(Note: this is is not an official Department of State website; the views and information presented are my own and do not represent the Fulbright Program or the U.S. Department of State.)

Monday, February 21, 2011

Tones: How do you say 'sugar,' again?

As mentioned in an earlier post, tones are one of the most challenging aspects of the Chinese language. In my experience, repeated exposure is the only way to really pick them up--it's rare, if ever, that I actually successfully memorize vocabulary with the appropriate tones on the spot.

The hardest part is when you have related words with different tones. My example today is one that I've been working on for a while: 
  • 汤 tāng: soup
  • 糖 táng: sugar/candy
  • 烫 tàng: hot
It's just three words, it really shouldn't be that hard, but I have to pause and think every time I ask for a 2nd sugar packet for my coffee. I've found that asking for a "bag of soup" tends to confuse the waiters.
Posted by at
Labels:

1 comment:

  1. EFebruary 21, 2011 at 9:45 PM

    Tones suck. Mostly because I can't pronounce the difference between second and third tone clearly enough for people to understand what I'm saying sometimes. 哎呀！

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)