Mandarin Tones as (Un)stressed Vowels

Learning chinese may seem challenging for neophyte Western students, not used to the wonderful world of tones. This may seem like a blocking barrier for them at first, but with a bit of imagination, they will find a plethora of videos for training on youtube. With some playful practise, some time, regularity and patience, one day, the conscience of tones just emerges. It took me one whole year.

Indeed, when learning new linguistic aspects like tones, a considerable amount of time is required to create familiarity and develop self-confidence in its use, which is a key element in the practise of a new language. A helpful way of accelerating the acquisition of this self-confidence, and the subsequent improvement of speaking skills, is to relate the new aspect to something already known, and this is what some youtube videos propose. 

A more familiar example of this is the acquisition of vocalic length, that is, the difference between short and long vowels, by speakers whose native language does not have it. For instance, native speakers of Romance languages like French or Spanish have to learn to produce the short and long vowels of English. How do speakers of Romance languages like me learn to produce long vowels? A very useful strategy that I use, as a native speaker of Spanish, is to conceive English long vowels as two identical vowels in my language.

Spanish speakers will find words containing hiatus of identical vowels like Isaac, creer, chiita, cooperar, or duunvirato, so we can produce long vowels by just pronouncing two short vowels. The effect of this strategy may not be perceived as a native accent, but it certainly transforms an insecure production into a stylish characteristic accent. Of course this is a scaffolding strategy that is expected to evolve into a natural distinction of length with repeated practise and exposition to input.

In this way, the idea of relating a new linguistic aspect to something present in your own language when learning a new one, this RECYCLING from material already present from your linguistic toolbox, can also be applied for learning mandarin Chinese. Speakers of a language with lexical stress (sorry, French, you are out) can benefit from their capacity for distinguishing stressed and unstressed vowels for easing the acquisition and production of tones. 

1. má (麻/麻) 'hemp' 
2. mǎ (馬/马) 'horse' 
3. mà (罵/骂) 'scold' 
4. ma (嗎/吗) interrogative particle

Look at the classic 5 examples of words with contrastive tones above. How do you produce these different tones?

The first or high-level tone (ā) can be pronounced by producing a long vowel continuously, without the break that characterises an hiatus; a bit like we do when warming up our voice: we let the air flow out or our mouth while pronouncing different vowels. And more importantly, the pronunciation has to be in the high pitch that we would use for singing: /a:/

The second or raising tone (á) can be conceived as two short vowels in hiatus, where the first one is unstressed and the second one is stressed: /’aa/. The prominence of stressed vowels can be associated with a higher tone pitch, thus creating a pitch height difference and allowing us to raise from a low (unstressed vowel) to a higher pitch (stressed vowel).

The fourth or falling tone (à) can be approached as the opposite contrast: a stressed vowel followed by an unstressed one. An important difference is that the second vowel is very short, pronounced more as a long vowel with a falling tone than like two identical ones with different tones: /’a(a)/. Vowels with this tone tend to be shorter, starting with a high pitch and falling for a very very short fraction of time.

The third or falling-raising tone (ǎ) can be is perceived as a much longer vowel, combining a falling and a raising tone /‘aa-a’a/. An easier way of approaching it would be to conceive it as three vowels, a first stressed one, an unstressed second one and a stressed final: /’aa’a/. A usual strategy of native speakers, specially when pronouncing it slowly for learners of Mandarin, is what dubbers use in film dubbing: that creaky voice, that allows you to control voice pitch and is so characteristic of Spanish dubbed voice. Therefore, pronounce it in three mores or “times”, like a triphthong of the same vowel. 

The fifth or neutral or zero-tone (a) is characterised by an absence of tone, and a pitch that depends on the pitch of the preceding vowel. It is pronounced short and unstressed as a schwa /ə/, as you will often find in a final position.

Of course you cannot be thinking of these strategies when producing the tones, but they can be useful for speeding up their acquisition. So, if you are approaching Mandarin tones for the first time, you can imagine tones as these combinations of stressed and unstressed vowels. Good luck!