I don't hear tones in Chinese movies
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HashiriKata -
Quote:
Originally Posted by lao daiwei
My conclusions are that I expect tones are falling into disuse by younger generation Mandarin
Chinese speakers.
How much more presumptuous can one get??!
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sui.generis -
UCL Wasp
As requested
Yuchi -
Quote:
My conclusions are that I expect tones are falling into disuse by younger generation Mandarin
Chinese speakers.
Uh, no.
roddy -
There's a nice long list of free (mostly, at least) software tools for audio analysis, etc, on
that site here.
Quote:
My conclusions are that I expect tones are falling into disuse by younger generation Mandarin
Chinese speakers.
Actually if you ever hear a bunch of teenagers slurring back and forth at each other, you can
sometimes get the impression that all of Mandarin's sounds are falling into disuse and a new
language based entirely on minor variations on the schwa is evolving. But again, that would be a
bit of a leap
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hashirikata
How much more presumptuous can one get??!
I'm not sure that was really necessary. If you think the guy's wrong it might be better to say so
and ideally explain why. There's a difference between mistaken and presumptuous, one being a
natural consequence of learning, the other a personality defect.
Hero Doug -
You know the fact that you guys notice the younger generation isn't using tones or slurring the
language is far from a leap. If that's what you see that's what you see. The only thing that may
be a leap is applying it country wide. At the very least it's an eye opener that you can't just go
out and learn Marandarin from anyone (at least pronunciation) as they might very well have a poor
accent.
xianu -
Tones are always there, but, I think as the audio software showed, not all the tones are given
equal value, and only certain ones are actually stressed. Many end up in a sort of fuzzy neutral
or sort of mini-tone zone. I remember a friend of mine, who we used to call a tone nazi, was
speaking with some chinese friends. Something extraordinary happened, and the girls said,
"不可能" but the tones were very obvious bu4, ke5 and then the neng went something like 2-3-4.
She asked “那是设么声调？” they just looked at her blankly. point is, once people speak
at regular speed, not all tones get their full value. Often one of the things Chinese always say
about foreign accents is that the laowai always sound like they are singing, probably bc learners
spend so much time pronouncing and making sure the tones are correct.
Hero Doug -
You know I was thinking about mentioning fluent speech and proper speech. To anyone who pay's
attention to language (their own, other's they know well, etc) they'll notice that in fluent
speech we often don't say words/phrases how their supposed to be said.
As xianu said, this most likely happens with tones.
And as lao daiwei and Roddy said, maybe the younger generation is lazier then the older generation
with regards to tones. I'm sure you've seen the jokes in the media of a teenager talking to their
parents and their parents saying "what the hell is he talking about? I don't get these kid's
nowadays". (slang and whatnot)
No reason something similar can't happen here.
carlo -
Pitch tracks only show an intonation contour. Tone shapes are 'embedded' within this contour, just
like lines drawn on an elastic rubber band that is stretched and deformed. So you shouldn't expect
to be able to see regular and immediately recognizable tone shapes there.
If the duration of a syllable is shortened, for example, the pitch variation will be smaller,
because you have no time to do a full glide. That is true of any language, not just Chinese, but
you wouldn't conclude from this that stress in English is disappearing too.
Personally I think when you are learning you should first practice with individual sounds and full
tones, and then learn to string them together in a way that sounds natural. It's a bit like
playing tennis, it's not that you always have to hit your smash with perfect footwork and full
power, but you train that way, so that it's easier to adapt to more complex real game situations.
bomaci -
Actually tones get reduced much more than the text books tells us. I am starting to think that
mandarin has much more sandhi than text books says. Listen to this example sentence. This is a
host at 新浪聊天室 saying the following sentence:
"为什么会拿这样的一个题材来做情景喜剧,是不是特有生活感悟?". I have also
slowed down the 题材来做情景 part.
Listen to how almost all the tones have been flattened out.
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