How to study tones in Chinese 怎樣學習漢語的聲調

Tone (声调, shēngdiào) is one of the two most distinctive features separating Chinese from Indo-European and many other languages in the world (the other feature is the writing system). Every Chinese character has a tone and every tone is built in lexicon, which means tone affects the meaning of words. . Although studies show that the modern dialects of Chinese present a wide variety of tonal systems ranging from three to ten different tones,now we only discusses the tonal system and tonal acquisition of Mandarin Chinese. Among the many modern Chinese linguists, Chào Yuán-rèn (赵元任) is considered one of the most versatile scholars who not only helped to shape the field of modern Chinese linguistics, but also made an immeasurable contribution to the field of Chinese pedagogy. He developed a method to measure the four tones in Mandarin Chinese on a pitch scale of 5 as illustrated below. This tool helped unravel the mystery of Chinese tones.

Tone 1: high level                      55              as in mā 妈 “mother” or in wēn 温 “warm”

Tone 2: middle rising                  35              as in má 麻 “hemp” or in wén 闻 “hear”

Tone 3: low falling rising           214            as in mă 马 “horse” or in wĕn 吻 “kiss”

Tone 4: high falling                     51              as in mà 骂 “curse” or in wèn 问 “ask”

The four different diacritics over the vowels illustrated above represent the four tones in Mandarin Chinese. They are so simple and easy to understand that they, in the years since their first publication, have become the most commonly used teaching and research method describing the four tones. Notice that each tone has at least two numbers to describe pitch range: the first number stands for the starting pitch value and the last number for its ending pitch value. The middle number, shown for the third tone, stands for the point of changing pitch contour. The duration of each pitch range stays approximately the same as that of a syllable final accompanying the tone (e.g. ā, én, iăo, ìng). In addition to the four distinctive tones, Mandarin also has a neutral tone most likely attached to function words (e.g. le “aspect marker”, ma “interrogative marker”, de “possessive marker”), second character of compound words (e.g. 漂亮piàoliang “beautiful” and 认识rènshi “to recognize”), or reduplicated words as in bàba 爸爸 “dad”, māma 妈妈 “mom”, jiĕjie 姐姐 “older sister”, etc. Unlike the four tones discussed above, the neutral tone is normally unmarked. Occasionally, one may see a little circle above to mark the neutral tone (e.g. å), but most teachers and researchers simply do not mark it.

音（聲調，shēngdiào）是區分中文與世界印歐語和許多其他語言的兩個最鮮明的特點之一（另一個特點是書寫系統）。每一個中國字都有一個聲調，每一個音都對應一個詞彙，這意味著聲調影響的話的意思 。雖然研究表明，中國的現代方言呈現出多種聲調系統使用三至十個不同的聲調，現在我們只討論中文普通話的4個聲調。在衆多中國現代語言學家，趙元任被認爲是最多才多藝的學者他不僅幫助塑造現代中國語言學領域，而且爲中國教育學領域做出了不可估量的貢獻。他開發了一個如下圖所示，以用5個尺度衡量四聲在中國普通話的方法。這個工具可以幫助解開中國聲調的神秘面紗。

四個不同的變音符號在上面所示的元音字母上代表的是中國普通話的四個聲調。他們是如此簡單，很易于理解，其在第一次出版以來，已成爲最常用的描述四聲的教學和研究方法。請注意，每個聲調具有至少兩個數字來描述音調範圍：第一個數字代表的起始音調值，最後一個數爲它的結束音調值。中間的數字，示出了第三音，表示中間有個過渡的音調值。每個音域的持續時間保持大致相同，其與最後的一個音節長度保持一致。除了這四個鮮明的聲調，普通話也有中性聲調最有可能附著在虛詞（如了“時態標記”，嗎“疑問句標記”，的“所屬關係標記”）合成詞第二個字符（如漂亮piàoliang “美麗”和“認識”rènshi），或疊詞“爸爸”，“媽媽”，“姐姐”等。不同于上面討論的四聲，輕聲通常無符號標記。偶爾，人們可以看到一個小圓圈上面標記中性聲調，但大多數教師和研究人員不會對它進行標記。
Yīn (shēngdiào,shēngdiào) shì qūfēn zhōngwén yǔ shìjiè yìn ōu yǔ hé xǔduō qítā yǔyán de liǎng gè zuì xiānmíng de tèdiǎn zhī yī (lìng yīgè tèdiǎn shì shūxiě xìtǒng). Měi yīgè zhōngguó zì dōu yǒu yīgè shēngdiào, měi yīgè yīn dōu duìyìng yīgè cíhuì, zhè yìwèizhe shēngdiào yǐngxiǎng dehuà de yìsi. Suīrán yánjiū biǎomíng, zhōngguó de xiàndài fāngyán chéngxiàn chū duōzhǒng shēngdiào xìtǒng shǐyòng sān zhì shí gè bùtóng de shēngdiào, xiànzài wǒmen zhǐ tǎolùn zhōngwén pǔtōnghuà de 4 gè shēngdiào. Zài zhòngduō zhōngguó xiàndài yǔyán xué jiā, zhàoyuánrèn bèi rèn wèi shì zuì duōcáiduōyì de xuézhě tā bùjǐn bāngzhù sùzào xiàndài zhōngguó yǔyán xué lǐngyù, érqiě wèi zhōngguó jiàoyù xué lǐngyù zuò chū liǎo bùkě gūliàng de gòngxiàn. Tā kāifāle yīgè rúxià tú suǒ shì, yǐ yòng 5 gè chǐdù héngliáng sìshēng zài zhōngguó pǔtōnghuà de fāngfǎ. Zhège gōngjù kěyǐ bāngzhù jiě kāi zhōngguó shēngdiào de shénmì miànshā.

Sì gè bùtóng de biàn yīn fúhào zài shàngmiàn suǒ shì de yuán yīn zìmǔ shàng dàibiǎo de shì zhōngguó pǔtōnghuà de sì gè shēngdiào. Tāmen shì rúcǐ jiǎndān, hěn yìyú lǐjiě, qí zài dì yī cì chūbǎn yǐlái, yǐ chéngwèi zuì chángyòng de miáoshù sìshēng de jiàoxué hé yánjiū fāngfǎ. Qǐng zhùyì, měi gè shēngdiào jùyǒu zhìshǎo liǎng gè shùzì lái miáoshù yīndiào fànwéi: Dì yīgè shùzì dàibiǎo de qǐ shǐ yīndiào zhí, zuìhòu yī gè shù wèi tā de jiéshù yīndiào zhí. Zhōngjiān de shùzì, shì chūle dì sān yīn, biǎoshì zhōngjiān yǒu gè guòdù de yīndiào zhí. Měi gè yīnyù de chíxù shíjiān bǎochí dàzhì xiāngtóng, qí yǔ zuìhòu de yīgè yīnjié chángdù bǎochí yīzhì. Chúle zhè sì gè xiānmíng de shēngdiào, pǔtōnghuà yěyǒu zhòng xìng shēngdiào zuì yǒu kěnéng fùzhuó zài xūcí (rúle “shí tài biāojì”, ma “yíwènjù biāojì”, de “suǒshǔ guānxì biāojì”) héchéng cí dì èr gè zìfú (rú piàoliang Piàoliang “měilì” hé “rènshí”rènshi), huò dié cí “bàba”,“māmā”,“jiějiě” děng. Bùtóng yú shàngmiàn tǎolùn de sìshēng, qīngshēng tōngcháng wú fúhào biāojì. Ǒu’ěr, rénmen kěyǐ kàn dào yīgè xiǎo yuánquān shàngmiàn biāojì zhōng xìng shēngdiào, dàn dà duōshù jiàoshī hé yánjiū rényuán bù huì duì tā jìnxíng biāojì.