Fuddland

It’s the tones that kill me.

I can handle the fact that, early on, there are simply a lot of words to memorise. It’s to be expected — in all languages, to get any kind of grip on the basics, you just need to commit words and phrases to memory. But in Chinese [specifically, it’s Mandarin that I’m learning], it’s not just what word you say, it’s how you say it: applying different tones to the same word changes its meaning.

For example, take the word ma, pronounced so that the a is like the a in art. For it to mean mother, you say it flatly [that is, your voice neither rises nor falls] but slightly higher than your normal pitch, which we write as mā.

But say it with the tone rising towards the end — written má — and it means hemp. Or start high, let your voice duck down but then rise up again to your normal pitch — mǎ — and you’ve said horse. Go from high to low — mà — and you’re saying scold.

These are each referred to as the first, second, third and fourth [or last] tone, respectively. There is also a fifth tone [the “half tone”] which is neutral; saying a short, flat ma at the end of a sentence turns it into a question [when it makes sense to do so].

At the moment it’s bewildering me how you can possibly speak with the correct tones and also add emphasis to your sentences, but I’m trying to focus on the pronunciations before I even try to get more sophisticated.

This is just the tip of the iceberg; in fact, it’s not even that: it’s the snowflake that has just landed on the tip of a particularly pointy iceberg the size of Belgium, and I’ve not even really looked at the characters yet. It’s both a fascinating and frustrating language, which I’m determined to get to grips with over my twelve or so months here.

The following is an entry which follows on from the above:

1. Contesting stares [Fuddland]. Excerpt: "Wài guó rén!" "Lǎo wài!" I hear them whisper it everywhere I go: "Foreigner!" Benxi is a city of a million and a half people, of which fewer than a hundred are non-Chinese, so as you might imagine, despite our...

#1

Ade | 2006 / 03 / 16 – 22:28

hǎ!

#2

David | 2006 / 03 / 16 – 22:40

Re #1: That doesn’t appear in either of my dictionaries. :P

#3

Lucky | 2006 / 03 / 17 – 23:00

My uncle was asked to speak at a conference (or something) in Cambodia. He decided to begin with a bit of the language and tried to say “Good morning and thank you for inviting me” at which his audience was set about with laughter.

After the talk he gave (in English), someone said to him it was the first time anyone had started a talk by asking for a bowl of noodles.

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