Grace Mandarin Chinese thanks grace! Is syllable stress something that you learned at school for English? I didn’t know anything about it, or even heard of it until I learned to teach English haha
Oh my god this makes so much sense. And I never thought of that native speakers don't see the tones. When you explained how they tend to have to say the word before telling what tones, I realised that's just exactly what my chinese teacher does. No wonder he's gotten wrong or insecure about the pinyin spelling. Bc they don't see it that way. Great video!
FluffTheUnicorn native speakers having to speak the word out loud before knowing the tones is something I picked up on fairly early into learning Chinese and me be the curious guy I am, wanted to know why they don’t instinctively know what tones each word is. Eventually I figured out the way that we are currently taught and the way we should think about chinese are different, which is a problem. It’s such a lightbulb moment when it makes sense afterwards isn’t it haha. Glad it gave you some clarification
@@JamesWongLife you're exactly right, it is so much part of them, that they don't think about it, and the same is true in any language by the way... I am French, and the French language uses contractions a lot as in "ch't'ouvre" for "je t'ouvre" which means "I'll open the door for you" (it could be misconstrued as meaning "I open you"... but I digress), or as in "ch't'le donne" which is short for "je te le donne" (although in the written form, it doesn't look shorter, it is much shorter when spoken), just to say that people don't really think about it and realize they can actually form those sounds...
Literal deaf man teaching me how to pronounce better. Thank you. Your accent in English is remarkably good, there's nothing to correct, I would say otherwise, as I am used to dealing with non-native speakers All The Time. I'm seriously impressed both with your English accent and your Chinese. You've my full respect.
Pretty much sums up my experience with Mandarin. I really like the example of the English word present. I never thought of it that way before and other words too!
Nihao's It Going? I think I come up with these examples, cause things annoy me in chinese, like “why is it this way” but then I’ll find things in English that are almost identical, which makes me realise if I can accept and understand it in English, I can do the same with chinese too.
Dope Chinese with Gloria hey Gloria, this could be really helpful for your students struggling with tones. Can I ask, did you guys learn much about syllable stress when learning English? Because us English speakers learn absolutely nothing about it at school. Thanks for always watching my vids 🙏
@@JamesWongLife Yes, lots of Chinese beginners are frustrated by tones at the beginning and lose their passion in Chinese. I keep reminding my students that they don't need to pay too much attention to tones and after they learn enough words, it will be corrected. Mostly, we could understand them even in a wrong tone. Focus on input (listening) first. My major is teaching English as a second language so that our teachers have mentioned syllable stress in college. But for others, teachers only mention it a little bit. You are welcome. I hope I could get as many views as you have😛
@@DopeCantonese It's a really hard concept for foreigners to grasp, it takes time and lots of chinese input to get the tones. Actually learning any new language is hard, as you found out with Thai too haha. Isn't it interesting how tones are taught right at the beginning of learning chinese, yet syllable stress seems to be only touched upon in english classes. I'm still experimenting with different kinds of videos, trying to make stuff that not only I enjoy making, but also people want to watch. As far as I can tell, no one has made a video like this, which might be a good thing cause there's a niche, or a bad thing cause the reason no one made one is because no one wants to watch one like this haha
@@JamesWongLife Yes. But the books that I used in our school don't teach pinyin at the beginning until 2 years learning. For Chinese, I think it's important to learn pinyin though. It will be helpful and faster for further study.
this speaks to the theory that musically inclined language learners do well in tonal languages. speaking of music, your background music in these vids is so soothing.
Corey Wright I’ve also heard that people who’s language is tonal are more likely to be able to do perfect pitch too ie listen to a note and know what note it is. Bro I use the same song in every video, I’m lazy like that haha
I've recently started to suspect what you say in the video but your explanation solidifies it for me. I was always surprised how much thought a Chinese person put in when I aksed the simple question "What tones are in that word". It made me realise they were not thinking in terms of tones whereas the tones (1 to 4) are front and centre in my mind.
i really liked the English syllable stress explanation! I've seen u've got some other videos on Chinese so I'll definitely check those out. keep posting on Reddit because that's how I found your channel
Tinki I’m so happy other people understood the syllable stress explanation haha, i don’t think I’ve ever seen the comparison between the two before, so I thought I’d make a video. Thanks for taking the time to comment Tinki, hope you enjoy my other videos as much as this one!
A native Sinophone will be as confused by the wrong tones as an Anglophone would be confused by the wrong vowels. Using the wrong stress in English is more akin to ignoring pitch-accent in Japanese.
I think there’s a lot of cross comparisons we can make between various languages. Unfortunately I am not a linguist by any means, also I can only speak English and intermediate Chinese. The video basically encompasses my logic of when I was trying to get my head around tones, in the hope it can clear things up for other people learning chinese too.
I'm genuinely speechless! It's incredible that I have learnt one of the most eye-opening perspectives on tones from a deaf person! (I say that with love). Your take is one of the most rare I've seen since trying to understand tones. Isn't it incredible how unique challenges can open up new understanding? You may have just saved my Mandarin studies because I struggle so much with tones and trying to remember them and figure out how to say them. But you have just made me realise, using the stress syllable example, that I can just focus on the sound of each character, just like how we naturally do in English. It also made me realise that I copy speech patterns, as a Londoner, when copying American accents. We never worry about the intricacies of the tones they use, we just imitate. So why can't I do that with Mandarin?! So eye-opening. Thank you!
This is so cool James. Thanks for letting us know a different way to answer "it's the way it is" and different aspects. Knowing how a different language speakers think about Mandarin and how they make sensible in their head are awesome. Thanks again.
謝謝， 老師。 I'm using English and German to approach Mandarin. I did the same thing you're advising us with IPA and being able to produce those sounds, particularly vowels. With my native language (Spanish) is impossible, specially phonetics. French and Portuguese are also useful in terms of sound producing (nasal specially). We really appreciate your help.ps. happy 520!
Man, you are inspiring! If you can accomplish what you have, with your own challenges - hearing loss , then I truly have no excuse!! There is always a way if you have the will. Keep motivating us James! I study Vietnamese too - the importance of tones can't be underestimated, simply to be understood.
Jim Gavioli hey Jim, thanks for the comments! I hope this helps a little in your journey of overcoming tones and learning Vietnamese, I’m so happy it can help learners of not just chinese but other languages too! Appreciate the positivity :)
Great advice, James. I learned Chinese the analytical way back in the 1980's, partly because in those pre-internet days everything was text based. Last year, I started learning Thai (also a tonal language) and I learned it purely by ear, using TH-cam, Facebook and Audible. It has enabled me to learn the tones so much quicker and more intuitively than I did with Chinese.
I did the same thing with Cantonese last year, didn’t learn a single tone and just did it all by ear. Is my Cantonese perfect? No but I learned faster than I did mandarin!
At first I thought that the comparison with the syllable-stress would be irrelevant but it in the end it makes so much sense. Thank you for this, your video was really helpful!
This is wonderful advice! Also explains why in hellochinese, when I'm doing a speaking practice, I tend to do worse when I try harder to pronounce the tones correctly verses just speaking as I hear it. Thanks!
Wow this is actually crazy helpful to think about tones for me. Though the general approach Chinese words for me has been to think of the sounds about pinyin. Making my comparison between present and present changed my perspective on how to actually think about the tones and has helped a lot
I listen to mandarin for several hours everyday and didn’t realize I am picking up the tones, it’s really exciting and I am getting better at speaking it as well, I really love what I’m learning
This agrees with some studies I have seen contrasting acquiring versus learning a language. I've been struggling bit with tones and pinyin and appreciate the explanation. :-)
Wow that was probably the most useful video on this topic I came across! It happened so many times to me that I can pronounce a word after a teacher but any time when I think of tones and do my best to make it right I feel it sounds very unnatural. Thank you very much!!!
Cantonese with Brittany this is actually the approach I’ve taken so far to cantonese, I haven’t really looked into the tones that much, and I certainly couldn’t tell you what tone is which number. Instead I’m just learning a word and repeating the sound and tone as close as I possibly can. My goal isn’t fluency in Cantonese so I think I can do ok this way. Taiwan is pretty safe these days so far, we’ve delayed our plans to go back to the U.K. next month though. You’re in the states right Brittany? I hope everyone gets it under control soon 保重
I can pronounce all phonemes in English pretty well, but I get syllable stressing wrong all the time. FML I suspect I have some difficulty perceiving tones in general.
Sylvia Chermont hey Sylvia, have you taken a “tone deaf” test online? It might be worth seeing if that is your problem. If it is, then you know these issues are not your fault, can accept that it’s gonna be part of your language learning journey and move on. If you’re not tone deaf, then you know you can fix your issues with tones and syllable stress, and perhaps you just need to focus more on listening and repeating. Either way, I really hope you find some clarification. If you take the test, let me know why results you get, I’m curious.
I have been learning chinese around 2 years and now that I technically have a lot more of vocabulary trying to remember the tones for each word just killed me. I'll try this :)
It took me a while to think of that, but when I realised, I figured it had to be almost, if not the same feeling. Thank you for sharing. I hope some of your students get a lightbulb moment from the video too
@@JamesWongLife thanks Sir, I'm beginner with Chinese language and I find your video very logical and very helpful to deal with tones difficulties, and every learner shoud think this way.
Thank you!!! Tbh I've always found the tones thing to be so stupid. I can't instantly think of not just how to say 5 characters in a sentence, but also each of the tones? I pretty much forget the tones the next day after I memorize the sounds. And then how do you keep the 5 tones for 500, 1000, 5000 characters straight all the time?? It's impossible! But then you turn around and everywhere people say, tones are important! People won't understand you, or you'll say something completely different! It's all extremely discouraging. You're finally the first person who says, focus on the sound instead of trying to remember and focus on the tones.
Yeah you shouldn’t have to be thinking of the tones when speaking, it should be just a string of sounds. Hope your learning journey goes smoother now :)
The end of the video is absolutely correct. This is why I think Chinese is easier than Russian. You learn the word, repeat it, master prononciation and you’re done. In Russian, the grammar is such that word endings constantly change. Unlike in Chinese, the amount of grammatical decisions you need to make is a real pain in terms of achieving fluency. Chinese is more streamlined, being that there’s no verb conjugations and cases.
Yeah it’s accurate though it may not reflect the correct tonal change in certain circumstances. I would recommend using Pleco if you want something more realistic and less robotic.
@@JamesWongLife ok. If somebody could make a tone chacker software would that help ? I mean a software or app which would tell you if you tones are right or not when you speak to it ? You would be able to practice the tones with it. Please tell me if something like that is already out there. I dont think tones are hard to learn. If you practice the tones 1 hour with someone who corrects your tones everytime you speak them wrong you could the learn the tones in 2 months. Once your brain start making those Neuro-Connections tones would become second nature to you. It would take around 2 months (Also since i am a new english learner it would be really helpful if you could point out grammar mistakes in my comment)
Honestly I’ve not met many who have Chinese as a second language who’s tones don’t suck! (Including me). I still make a lot of tone mistakes but I hope the advice I shared can help you improve even just a bit!
I think people should just be more patient. It's better to speak too slow but with correct tones than to have 'normal' speed while butchering the tones.
boyshanks thanks man, I’m so happy the analogy is helping so many people out. The app is called Pleco, one of the best apps for chinese. Thanks for watching
Basically you shouldnt think in english remark you use to memorize the word pronounciation. One should probably think of meaning(emotion or body language). Perhaps one should consider not using alphabet as a tool to label the chinese syllabus? (Eg. using Zhuyin to decouple english thinking )
I think I can share your learning tips with my friends just starting to learn Chinese. BTW, where in Taipei do you teach kids English? Do you also teach junior high school students and high school students, too? Just curious. If so, what do you think are the differences among teaching them?
thank you so much. So what you says is : in the case of memorizing mandarin tones, learning from listening is better, faster and more durable in our memory than learning from reading (the pinyin & tone). I have trouble memorizing tones, I think how can anyone memorize the tones of thousands mandarin words, our brain is just can't handle that much information. even if someone did it, don't they need 1 or 2 seconds delay to think about the tones every time before they speak out those words? but won't it sound robotic and chopping? So, I thought maybe you should not just remember the tones, only remember is not enough, you must stick the tones into your tongue and lips, becomes muscle memory. just like when we are typing, I feeling like my brain aren't thinking to remember where is the A, S, D, F buttons. my fingers just moves by their owns typing all these sentences. it that the same case? but, keyboard only has 26 alphabets, compare with words in mandarin. I wonder how long the time is needed to stick all those words to our brain, and than practice each words a hundred times to makes our muscle memory comes into play? maybe 10 years? please enlighten me again Sir. thank you
I'm stupid, I'll quickly ask a question to check my comprehension. So... instead of trying to memorize the tone, it's better to learn the character and the sound of it. Right? The character and knowing the music behind it is much better.
Thank you very much for your video. I'm very pessimistic. I've tried so many times with tones for years now ... I can speak several languages but Chinese has always looked like a huge mountain to me, I'm there trying to climb it and each time I roll back to where I was ... What was the app you were using in this video?
First of all I wanna say thanks for making educational content thats so cool of people. However the syllable stress example is a really bad analogy bc what ur telling me is (and i know this is not true or what you meant) that tones are meaningless and if somebody heard you using the wrong tones they might just tune that out and assume you're from somewhere that puts different stresses in different places and that theres no difference in meaning. I know thats not what you meant of course. But as an american person youre also essentially telling me "You know how native asian speakers often dont stress their syllables at all but you can still understand? You'll sound like that to chinese folk if you ignore tones. So unless you planned on getting so good at chinese that you have no accent then tones dont matter much because it'll just sound like you have an accent, which was always going to be the case for you" which again is not what you were trying to convey.
Simple summary: tones and pinyin are DESCRIPTIVE of the language, not PRESCRIPTIVE. They are not a synthesis formula process, they just describe the sounds from a different perspective, they are not part of the acquisition process of a child learning their language from their parents' lap.
This is a very misleading video. He is right in that the key to memorizing words in Mandarin is to memorize sounds but pinyin is precisely the key to memorize sounds, bypassing pinyin and suggesting pinyin is only useful for pronunciation is not right. The fact is that even in China, kindergardeners and primary school kids are taught to speak proper Mandarin with pinyin and pinyin tones. They eventually forget the pinyin when they become older but its extremely useful for when first learning because human visual memory is VASTLY superior to auditory memory so we need visual queues to memorize sounds. If you try to skip pinyin and directly associate sounds to characters you will learn Mandarin at 1mph. And again, you dont need to because your brain will eventually skip that process he describes at 0:43 for you. Just because its hard to memorize and associate everything now doesnt mean it will be forever.
Really like that you use syllable stress to explain! Awesome video!! 繼續加油💪
Grace Mandarin Chinese thanks grace! Is syllable stress something that you learned at school for English? I didn’t know anything about it, or even heard of it until I learned to teach English haha
Oh my god this makes so much sense. And I never thought of that native speakers don't see the tones. When you explained how they tend to have to say the word before telling what tones, I realised that's just exactly what my chinese teacher does. No wonder he's gotten wrong or insecure about the pinyin spelling. Bc they don't see it that way.
Great video!
FluffTheUnicorn native speakers having to speak the word out loud before knowing the tones is something I picked up on fairly early into learning Chinese and me be the curious guy I am, wanted to know why they don’t instinctively know what tones each word is. Eventually I figured out the way that we are currently taught and the way we should think about chinese are different, which is a problem. It’s such a lightbulb moment when it makes sense afterwards isn’t it haha. Glad it gave you some clarification
@@JamesWongLife you're exactly right, it is so much part of them, that they don't think about it, and the same is true in any language by the way... I am French, and the French language uses contractions a lot as in "ch't'ouvre" for "je t'ouvre" which means "I'll open the door for you" (it could be misconstrued as meaning "I open you"... but I digress), or as in "ch't'le donne" which is short for "je te le donne" (although in the written form, it doesn't look shorter, it is much shorter when spoken), just to say that people don't really think about it and realize they can actually form those sounds...
@@armoricain I kinda want to hear them spoken now
Literal deaf man teaching me how to pronounce better. Thank you.
Your accent in English is remarkably good, there's nothing to correct, I would say otherwise, as I am used to dealing with non-native speakers All The Time. I'm seriously impressed both with your English accent and your Chinese. You've my full respect.
I thought his navite language was english
Pretty much sums up my experience with Mandarin. I really like the example of the English word present. I never thought of it that way before and other words too!
Nihao's It Going? I think I come up with these examples, cause things annoy me in chinese, like “why is it this way” but then I’ll find things in English that are almost identical, which makes me realise if I can accept and understand it in English, I can do the same with chinese too.
It's helpful for Chinese beginners. I would love to share with my students😊
Dope Chinese with Gloria hey Gloria, this could be really helpful for your students struggling with tones. Can I ask, did you guys learn much about syllable stress when learning English? Because us English speakers learn absolutely nothing about it at school. Thanks for always watching my vids 🙏
@@JamesWongLife Yes, lots of Chinese beginners are frustrated by tones at the beginning and lose their passion in Chinese. I keep reminding my students that they don't need to pay too much attention to tones and after they learn enough words, it will be corrected. Mostly, we could understand them even in a wrong tone.
Focus on input (listening) first.
My major is teaching English as a second language so that our teachers have mentioned syllable stress in college. But for others, teachers only mention it a little bit.
You are welcome. I hope I could get as many views as you have😛
@@DopeCantonese It's a really hard concept for foreigners to grasp, it takes time and lots of chinese input to get the tones. Actually learning any new language is hard, as you found out with Thai too haha.
Isn't it interesting how tones are taught right at the beginning of learning chinese, yet syllable stress seems to be only touched upon in english classes.
I'm still experimenting with different kinds of videos, trying to make stuff that not only I enjoy making, but also people want to watch. As far as I can tell, no one has made a video like this, which might be a good thing cause there's a niche, or a bad thing cause the reason no one made one is because no one wants to watch one like this haha
@@JamesWongLife Yes. But the books that I used in our school don't teach pinyin at the beginning until 2 years learning.
For Chinese, I think it's important to learn pinyin though. It will be helpful and faster for further study.
this speaks to the theory that musically inclined language learners do well in tonal languages. speaking of music, your background music in these vids is so soothing.
Corey Wright I’ve also heard that people who’s language is tonal are more likely to be able to do perfect pitch too ie listen to a note and know what note it is. Bro I use the same song in every video, I’m lazy like that haha
@@JamesWongLife i know, but its a good tune
I've recently started to suspect what you say in the video but your explanation solidifies it for me. I was always surprised how much thought a Chinese person put in when I aksed the simple question "What tones are in that word". It made me realise they were not thinking in terms of tones whereas the tones (1 to 4) are front and centre in my mind.
i really liked the English syllable stress explanation! I've seen u've got some other videos on Chinese so I'll definitely check those out. keep posting on Reddit because that's how I found your channel
Tinki I’m so happy other people understood the syllable stress explanation haha, i don’t think I’ve ever seen the comparison between the two before, so I thought I’d make a video. Thanks for taking the time to comment Tinki, hope you enjoy my other videos as much as this one!
A native Sinophone will be as confused by the wrong tones as an Anglophone would be confused by the wrong vowels. Using the wrong stress in English is more akin to ignoring pitch-accent in Japanese.
I think there’s a lot of cross comparisons we can make between various languages. Unfortunately I am not a linguist by any means, also I can only speak English and intermediate Chinese. The video basically encompasses my logic of when I was trying to get my head around tones, in the hope it can clear things up for other people learning chinese too.
I'm genuinely speechless! It's incredible that I have learnt one of the most eye-opening perspectives on tones from a deaf person! (I say that with love).
Your take is one of the most rare I've seen since trying to understand tones. Isn't it incredible how unique challenges can open up new understanding? You may have just saved my Mandarin studies because I struggle so much with tones and trying to remember them and figure out how to say them.
But you have just made me realise, using the stress syllable example, that I can just focus on the sound of each character, just like how we naturally do in English. It also made me realise that I copy speech patterns, as a Londoner, when copying American accents. We never worry about the intricacies of the tones they use, we just imitate. So why can't I do that with Mandarin?! So eye-opening.
Thank you!
This is so cool James. Thanks for letting us know a different way to answer "it's the way it is" and different aspects. Knowing how a different language speakers think about Mandarin and how they make sensible in their head are awesome. Thanks again.
Being able to relate to a concept using existing knowledge always works really well for me, of course every student is different! Thank you guys!
謝謝， 老師。 I'm using English and German to approach Mandarin. I did the same thing you're advising us with IPA and being able to produce those sounds, particularly vowels. With my native language (Spanish) is impossible, specially phonetics. French and Portuguese are also useful in terms of sound producing (nasal specially). We really appreciate your help.ps. happy 520!
Man, you are inspiring! If you can accomplish what you have, with your own challenges - hearing loss , then I truly have no excuse!! There is always a way if you have the will. Keep motivating us James! I study Vietnamese too - the importance of tones can't be underestimated, simply to be understood.
Jim Gavioli hey Jim, thanks for the comments! I hope this helps a little in your journey of overcoming tones and learning Vietnamese, I’m so happy it can help learners of not just chinese but other languages too! Appreciate the positivity :)
你很棒，加油，坚持就是胜利✌🏻我来自上海，I just started a channel to share Chinese culture, Chinese language and life in China. 相互学习，多多交流，谢谢。
Bro you're so good
Watching 11/2022, STILL brilliant. Thanks J.
Great advice, James. I learned Chinese the analytical way back in the 1980's, partly because in those pre-internet days everything was text based. Last year, I started learning Thai (also a tonal language) and I learned it purely by ear, using TH-cam, Facebook and Audible. It has enabled me to learn the tones so much quicker and more intuitively than I did with Chinese.
I did the same thing with Cantonese last year, didn’t learn a single tone and just did it all by ear. Is my Cantonese perfect? No but I learned faster than I did mandarin!
At first I thought that the comparison with the syllable-stress would be irrelevant but it in the end it makes so much sense. Thank you for this, your video was really helpful!
Thank you for the useful information! Thank you.
Kannagi thank you for taking the time to watch and comment Kannagi, appreciate it too :D
你很棒，加油，坚持就是胜利✌🏻我来自上海，I just started a channel to share Chinese culture, Chinese language and life in China. 相互学习，多多交流，谢谢。
This is wonderful advice! Also explains why in hellochinese, when I'm doing a speaking practice, I tend to do worse when I try harder to pronounce the tones correctly verses just speaking as I hear it. Thanks!
Good tips.
A. William Arnold IV Thanks Mr Arnold, happy to see you watching another one of my videos! :)
Wow this is actually crazy helpful to think about tones for me. Though the general approach Chinese words for me has been to think of the sounds about pinyin. Making my comparison between present and present changed my perspective on how to actually think about the tones and has helped a lot
You're more than welcome, I'm so glad this change of perspective can help others too!
So helpful, I discovered this Truth many years later
Very nice video!! The examples were very helpful.
I listen to mandarin for several hours everyday and didn’t realize I am picking up the tones, it’s really exciting and I am getting better at speaking it as well, I really love what I’m learning
This was really encouraging
Great video, the expanation with syllable stress in English is very helplful!
I'm so happy people get the comparison too! Glad it helped you bro
This agrees with some studies I have seen contrasting acquiring versus learning a language. I've been struggling bit with tones and pinyin and appreciate the explanation. :-)
You make easier for us to understand 😊 thanks
Wow that was probably the most useful video on this topic I came across! It happened so many times to me that I can pronounce a word after a teacher but any time when I think of tones and do my best to make it right I feel it sounds very unnatural. Thank you very much!!!
Fantastic material
so eloquently said!
Thanks for the informative video!
Thank you also Ellifton, glad you found it useful :)
Best advice I have ever heard on mastering tones. Sooo helpful! Love your channel. Keep up the good work.
This is excellent advice, James! Definitely applicable to Cantonese learners as well. Hope you're all safe and healthy in Taiwan!
Cantonese with Brittany this is actually the approach I’ve taken so far to cantonese, I haven’t really looked into the tones that much, and I certainly couldn’t tell you what tone is which number. Instead I’m just learning a word and repeating the sound and tone as close as I possibly can. My goal isn’t fluency in Cantonese so I think I can do ok this way. Taiwan is pretty safe these days so far, we’ve delayed our plans to go back to the U.K. next month though. You’re in the states right Brittany? I hope everyone gets it under control soon 保重
Excellent video! Well-done. I love smart approaches like this. Thank you!
Thank you so much! I felt like it’s something I had to share
Excellent example of English syllable stress in the word "present" changing the meaning of the word.
Excellent explanation, James!👍👍👍
You have made my life easier thank you 😊
Thanks for the explanation .. Really helpful.
You're more than welcome Adaso, good luck with your Chinese learning journey
@@JamesWongLife ☺
I can pronounce all phonemes in English pretty well, but I get syllable stressing wrong all the time. FML
I suspect I have some difficulty perceiving tones in general.
Sylvia Chermont hey Sylvia, have you taken a “tone deaf” test online? It might be worth seeing if that is your problem. If it is, then you know these issues are not your fault, can accept that it’s gonna be part of your language learning journey and move on. If you’re not tone deaf, then you know you can fix your issues with tones and syllable stress, and perhaps you just need to focus more on listening and repeating. Either way, I really hope you find some clarification. If you take the test, let me know why results you get, I’m curious.
This was so helpful thank you so much 💖💖💖💖
Thank you Sir
Very helpful video! Thanks :)
Great video, thanks James. I'm currently studying HSK2 and looking for a way to master the tones, some great tips here
what a lovely, informative video and channel!! :)
Raindrops Roses Thank you RR! 🌹
Love your tips! Thanks a lot!
Eye- opening
I have been learning chinese around 2 years and now that I technically have a lot more of vocabulary trying to remember the tones for each word just killed me. I'll try this :)
Having the same pain and frustration😎
Love the video brotha!
The present example is the single best proxy for what a Chinese speaker will hear with bad tones.
That is exactly what it sounds and feels like. Haha
I will also be sharing with my students! 👍
It took me a while to think of that, but when I realised, I figured it had to be almost, if not the same feeling. Thank you for sharing. I hope some of your students get a lightbulb moment from the video too
Very helpful advices, thanks a lot
You’re very welcome! Good luck with your language learning journey :)
@@JamesWongLife thanks Sir, I'm beginner with Chinese language and I find your video very logical and very helpful to deal with tones difficulties, and every learner shoud think this way.
That was a great video, keep up the good work.
Wow
Nice advice THX U
我的猫喜欢你！
Very helpful :3
Nazgûl Echonoar Tedeumnoctis Voronwe II you’re welcome :)
Thank you!!! Tbh I've always found the tones thing to be so stupid. I can't instantly think of not just how to say 5 characters in a sentence, but also each of the tones? I pretty much forget the tones the next day after I memorize the sounds. And then how do you keep the 5 tones for 500, 1000, 5000 characters straight all the time?? It's impossible! But then you turn around and everywhere people say, tones are important! People won't understand you, or you'll say something completely different! It's all extremely discouraging. You're finally the first person who says, focus on the sound instead of trying to remember and focus on the tones.
Yeah you shouldn’t have to be thinking of the tones when speaking, it should be just a string of sounds. Hope your learning journey goes smoother now :)
This is so very good! Bloomin' great 👏👏👏👏👍 I just finished my today's conversation exchange session and I pity my poor Mandarin partner.😂😂
The end of the video is absolutely correct.
This is why I think Chinese is easier than Russian. You learn the word, repeat it, master prononciation and you’re done.
In Russian, the grammar is such that word endings constantly change. Unlike in Chinese, the amount of grammatical decisions you need to make is a real pain in terms of achieving fluency. Chinese is more streamlined, being that there’s no verb conjugations and cases.
Nice 師大 textbook bro, great school, hope you're doing well in Taipei
Sam Wade yeah man haha, did you study there too?
@@JamesWongLife yeah left just before the pandemic in feburary
@@JamesWongLife great video btw man!
Is google translator's text to audio reliable to learn tone ? It seems to me that it does not pronounce tones correctly
Yeah it’s accurate though it may not reflect the correct tonal change in certain circumstances. I would recommend using Pleco if you want something more realistic and less robotic.
@@JamesWongLife ok.
If somebody could make a tone chacker software would that help ?
I mean a software or app which would tell you if you tones are right or not when you speak to it ?
You would be able to practice the tones with it. Please tell me if something like that is already out there.
I dont think tones are hard to learn. If you practice the tones 1 hour with someone who corrects your tones everytime you speak them wrong you could the learn the tones in 2 months.
Once your brain start making those Neuro-Connections tones would become second nature to you. It would take around 2 months
(Also since i am a new english learner it would be really helpful if you could point out grammar mistakes in my comment)
Abhinav Chauhan honestly I’m not aware of software like this, it could be super useful! But maybe “hello chinese” app has this
@@JamesWongLife thank you for youe time
Everyone help me out with that TH-cam algorithm, hit that like button for me and let me know what you think!
谢谢✨☺
great content (i loved the title btw, my chinese tones really do suck) hahah
Honestly I’ve not met many who have Chinese as a second language who’s tones don’t suck! (Including me). I still make a lot of tone mistakes but I hope the advice I shared can help you improve even just a bit!
@@JamesWongLife yes, it definitely helped!
I think people should just be more patient.
It's better to speak too slow but with correct tones than to have 'normal' speed while butchering the tones.
That's how I thought Chinese should be learnt!! I thought I was the only one who thought this, but I guess not!
wait, what was that app???
Very good!! What app were you using for pronunciation? Thanks!
The analogy for syllable stress was on point. 👍
boyshanks thanks man, I’m so happy the analogy is helping so many people out. The app is called Pleco, one of the best apps for chinese. Thanks for watching
I've come to realize that learning zhuyin helps you pronounce Chinese better. I was getting many things wrong because of pinyin.
Javi Fontalva I’ve heard this also, I’ve learned a little bit of zhuyin but I’m just so used to pinyin now haha
i think tones helps to remember
Basically you shouldnt think in english remark you use to memorize the word pronounciation. One should probably think of meaning(emotion or body language). Perhaps one should consider not using alphabet as a tool to label the chinese syllabus? (Eg. using Zhuyin to decouple english thinking )
What is the app you are using on your phone in the video at 5:51?
非常不错的资源
I think I can share your learning tips with my friends just starting to learn Chinese. BTW, where in Taipei do you teach kids English? Do you also teach junior high school students and high school students, too? Just curious. If so, what do you think are the differences among teaching them?
I notice the your word look up on your phone showed the meaning and pinyin on the word. Would that be an app or website?
thank you so much. So what you says is : in the case of memorizing mandarin tones, learning from listening is better, faster and more durable in our memory than learning from reading (the pinyin & tone).
I have trouble memorizing tones, I think how can anyone memorize the tones of thousands mandarin words, our brain is just can't handle that much information.
even if someone did it, don't they need 1 or 2 seconds delay to think about the tones every time before they speak out those words? but won't it sound robotic and chopping?
So, I thought maybe you should not just remember the tones, only remember is not enough, you must stick the tones into your tongue and lips, becomes muscle memory. just like when we are typing, I feeling like my brain aren't thinking to remember where is the A, S, D, F buttons. my fingers just moves by their owns typing all these sentences. it that the same case?
but, keyboard only has 26 alphabets, compare with words in mandarin. I wonder how long the time is needed to stick all those words to our brain, and than practice each words a hundred times to makes our muscle memory comes into play?
maybe 10 years?
please enlighten me again Sir. thank you
I'm stupid, I'll quickly ask a question to check my comprehension. So... instead of trying to memorize the tone, it's better to learn the character and the sound of it. Right? The character and knowing the music behind it is much better.
Thank you very much for your video. I'm very pessimistic. I've tried so many times with tones for years now ... I can speak several languages but Chinese has always looked like a huge mountain to me, I'm there trying to climb it and each time I roll back to where I was ... What was the app you were using in this video?
KnowLEDGE that's funny
First of all I wanna say thanks for making educational content thats so cool of people. However the syllable stress example is a really bad analogy bc what ur telling me is (and i know this is not true or what you meant) that tones are meaningless and if somebody heard you using the wrong tones they might just tune that out and assume you're from somewhere that puts different stresses in different places and that theres no difference in meaning. I know thats not what you meant of course. But as an american person youre also essentially telling me "You know how native asian speakers often dont stress their syllables at all but you can still understand? You'll sound like that to chinese folk if you ignore tones. So unless you planned on getting so good at chinese that you have no accent then tones dont matter much because it'll just sound like you have an accent, which was always going to be the case for you" which again is not what you were trying to convey.
What’s that app you used for the washing machine pronunciation? Seems very helpful!
Vtheorem it’s called Pleco, probably the best app for learning Chinese
@@JamesWongLife thank you very much!
Which app was that?
Which phone app do you prefer using Mr. Wong? (5:51)
Pleco. It’s literally the god app for Chinese
So basically my mandarin sounds like William shatner
Now i'll remember that washing machine forever 😂
Simple summary: tones and pinyin are DESCRIPTIVE of the language, not PRESCRIPTIVE. They are not a synthesis formula process, they just describe the sounds from a different perspective, they are not part of the acquisition process of a child learning their language from their parents' lap.
I think the best and easiest way to learn tones is to focus in one tone at a time until you master the sound.
i feel so bad ignoring tones now lol
You should haha
老外学中文这么难啊 瞬间觉得英文简单了
你会不会说在手语? (中国手语)
Water 什麼手語我都不會。你是中國人嗎？
@@JamesWongLife 不是。但是我有興趣在地球的手语。(对不起如果我的中文不好)
Dang my first time being here
This is a very misleading video. He is right in that the key to memorizing words in Mandarin is to memorize sounds but pinyin is precisely the key to memorize sounds, bypassing pinyin and suggesting pinyin is only useful for pronunciation is not right. The fact is that even in China, kindergardeners and primary school kids are taught to speak proper Mandarin with pinyin and pinyin tones. They eventually forget the pinyin when they become older but its extremely useful for when first learning because human visual memory is VASTLY superior to auditory memory so we need visual queues to memorize sounds. If you try to skip pinyin and directly associate sounds to characters you will learn Mandarin at 1mph. And again, you dont need to because your brain will eventually skip that process he describes at 0:43 for you. Just because its hard to memorize and associate everything now doesnt mean it will be forever.
???? how come you are deaf? Jesus
I'm bewildered to know you are deaf, I would never be able to tell
You're amazing, dude
Keep it up!
Oh man, even a deaf guy is better at hearing and saying tones than I am. I stand no chance at learning Mandarin then. :(
Really? he is DEAF??? then How he learned Zhongwen???
尼基塔
That is my name
我是尼基塔
youre deaf but you can speak like this???
nice
Thank you! I have my parents to thank for that
谢谢你！