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roddy -

'copy the melody' is not 'automatic' - you're asking people to consciously pay attention to and
replicate tonal patterns. Completely different from your original 'don't bother'.



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flameproof -

'copy the melody' is for me an 'automatic' reflex. The same way I would pick up Scottish or
Australian.

You just have to be aware that Mandarin has tones and stick to what you hear. Learning tones by
itself without context would be impossible for me.

Actually, my best example is always Cantonese. It's tonal, but the locals don't know that. Why
learn something that locals don't know?

Similar things apply to grammar. I don't know any English grammar (compare to Chinese that learn
English), my English is still WAY WAY better then most of them, even though their grammar
knowledge is much higher.










bomaci -



Quote:

Actually, my best example is always Cantonese. It's tonal, but the locals don't know that. Why
learn something that locals don't know?

I agree. I try to do all my mandarin study by listening and imitating (chorusing). I think it
might be a good idea to study the tones after having done a lot of listening and imitating.
Because sometimes you may hear a word which you want to look up and you might need to
identify the tones in order to learn it. But when you learn a new word or expression you should
first focus on the melody of it and after having gotten that down you could try to analyze what
the tones are.










Quest -



Quote:

Actually, my best example is always Cantonese. It's tonal, but the locals don't know that.

That is very true. I had spoken it for some 20+ years and only found out a few years ago.










Lu -

Native speakers can speak their language without knowing the theory behind it. French kids don't
know about word's gender until they learn it in school, and German kids don't know what cases are
until they learn it, yet such knowledge can come in extremely handy when you learn it as a second
language. Same goes for tones. Just the fact that native speakers don't realize they have them,
doesn't mean we don't need to learn them. Sure you can learn just by immersion, but I think it
might take a lot longer, especially for adults and especially for a language so different from
Western languages as Chinese.

To the OP: I'd still be careful with that Kanji dictionary for learning Chinese, it's good enough
to pick up the odd character, but for words and phrases and more it's better to get a book for
Chinese.
Also, shu1 sometimes means writing, but usually it means book.

Good luck learning!










bomaci -



Quote:

Just the fact that native speakers don't realize they have them, doesn't mean we don't need to
learn them. Sure you can learn just by immersion, but I think it might take a lot longer,
especially for adults and especially for a language so different from Western languages as Chinese.

Actually the only advantage I see with learning about the tones is that you can look up words that
you hear more easily. I think the only way to learn tonal languages reliably is to listen and
learn words by listening. You don't need immersion to do that. You can watch movies, listen to
audiobooks and so on.










OneEye -

The IME I use requires me to know which tone the word is. Imagine having to scroll through every
character pronounced shi (I counted 74) just because you didn't bother to study tones. My Chinese
friend at work always tells me the tone of a new word when she teaches me. She writes the
character and the pinyin. The tones aren't very hard to learn. A couple hours with the FSI
pronunciation and Romanization module and you'll be set, without having to devote much more time
at all to the tones, except some tone changes.










bomaci -



Quote:

The IME I use requires me to know which tone the word is

Then I think you should consider switching IMEs Even if you know the tone you will have too many
choices. In wenlin there are 75 characters pronounced shì. Furthermore it is not about not
bothering to studying the tones. It is about remembering the tones as sounds instead of as
numbers. When you see the character 中 you should be able to hear in your head how it is
pronounced. You shouldn't think of it as z-h-o-n-g-1.










OneEye -



Quote:

Then I think you should consider switching IMEs Even if you know the tone you will have too many
choices. In wenlin there are 75 characters pronounced shì.

I'm kind of confused. How would not typing the tone narrow it down? Please explain.

Which IME do you recommend?



Quote:

Furthermore it is not about not bothering to studying the tones. It is about remembering the tones
as sounds instead of as numbers.

I never said anything about remembering the tones as numbers. I remember them as sounds. This has
nothing to do with studying or not studying the tones.



Quote:

When you see the character 中 you should be able to hear in your head how it is pronounced. You
shouldn't think of it as z-h-o-n-g-1.

Sure, abandon pinyin and just learn each character by sound. Makes a lot of sense.

I don't have to spell it out in my head, if that's what you're getting at. But, 中 is pronounced
"zhōng." First tone, high tone, level tone, whatever you want to call it. It helps me to know the
pinyin, so I can be sure I'm pronouncing it correctly and in the right tone. Had I learned by
sound only, I would have thought 很 was pronounced hén, because the first several times I heard
it, it was before a 3rd tone word. I just think that trying to absorb tones over time by listening
doesn't make much sense when you can devote just a few hours to studying them and then have a
solid grasp and never really have to worry about it again.

My method is working quite well for me. With repetition, the pinyin becomes an afterthought,
because I hear the words as I read them. Pinyin is just a means of knowing how to pronounce the
word correctly. If you think you're hearing q but you're really hearing ch, you may have serious
pronunciation problems, all because you didn't bother to study tones/pinyin/pronunciation (not you
personally, but what your argument suggests). I had this exact problem before I learned pinyin and
the difference between retroflex and palatal consonants with the FSI Pronunciation & Romanization
module (also with x/sh, j/zh, and even z/c) and once I devoted some time to studying them, I can
hear and pronounce the differences very clearly without thinking about it.

And it is about not bothering. It doesn't take much time, really. And IMO it will save you trouble
in the long run.










bomaci -



Quote:

I'm kind of confused. How would not typing the tone narrow it down? Please explain.
Which IME do you recommend?

It is much easier to use an IME which is good at guessing. I.e. where you can type an entire
sentence and have it guess right. One of the best IMEs for this is the google one:
http://tools.google.com/pinyin/index.html
I typed the following in it "woyonglegugedeshurufalaidazhejuhua" and out came
我用了谷歌的输入法来打这句话.



Quote:

Sure, abandon pinyin and just learn each character by sound. Makes a lot of sense.

I don't quite understand why it doesn't make sense. Surely it is entirely possible to learn
mandarin just by listening up to quite a high level. After you run out of audiocourses there is
audiobooks, movies tv-series and a lot of other things you can use. And the 很 problem won't be a
problem for very long if you hear it pronounced in several contexts. I don't say that you
shouldn't learn pinyin at all but I think it is better to prioritize listening in the beginning to
get used to the sounds. I am doing a bit of dabbling in Cantonese right now and I haven't spent
any time actively learning the different romanization systems. I first listened and imitated (or
"chorused") a lot of sentences. Then I started to look at the romanization. However I only use the
romanization to help me learn the sounds, I learn the tones entirely by listening. In my view you
can learn tonal languages by listening just as you learn other languages. You just learn to
remember the sounds of words.












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