide to pinyin pronunciation

How much does pinyin confuse you? Which is the worst part for you?

In this short post, I show how "cats & zeds" will help you overcome a common pronuncation mistake. (PS. I know Americans say "zee" not "zed" - but for this to work, pretend you don't.)

Pinyin is the system which provides a method for pronouncing the Chinese characters using a Roman alphabet (and tone marks). It was developed by the Chinese for the Chinese - and let's face it, although it's the system we use in the West, if Westerners had designed it, I think we would have used different letters to represent the different sounds.

c is pronounced "ts",  z is "dz", zh is like "j", x is "sh" (kinda) ... sigh.

For me, the parts I got wrong in the beginning were mainly 'c' and 'z', and even today I find myself stumbling over words like "cún​zài" (存在 - to exist) when I talk too fast for my brain.

You might have a similar problem. In fact, you might not even realise you have the problem!

For example, when I meet other students of Mandarin in London, and I listen to sentences like "I live in London" (wǒ​ zhù​ zài​ Lún​dūn​), the 'zai' is often pronounced 'tsai' and not 'dzai' - so I know I'm not the only one.

Perhaps this might help ...
    cats & zeds
    [c]a[ts] & [z]e[dz]
    c is prounced 'ts'  &  z is pronounced 'dz'

Test yourself - how do you pronounce 汉字 (Hàn​zì​ - Chinese character), 现在 (xiàn​zài​ - now), 菜单 (cài​dān​ - menu), 词典 (cí​diǎn​ - dictionary)?

So cún​zài would (phonetically) be [ts]un-[dz]ai. Got it?
Cats & Zeds. Got it?

Good.