The Chinese Tones

 tone

 
    Have you ever ridden a roller coaster? I bet you have! In this lesson, I will introduce to you four Chinese tones, which are actually just like a roller coaster.

The four tones are written as:
      First tone: 一
      Second tone: /
      Third tone: \/
      Fourth tone: \

    Next I will show you some examples of how to pronounce and indicate them with the example vowels.

                                        ā    á    ǎ    à        
                                        ō    ó    ǒ     ò               
                                        ē    é     ě     è
                            tone

     The tone is one very important factor in Chinese character pronunciation. Every Chinese syllable has a tone. The same syllable with different tones could have very different meanings.

    For example: Ma with the first tone could mean Mother,
Ma with the second tone could mean Numb, Ma with the third tone could mean horse, and Ma with the fourth tone could mean to scold.

        妈       

    mā     
   First tone

mother

麻

má

Second tone
 		numb
马

mǎ

Third tone
 		horse
骂

mà

 Fourth tone
 		 scold

So be very careful about the Chinese Tones when you pronounce a Chinese character!

Chinese Tone Video
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