<p>As said in a story:<br>
2 men learn Chinese together. One learns by reading Chinese books and listening to Chinese radio broadcasts. The other one found a Chinese girlfriend and told her to teach him Chinese. The latter succeeded.<br>
This shows that doing something you like will let you learn something faster. Try playing your favourite mobile games but instead, change the language to Chinese. Also, you can consider watching funny Chinese videos on YouTube. You can listen to Chinese while having fun. It might not come to effect immediately, but it will be helpful in the long term.<br>
Remember that losing interest is the fatal cause of not succeeding in learning something. You need something to boost yourself to continue learning Chinese.<br>
Hope this can help you! </p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-04-13T15:08:02.743Z
2019-04-13T15:08:02.743Z
昨晚忘記呼吸
<p>Take a look to the Hangout N° 2  there :<br>
<a href="https://www.yoyochinese.com/blog/learn-mandarin-top-10-yoyo-chinese-live-hangouts" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.yoyochinese.com/blog/learn-mandarin-top-10-yoyo-chinese-live-hangouts</a></p>

<p>It can help :-)</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-04-19T11:45:52.493Z
2019-04-19T11:45:52.493Z
faure
<p>I am also a fairly new student with similar problems. These are things that have helped me:</p>

<ol>
<li><p>When you learn new vocabulary, make sure you learn the tone at the same time.</p></li>
<li><p>Practise tones out loud. Don't be afraid to exaggerate them a bit (or a lot). Chinese children over pronounce their tones when they learning as well. Practise single tones, then tone pairs. It might help to record yourself so that you know what you sound like.</p></li>
<li><p>Get some audio of simple sentences, maybe from your teacher, from Youtube, from podcasts, etc. Listen and repeat, over and over. This will help get used to how tones work together. There is a (free) program called Audacity. It can chop up audio files, and slow them down, so that you can isolate the bits of a sentence you want to work on.</p></li>
<li><p>Another practice technique is to listen to a recording, and listen just for the tones. Don't worry about the meaning at all. You can say it back, again don't worry about the actual words, just follow the intonation.</p></li>
</ol>

<p>As for your teacher, if she always speaks fast, maybe ask her to slow down a little bit. If it's just sometimes, then don't worry about it. Hearing a mix of fast and slow will help your brain get used to how things sound. You don't have to consciously understand every word to still be learning. Also, sometimes your brain is just a bit slow, like she says something and you don't understand, but then a little while later you suddenly realise what she said. This is completely normal, and a sign that you are learning.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-04-13T22:34:38.203Z
2019-04-13T22:34:38.203Z
user20347
<p>I would say time and repetition are the keys to get it right. Try to do small various types of repetition over a long period of time. Also, have sufficient listening exercise, which are not necessarily focused on tones. Listening exercises can help you gradually adapt to the natural speech pattern, which can be very different from the pinyin scripts.</p>

<p>Pinyin and tones are only a poor imitation of natural speech. If you focus on tones too much, you will loose the forest.</p>

<p>I have an article “The gulf between pinyin and Mandarin Chinese pronunciation”, trying to explain this: <a href="https://www.mslmaster.com/index.php/teaching-learning-resources/10-resources/54-the-gulf-between-pinyin-and-mandarin-chinese-pronunciation" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.mslmaster.com/index.php/teaching-learning-resources/10-resources/54-the-gulf-between-pinyin-and-mandarin-chinese-pronunciation</a></p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-04-14T00:39:01.337Z
2019-04-14T00:39:01.337Z
Xuehong Zhang
<p>Watch your favorite movie in Mandarin. watch it over and over, try to understand what they say.  Your ears will get more and more familiar which how they speak. Here are some recommendations with subtitles(a television series): 
Legend of Condor hero: about a stupid kid that is pure and his pureness and kindness will develop this cool story: 
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4crHldKx6c&amp;list=PLJIYzNjvxw8v2TkPFnjYx-xD2IqOKjbYk" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4crHldKx6c&amp;list=PLJIYzNjvxw8v2TkPFnjYx-xD2IqOKjbYk</a>
red cliff(movie): a famous ancient story in China about wars between three kingdoms, I didn't find the first part:  <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t01RBOzYZu0" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t01RBOzYZu0</a>
Next practice some basic set of sentences: learn them and speak it. it is like a spot, your muscle will remember what to do after you practiced a lot and you'll find yourself able to do cool surprising stuff afterward!</p>

<p>The tones are easy, there are really 4 tones:
the first tone somehow feels like you are being monotone. 
the second tone feels like you are trying to rush the sentence.
The third tone feels like you are slowing the sentence.
And the last tone feels like a command type of tone.
learn more about them here: <a href="https://chinesepod.com/tools/pronunciation/section/17" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://chinesepod.com/tools/pronunciation/section/17</a></p>

<p>anyway, the point is there are two parts: first and most important part, listening to movies and radio and etc and you'll know how to speak as you'll have the understanding meaning part practiced, even though you may suck at speaking it(like Chinese teacher teaching your science class with their accents). 2) To get a better accent, you just have to speak with the correct accent more, again like practicing a sport, you might not even do 1000 pounds deadlift at first, but that's because you are too new to the sport lol.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-04-12T23:38:28.417Z
2019-04-12T23:55:24.250Z
2019-04-12T23:55:24.250Z
user614287
<p>Before I jump into the question, a bit of context for my situation:</p>

<p>I'm in Mandarin 1 currently in HS, about 7 months in from the beginning of the school year, and I'm having some problems. According to my Mandarin teacher, I seem to be ahead of my class, as my vocabulary and grammar is a bit more complex (since I study a bit outside of class).</p>

<p>Though, while I can learn characters and definitions pretty well, I'm having a lot of trouble with my listening and speaking. I feel as if my tones aren't too differentiable, and I feel like I don't really keep track of tone usage when I try to speak. When I listened to my Mandarin teacher speaking a bit more quickly, even though it was a sentence I would've understood if it was slowed down a bit, I only picked up a few words, and I had a lot more trouble trying to differentiate the tones while listening to her speak.</p>

<p>Does anyone have any recommendations on how I can try to improve both speaking and listening? Thank you so much! :)</p>

<tones><resources><spoken><listening>
Help with tones?
# Help with tones?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2019-04-12)

Before I jump into the question, a bit of context for my situation:

I'm in Mandarin 1 currently in HS, about 7 months in from the beginning of the school year, and I'm having some problems. According to my Mandarin teacher, I seem to be ahead of my class, as my vocabulary and grammar is a bit more complex (since I study a bit outside of class).

Though, while I can learn characters and definitions pretty well, I'm having a lot of trouble with my listening and speaking. I feel as if my tones aren't too differentiable, and I feel like I don't really keep track of tone usage when I try to speak. When I listened to my Mandarin teacher speaking a bit more quickly, even though it was a sentence I would've understood if it was slowed down a bit, I only picked up a few words, and I had a lot more trouble trying to differentiate the tones while listening to her speak.

Does anyone have any recommendations on how I can try to improve both speaking and listening? Thank you so much! :)

**Tags:** tones, resources, spoken, listening


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## 5 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2019-04-13. Score: 1

As said in a story:  
2 men learn Chinese together. One learns by reading Chinese books and listening to Chinese radio broadcasts. The other one found a Chinese girlfriend and told her to teach him Chinese. The latter succeeded.  
This shows that doing something you like will let you learn something faster. Try playing your favourite mobile games but instead, change the language to Chinese. Also, you can consider watching funny Chinese videos on YouTube. You can listen to Chinese while having fun. It might not come to effect immediately, but it will be helpful in the long term.  
Remember that losing interest is the fatal cause of not succeeding in learning something. You need something to boost yourself to continue learning Chinese.  
Hope this can help you!


---

### Answer by username_2 on 2019-04-19. Score: 0

Take a look to the Hangout N° 2 there :  
<https://www.yoyochinese.com/blog/learn-mandarin-top-10-yoyo-chinese-live-hangouts>

It can help :-)


---

### Answer by username_3 on 2019-04-13. Score: 0

I am also a fairly new student with similar problems. These are things that have helped me:

1. When you learn new vocabulary, make sure you learn the tone at the same time.
2. Practise tones out loud. Don't be afraid to exaggerate them a bit (or a lot). Chinese children over pronounce their tones when they learning as well. Practise single tones, then tone pairs. It might help to record yourself so that you know what you sound like.
3. Get some audio of simple sentences, maybe from your teacher, from Youtube, from podcasts, etc. Listen and repeat, over and over. This will help get used to how tones work together. There is a (free) program called Audacity. It can chop up audio files, and slow them down, so that you can isolate the bits of a sentence you want to work on.
4. Another practice technique is to listen to a recording, and listen just for the tones. Don't worry about the meaning at all. You can say it back, again don't worry about the actual words, just follow the intonation.

As for your teacher, if she always speaks fast, maybe ask her to slow down a little bit. If it's just sometimes, then don't worry about it. Hearing a mix of fast and slow will help your brain get used to how things sound. You don't have to consciously understand every word to still be learning. Also, sometimes your brain is just a bit slow, like she says something and you don't understand, but then a little while later you suddenly realise what she said. This is completely normal, and a sign that you are learning.


---

### Answer by username_4 on 2019-04-14. Score: 0

I would say time and repetition are the keys to get it right. Try to do small various types of repetition over a long period of time. Also, have sufficient listening exercise, which are not necessarily focused on tones. Listening exercises can help you gradually adapt to the natural speech pattern, which can be very different from the pinyin scripts.

Pinyin and tones are only a poor imitation of natural speech. If you focus on tones too much, you will loose the forest.

I have an article “The gulf between pinyin and Mandarin Chinese pronunciation”, trying to explain this: <https://www.mslmaster.com/index.php/teaching-learning-resources/10-resources/54-the-gulf-between-pinyin-and-mandarin-chinese-pronunciation>


---

### Answer by username_5 on 2019-04-12. Score: 0

Watch your favorite movie in Mandarin. watch it over and over, try to understand what they say. Your ears will get more and more familiar which how they speak. Here are some recommendations with subtitles(a television series):
Legend of Condor hero: about a stupid kid that is pure and his pureness and kindness will develop this cool story:
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4crHldKx6c&list=PLJIYzNjvxw8v2TkPFnjYx-xD2IqOKjbYk>
red cliff(movie): a famous ancient story in China about wars between three kingdoms, I didn't find the first part: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t01RBOzYZu0>
Next practice some basic set of sentences: learn them and speak it. it is like a spot, your muscle will remember what to do after you practiced a lot and you'll find yourself able to do cool surprising stuff afterward!

The tones are easy, there are really 4 tones:
the first tone somehow feels like you are being monotone.
the second tone feels like you are trying to rush the sentence.
The third tone feels like you are slowing the sentence.
And the last tone feels like a command type of tone.
learn more about them here: <https://chinesepod.com/tools/pronunciation/section/17>

anyway, the point is there are two parts: first and most important part, listening to movies and radio and etc and you'll know how to speak as you'll have the understanding meaning part practiced, even though you may suck at speaking it(like Chinese teacher teaching your science class with their accents). 2) To get a better accent, you just have to speak with the correct accent more, again like practicing a sport, you might not even do 1000 pounds deadlift at first, but that's because you are too new to the sport lol.


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