What are tones in Chinese

Most of the words in Chinese seem simple. For example, the word ma. Only two letters, moreover, so familiar to every Russian speaker. But this simplicity hides tones.

What are tones in Chinese?

Chinese tones are ways of pronouncing sounds. After all, any word can be pronounced differently. Even in Russian, we pronounce words either affirmatively, or interrogatively, or exclamatory - depending on the situation. And in Chinese, all colloquial speech consists of this.

Let's look at a simple example - with the same word ma. There are 4 tones in Chinese, and they can all be used to pronounce this word: mā, má, mǎ, mà. In the first case, this is the word mom, in the second - goosebumps, in the third - a horse, in the fourth - to scold. And if the horse that you mistakenly call mom is all the same, then you need to be more careful when referring to mom.

And do they need to be taught?

Certainly! The study of tones is included in the development of the basic Chinese language, which we wrote about earlier. You won't be able to speak or understand Chinese if you don't master the tones.

Is learning tones difficult?

It is difficult to answer such questions. Tones are indeed a tricky aspect of Chinese. However, the ability to master them is associated with many aspects, including the presence of an ear for music. But there is a plus: you do not have to learn long words in Chinese. As a rule, you learn a short word and tones for it. That is why the vocabulary in Chinese grows faster than in the study of other languages. And in this article, we are talking about how many characters you need to learn in order to speak Chinese.