Chinese Tone Challenge! Can You Distinguish the Different Tones?
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 7 มิ.ย. 2024
- It’s time to test your Chinese listening skills! Chinese tones play an important role in distinguishing the meanings of Chinese words, so being able to differentiate them is essential to your Chinese comprehension and pronunciation!
⚡️ Time code:
00:00 Introduction
00:43 Chinese tone review
01:57 Chinese tone challenge
08:31 Importance of differentiating Chinese tones
08:59 Thank you for watching to the end!
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Differentiating 2nd and 3rd tone is definitely the hardest for me! I think it's specifically the 2nd tone - I almost never guess that something is a 2 when its a 3, but I constantly think 2 is a 3 😔
Something that helped me is paying attention to how high the tone rises. A 2nd tone will go high, but a 3rd tone won't.
Yesss, that's my exact problem. I keep mistaking the 2nd for a 3rd when it's at the beginning of a word, but I distinguish them in isolation or when at the end
yep, same here: 60% of my mistakes were misidentifying the 2nd tone as the 3rd, and 0% the other way around.
I do the opposite, I confuse 4 and 3 tones
You can compare it because 3rd tone is usually longer
For people who are having trouble: I don't know how many people are taught this, but you could try doing exercises where you say all the tones for a sound, like ma1 ma2 ma3 ma4. If you try this with words/tones that you're unsure of, you can usually figure it out by hearing which one matches the word/tone you're trying to identify.
Of course, such exercise will not help, just like practicing the yoyo Chinese chart for hours. The only way to master tones is by listening to Chinese, podcasts, short stories, and watching movies. This is a very long process that may take even years. In the presented recording, the teacher reads slowly for the first time and then very slowly. How does this compare to a normal conversation where Chinese people speak at a natural speed and also quickly, where they speak full sentences and not single words in slow motion? The worst thing a person starting out can do is pay too much attention to the tones and try to master them as a separate branch, it doesn't work like that. Pronunciation, of course, is very important, as are tones, I'm not saying they can be ignored. You have to keep them at the back of your mind, but the most important thing is learning the characters, reading and listening, and being exposed to the Chinese language. Otherwise, frustration will increase and bad thoughts will arise: 'maybe I don't have the right hearing', 'maybe I'll never master the tones', 'maybe the Chinese language is too difficult for me'? Therefore, I highly recommend not to be too hard on yourself, and avoid testing your knowledge of tones, as it may have a negative effect. Trust the learning process and systematicity, and the results will come. I am writing this as a person who has been learning Chinese almost every day for over 2 years. I see a huge improvement in my pronunciation and tones, but I also remember my first steps and big problems in distinguishing tones. Lots of people have learned Chinese, and you can too. 加油！
The most important thing that I've noticed in the comments is that there are a lot of people, including me, who sometimes misrecognize the third tone as the second. I think that subject is worth a video.
Thanks for making this video ❤️
On March 10th I got 9/20 a month later I got 16/20!!! I think it’s a good signal. I’m really loving the process of learning this language!!
Ok so ots my second day of learning (I have been learning tones for a few months though) and I got 15/20! I hope to are still learning chinese and having fun doing so! Good luck with learning!
Nice! You probably can get 20/20 now!!
I nailed nearly all of the ones without the neutral tone. The neutral tone is definitely the hardest for me
To me it sounds like the low tone, but difference is that the neutral tone is shorter
@lunarSkys As a native English speaker, I think neutral tone acts a bit like the "'ve" in "would've" or "should've". It's quick, loose, and doesn't need a pitch. Take 哥哥 for instance, which sounds like gē guh, just a minimal puff of air. All neutral tones sound sort of like an echo of the immediately previous tone.
To me it's kinda easy to hear the neutral tone but I sometimes mistake the second tone for the third
The good thing is that most of the neutral characters are either final particles, repetitions or, 着/子
OUCH! 3/20 or 20/40. I'll definitely be spending more time on this video and any others like it that I can find. I wonder if there is an Anki deck for this kind of practice. THANK YOU, Grace! I needed to know how much practice I needed. This showed me.
Such an awesome video for improving tone pronunciation and comprehension!!
thank you so much for the test ! its very interesting, easy to follow and helpful ! for me is that i easily get 1st and 3rd tones but mess up 2nd and 4th tones often xD i think the 4th tone is the most hardest for me cause i make mistakes with it almsot everytime, but that makes me want to practice with it more ! thank you so much again !
This was so useful, thank you so much ! I did a score of 14/20 : I still need to work on the 5th tone, the 2nd and the 3rd.
16/20! thank you for making great learning videos :)
Thanks for this Video! Would be great to have more of these!! 😊
20/20! Thank you for the fun challenge:)
Great video - thanks Grace!
I really love these challenges to test myself. I think there are too few out there, so thank you very much :)
I had two wrong and I already expected it but both were the third tone. I still struggle with this one 😔
But again thank you very much. Maybe you could make it harder and form sentences where we need to listen to the tone in order to get the correct translation or meaning? 🤔
So it’s not just listening but implementing at the same time. Like we’d have to do in real life situations?
I don’t know if that would be too hard to do or not enough people would be interested in that but I think I’d be a good challenge 😅
Thanks again and have a nice day 😊
I am really struggling with tones but this video is so helpful for me. Thanks
I got 11 good answers out of 20, it was hard tbh! I sometimes struggle a lot differentiating the 1st and 4th tones, and the 2nd and 3rd tones. Thanks for the video!! It helps a lot
thank you - that was fun!
the main thing that sometimes gives me trouble is distinguishing between 2nd tone and 3rd tone.
Which tone do you find the hardest to distinguish?
-
The complete answers for today’s challenge (including Pinyin and Zhuyin):
gracemandarinchinese.com/chinese-tone-challenge/
The second tone stays tricky for me 🥺
@@LiQiuNL Yeah the second tone is a hard one! Many people mix up the second tone and the third tone because they both start with a low pitch
@@GraceMandarinChinese In the context of a sentence, I do struggle to hear the difference between 2 and 3.
I mean, I sometimes mistake the 2nd tone for the 3rd tone, but not the other way around.
Second drives me nuts, it’s both hard to catch and hard to say properly. Or maybe I’m saying third too much like second… idk cause I can’t make my voice go that deep for third without it getting swallowed and then it’s just a mumble
The second tone is the most difficult one for me as well
Thanks for this video! I'm so happy I got them all right
👍🏼
This was super fun, need to include this in my routine. I got 16/20, and it seems I'm very comfortable detecting 2 followed by 4, but have a bit of trouble when distinguishing between neutral tone and third (in non-isolated contexts).
你教的很详细，形式也很好，加油！
17/20, and in all three words I mistook the 2nd tone for the 3rd. Good to know what I need to work on! Thank you! x
19/20, I'm super proud! Like others, the 2nd and 3rd tones are definitely the hardest for me.
this is fascinating thankyou 🙂
i find it hard! though..
and i think the way she speaks english is interesting in itself..
with good explaining..
thankyou for sharing the videos.
I’ve been studying Chinese on and off for years and got 20/20 so I feel pretty proud of myself. Similar to others the 2nd and 3rd tone were the ones to almost catch me up.
Thank you for this challenge, Grace! (: I only recently started learning Mandarin Chinese and your videos have been so helpful!
I got 15/20 and had the most trouble distinguishing the first from the fourth tone. I think it’s because they‘re both rather high-pitched but I will make sure to pay more attention to the length, since the first tone is longer, right?
Good luck with your studies, everyone! ☺️
I like this kind of test. I did twice. first time I got 15/20. second time I got 17/20. I found three problems. 1. I had to listen twice each word to recognize tones correctly. 2. I identified second tone as the third tone. 3. first tone + third tone combination, I identified third tone as fourth tone.
I did very bad, but when listening to Chinese if they say some of the few words or phrases im quite familiar with I can understand it but for sure can't tell the tones even in those decreasingly rare moments.
I got 20/20 !! Thank you for making such a good video🫶
i’ve been studying for a month and a half on just tones and got 16/20 correct!!
特别喜欢今天的挑战！
16/20 happy to see I didn't forget everything since I don't have many chances to practice mandarin... thanks for this challenge!
I got all of them right except for number 9, in which I mistook the 3rd for the 2nd tone. I think it helped my score that you repeated slowly afterwards lol
20/20. but when the cases of 3 and 4, 2 and 4 were rapidly pronounced, it was the hardest to recognize for foreigner. I reckon in that cases, it is recommend to get familiar with context of dialogue.
3 in front of 4 is pronounced as 2
No doubts the hardest for me is the 3rd tone. I will think is the 2nd!
Anyway, lovely video!!
I LOVE THE QUIZ
same here I'm just learning and 3rd and 2nd are difficult to set apart, but what helps is to identify the 3rd tone it's that sounds like a growl
I got 3 wrong🙁or 3 half-wrong if it can count like that. They were #4, #9 and #19, which were all either 1,0 or 1,3. I think the 2,0 pair is easier to distinguish, but the neutral tones in the 1,0 and 1,3 pairs sound like a similar low pitch to me. I wasn’t sure which ones were short enough lol
This was fun though. Since all my mistakes were similar tone pairs, it definitely showed me what I need to pay more attention to. Thanks always!
I got 3/20 for getting both characters right and 15/40 for singles characters. I find this test fascinating for learning the tones. Thanks for making it!
Ni hao Ni hao ma Grace! I’ve stared watching your videos about a week now and I have to say that your videos are good for me to learn Chinese. The way you explain it it’s very easy, simple and straight to the point. Best at teaching Chinese. And your English is good. Keep it up ✌🏽
To me the hardest is between 1 and 4, but only because you pronounced very clearly the depth of the 3rd tone!
谢谢老师！你的视频对我很有帮助了
12 correct, 6 half right, 2 completely wrong.
Numbers 11 - 20 were nearly all correct, except for 2 half correct. So my ear got a bit better tuned as it went along.
This was FUN and USEFUL! I hope you will do it again soon.
Taiwan Forever!! VIRGO POWER!
Thanks always!
I’m glad you liked it!! 🥳
@@GraceMandarinChinese 😸👍
17/20 ☺️ quite happy with myself though there's still room for improvement!
Haven't studied Mandarin in years but I'm getting back in the game for real this time. Wanted to take a quick tone test to see if my ear was still even relatively tuned into the language. The first ten I got 5/20 of the tones, but the second ten I got 14/20. Overall horrible, but once I got going it got a lot better. Great video!
I got 16/20 and I'm just about to start basic mandarin - it was hard, I definitely would pause the video to think and I heavily relied on your slow repetition to get it, but I'm feeling optimistic!
Huhu I only got 12 points. Bu still I am very happy. this is very helpful ❤ i really find Chinese tones difficult. hope you can make more vids like this. keep safe always ❤
25/40 I didn't miss a single first tone. Missed one neutral tone. My weakest spots are 4th & 3rd tones in that order. I thought some 4th tones were 1st tones. The 3rd tones mistakes were fairly evenly split in confusion between 2nd & 4th tones. And then I thought some 2nd tones were 3rd tones. Thanks for the video. It definitely shows me where I need to focus my work
I always get confused between second and third tone. But when you were speaking in fast manner I don't have problem recognising them.
真棒👍 谢谢分享这个练习😁
这个方式真的很棒啊
多谢
the first time i did it, my marks were 12/20. The second time i did it, i improved them to 15/20. Solwly i'll get better. I hope be able to master chinese tones 'cause grammar and vocabulary is too easy, however, i'm scared when it comes to be able to understand when tones are used in sentences and stuff. Anyway, your lessons are helping me too much so, thanks too much and i hope u do more videos like this.
Score 18/20. I get confused between 2nd and 3rd tone, sometimes I can't even hear the low pitch from the 3rd tone.
Yesssss that's the only mistake I kept making. I know the difference, but when the second tone is on the first character in a word, in my ears it sounds like the third sometimes.
14 out of 20. Thank you
很有用 ! 谢谢老师 !
My only mistake was the third tone in the 7th word
Thanks for letting me know!
Seeing that I can guess these 100% of the time after a few months of mandarin is a huge confidence boost for me
Grace超美.超漂亮.520快樂😍❤️
15/20 (or 35/40 if you want to count by character). I tend to just forget about the neutral tone and call it a fourth tone. Other than that, I got hit by a couple of second tones that I thought were third tones.
I like that you did it as pairs though instead of just individual characters. I think that's much more practical
This is a great test, thanks! I only got about half right. I have a hard time differentiating between low tone and rising, I think.
do you want to have a language exchange?I can teach you Chinese if you like🥰
I got 6 of them wrong and 4 of them were a 2nd tone that I thought was a 3rd. But after listening to it like this I realized that the 3rd tone is a lot lower, while the 2nd tone goes higher at the end. So I'll pay more attention to it in the future!
I got #3, 4, 8, 9, 15, & 19 half wrong.
I was taught that 3rd tone falls then rises but I definitely didn't hear that here. It sounds much more like mid-falling and I picked that up quick after #3. If only I had continued to consistently apply that thought, I would have got #8 & #15 right.
#4 sounded like 3rd tone because of what I had just learned, but it was no tone. Then guess I overcorrected for that, because the other 2 mistakes were in the opposite direction.
gets easier over time, can make the pitch changes with your tongue and jaw movements not doing things with breath and singsong if you are new to doing tones from english
For me, i found that i got confused with the 4th and neutral tones. About a month ago, i found that when i was watching mandarin listening exercises, i would get confused between 2nd and 3rd. Interesting to see how it changed over time.
9/20 on the first go. Wanted to see if I could perform better on second go, 15/20.
Due to rarity, the neutral tone 0 was hard for me to distinguish. And on my first go I confused it with 3 or 4. I guess it is shorter?
The rising (2) and falling (4) tones were the hardest for me to distinguish, while the low (3) and high (1) were the easiest. I'd seen your other video where you gave the tip to look for a broken-down, deep-throat kind of sound for 3, which helped a lot. Even on my second go I had to listen to the rising/falling tones multiple times and sometimes it was still unclear to me. My most common mistake is to confuse 2 with 4 and vice versa.
I have difficulty with hearing the tones. I scored 6/20 on the test. I find the 2nd tone hardest.
Thanks
I got 20, and because you pronounce them twice and slowly,
in my ear 1st tone and 4th tone are similar and a little tricky to distinguish
I got 14/20 correct! It was mostly the 3rd tones that got me.
I got four , i ll keep practising
I got 20/20💪 the ones that are hardest for me to distinguish are the third tone and the neutral tone, but you can usually tell the neutral tone because it's a common character, like 子.
Hi Grace, it is said that when speaking Mandarin one should use the front of the throat, so can you do a video on how foreigners can do it? It's really hard to find some information about it..
The videos is useful as always, thank you!
I’m not exactly sure what they mean by using the front of the throat, but I’ll look into it:) Thanks for the suggestion!
@@GraceMandarinChinese Thank you so much!
It is a concept that when foreigners speak they sound really deep or heavy, while people from China speak in a lighter way. It seems it has some kind of connection to using the throat.
2 and 4 are the hardest for me to distinguish! 16/20
One quick question. If someone pronounces 不是 as bu4 shi4 instead of bu2 shi4 due to tone change, would a native speaker like yourself understand? Or, confusing.
I am proficient in american english, Cantonese, and shanghainese. Mapping 九聲六調 to 四聲 has been somewhat tricky.
Many thanks and keep up the excellent work. Enjoy your Midwest stay!!
Got 13 right which is definitely a lot more than I anticipated, but also, could never distinguish them in conversation, just when it's spoken really clearly...
I have most problems with the 3rd tone, it always sounds like either the 2nd or 4th somehow to me
17/40 I often confused the 2nd tone with the 4nd tone 🤦🏼♀️. Love this video, I need more like this
do you want to have a language exchange?I can teach you Chinese if you like🥰
@@ohopin omg yes
@@perlamoreno7400 is English your native language?
@@ohopin no, spanish
For me I find the fourth and neutral tone quite hard to distinguish but I scored 31 on this test which I think is quite good especially since I’m a beginner 👍:D
I only got 5 of 20, if half credit doesn’t exist in this test, if half credit is a thing, then I got 8 of 20, which isn’t really that much better. Thanks for showing I need practice on the tones!
12/20 (or 30/40) Which is a huge improvement on when I tried this a year ago. Maybe I'll revisit in another year!
My results are kinda chaotic 😅
But I learn Chinese only for a month now, so I guess it's not that bad?
1. 2 ,4 (I heard 2, 1)
2. 1,1 (I heard 1,1)
3. 3,4 (I heard 3,4)
4. 1,0 (I heard 1,3)
5. 2,4 (I heard 2,4)
6. 2,4 (I heard 3,4)
7. 3,2 (I heard 3,2)
8. 2,2 (I heard 1,1)
9. 1,3 (I heard 1,3)
10. 3,4 (I heard 3,2)
11. 2,2 (I heard 2,2)
12. 3,1 (I heard 3,1)
13. 1,2 (I heard 1,3)
14. 1,1 (I heard 2,1)
15. 4,2 (I heard 2,3)
16. 2,4 (I heard 3,4)
17. 2,4 (I heard 3,4)
18. 2,0 (I heard 2,0)
19. 1,3 (I heard 1,3)
20. 3,4 (I heard 3,4)
got 12/20, which I consider surprisingly good for starting to look into chinese yesterday 😂 All of the ones i failed have in commom that i did ge the first word right but not the second. And my problem here seems to be mixing up 3rd and 4th tone.
if I understood it correctly, the pronunciation of some tones change when followed by some other tones. Thus, if I have no idea of the character itself, I cannot possibly know whether what I hear is a special pronunciation of say a third tone character changing to a second tone, or a genuine second tone. Correct? Thanks.
please make more video challenge tone like this, ❤
13/20
I sometimes confuse 3rd and 4th tones, because they are both falling. I mean, if I hear 4th tone I always know it is 4th tone. But when I hear 3rd tone I may think it is 4th. Maybe that’s because only after two weeks of learning Chinese I knew in your video, that the 3rd tone is not only falling-rising tone, but generally low-falling.
As a beginner I was not so bad, nailed 11, 8 half and one failed miserably (11th). Really great material, 谢谢老师!
do you want to have a language exchange?I can teach you Chinese if you like🥰
I think the reason why many students confused between tone 2 and 3 is because a lot of Chinese teachers teach the tone 3 in wrong way! Because of the tone 3 sign is down and up, they told the tone is go down and go up and you should pronounce it long. In fact the third tone is only low tone and short. I don't know how they all teach 3rd tone in wrong way. The exception is if there are two words both with tone 3, the first tone 3 will be pronounced like tone 2 so we can speak it easily. If there are 3 words all in tone 3 (like wo hen hao), then the middle word will be prounounced like tone 2. In fact I found so far only this channel that taught the 3rd tone correctly. The best Chinese language channel👍
I got 15/20. I had trouble with the neutral tone, and there were a couple times I had trouble with tone 2. Especially with question 13--even knowing that the second character is tone 2, I can only hear tone 3!
better then i expected 18/20
20/20. Found it easy (especially with the slow repetition after each sentence), but as many people said, I had to pay close attention to 2nd tones in order not to confuse them with 3rds. Thanks Grace!
I consistently mix up my second and fourth tone
I got it all correct😌
Of course!! 😎
5/20😂, so hard to diffrentiate though, but its fun😂😂😂
19/20❤🎉🎉 I got a bit difficult in one....
17/20 ;~; I kept getting stuck with third tones, and confusing other tones for 3rd
很有用，谢谢老师🥰
Dear Grace,
One quick question. If someone pronounces 不是 as bu4 shi4 instead of bu2 shi4 due to tone change, would a native speaker like yourself understand? Or, confusing.
I am proficient in american english, Cantonese, and shanghainese. Mapping 九聲六調 to 四聲 has been somewhat tricky.
Many thanks and keep up the excellent work. Enjoy your Midwest stay!!
@@ms-st8ub it's my comment not Grace's😅😅
@@user-bc5bg3yg1i sorry, pressed the wrong key...just hope Grace would see it nevertheless..many thanks for letting me know...
@@ms-st8ub I hope too
I sucessfully got 2 right :)
I scored 14/20. The most difficult thing is differentiating the second tone from the third tone.
I have been studying for only one month, but had a break for a while. I wanted to get back into studies and was curious to see how I would score. Interestingly, I only had two that were fully wrong. 11 answers I got right away and as for the other seven I would usually guess half of the answer. So one tone was correct, the other wasn't. I struggled most with 2nd and 4th tone...
I've been learning Chinese for 20 days and it's getting easier for me to distinguish between the tones. I got 15.5 out of 20😇😀
37/40
the hardest for me is to distinguish 3rd and neutral tones. Thanks for the exam
The hardest to distinguish for me are the 2nd and the 4th tone. I know that they are supposed to be opposite but I really can't tell if it's rising or falling and I put 2 4 and then it turns out to be the opposite. I got 12/20.
Fantastic idea! Thanks for sharing. xie xie ne