6. Stress and tones. Intonation
2. Accent
2.1. Word stress
2.1.1. Types of word stress
2.1.2. Functions of word stress
2.1.3. Languages without word stress
2.2.
3. Intonation
3.1. Basic functions of intonation 3.2. Intonation types Literature
______________________________________
1. Segmental and supersegmental phenomena
In the speech stream, all phonetic units - sounds, syllables, words, beats, phrases - are represented linear segments(segments), which are sequentially located one after another. They're called segment units.
Phonetic phenomena are layered onto the linear chain of segmental units, which cannot exist independently. That's why they are called supersegmental units(= suprasegmental, suprasegmental). A linear segment can be isolated and pronounced separately, but a supersegmental segment can only be pronounced together with it.
Supersegmental units of speech flow are also called prosodic means. Prosody (Greek prosōdia ‘stress, refrain’) includes stress, tones and intonation (sometimes only intonation) [Girutsky, p. 72].
2. Accent
Stress (=accent from lat. accentus ‘emphasis’) is the selection in speech of one or another unit in a sequence of homogeneous units using phonetic means [LES, p. 530].
The science of stress is called accentology.
Depending on what segment unit functionally correlated stress, distinguish:
verbal,
syntagmatic (beat),
phrasal stress [LES, p. 530].
2.1. Word stress Under word stress(accent) most often refers to the emphasis of a syllable
in a word using phonetic means.
2.1.1. Types of word stress:
1) phonetic types:
By way of isolating stressed syllable,
By strength (degree) of impact,
by the number of ways to highlight a stressed syllable;
2) structural types:
regarding the syllabic structure of the word,
regarding the morphemic structure of the word.
Stress and tones. Intonation (Korean)
1. Phonetic types
1.1. By the method of highlighting the stressed syllable
Usually there are 3 components of stress (3 means, or ways of highlighting a stressed syllable):
1) strength, or intensity of articulation (achieved by increasing muscle tension and increasing exhalation),
2) duration, or length (number) of a stressed vowel,
3) change in pitch against the background of the neutral tone of other syllables.
Accordingly, it stands out three types of word stress:
force, or dynamic (less often - expiratory),
quantitative, or quantitative, longitudinal (not registered in its pure form),
musical, or melodic (not to be confused with tones!).
Dynamic and quantitative stress is also called monotonic, and musical stress is called polytonic.
Table No. 1.
polytonicmonotonic
A. A. Reformatsky, referring to A. Meillet, cites Modern Greek as the only example of a language with a purely quantitative accent [Reformatsky, p. 197]. However, modern researchers argue that duration in none of the known languages is used as an independent way of highlighting a stressed syllable.
Sometimes they also distinguish qualitative = qualitative stress (L. V. Shcherba) - a special quality (timbre) of the vowels that make up the stressed syllable (lack of reduction) [Zinder, p. 264; Maslov, p. 73].
Usually a stressed syllable is emphasized in several ways at the same time, but one way is dominant. For example,
- in Czech and Modern Greek -articulation strength,
- in Lithuanian, Swedish –pitch change,
- In russian language - strength and length of the stressed vowel (quantitative-dynamic, or dynamic-complex stress).
Of these two components, a number of scientists consider duration to be the most important.
An argument in favor of this decision is, in particular, the fact that Russians in languages where long and short vowels are contrasted tend to perceive syllables with a long vowel as stressed:
- Czech words with long The 2nd syllable type motýl ‘butterfly’ is perceived as having stress on the 2nd syllable.
Stress and tones. Intonation (Korean)
On the other hand, speakers of languages with long vowels and diphthongs perceive Russian stressed vowels as long [LES, p. 530]. Yakuts, for example, replace Russian stressed vowels with long vowels or diphthongs:
- lamp – laampa, moss – muoh, seed – siema[Kodukhov, p. 124].
Other researchers believe that for the Russian language the most important features are
Duration and
Quality of a stressed vowel [Bondarko et al., p. 117].
The qualitative, timbre component of Russian stress needs support with contrast less than other components [Maslov, p. 73]. Example of L.V. Shcherba: in the phrase
- Then my brother took a knife
4 clearly felt verbal stresses, although each stressed syllable is neither stronger, nor longer, nor higher in pitch compared to neighboring syllables, because There are no unstressed syllables in this sentence. Therefore, stress is something absolute, not relative. A sign of shock is a special quality of stressed syllables compared to unstressed ones [Zinder, p. 264].
In Czech, Finnish, and English, intensity plays a greater role than in Russian, since in these languages there is a contrast between long and short vowels.
Languages with a dynamic stress component are characterized by vowel reduction in unstressed syllables.
Musical Accent presented, for example, in standard Swedish:
In some words - acute accent (even movement of pitch in a stressed syllable: either rising or falling),
In others, there is a gravitational accent (the tone in a stressed syllable rises and falls again, and in an unstressed syllable it rises again slightly:
Stegen with acute stress on the second syllable – ‘steps’;
Stegen with gravis stress on the second syllable – ‘portable ladder’ [Maslov, p. 79].
1.2. By strength (degree) of impact
In some languages (Russian, English, German, etc.) in polysyllabic words, two stresses of the same type are possible:
The main thing,
secondary (side) [LES, p. 530].
Side stress is especially common in compound words. In German, for example, this is always the case. In German, the main stress usually falls on the first syllable:
- "aufst"ehen;
- “Haust”ür ‘door of the house’.
In Russian, side stress in compound words is not necessary, and if it is present, it falls on the second stem:
- steam locomotive, water supply..., But
Radiolocation, electrical wiring...
The collateral stress is weaker than the main stress, which is why in Russian speech the following pairs are easily distinguishable:
- launch vehicle – launch vehicle,
- potent - highly effective[Zinder, p.261; Maslov, p. 78].
1.3. By number of selection methods stressed syllable, languages are divided into
monoaccent languages - a stressed syllable can be emphasized in only one way (Russian, English and many others);
polyaccent languages - a stressed syllable can be emphasized in two or more ways (Lithuanian, Croatian, Swedish, Norwegian, Punjabi, etc.) - a rather rare case.
Stress and tones. Intonation (Korean)
In Swedish, most disyllabic and polysyllabic words have dynamic stress on the first syllable and musical stress on one of the subsequent ones:
Flicka ‘girl’ is pronounced with intensification on the first syllable and with a rise in tone on the second [Zinder, p. 264; LES, s. 530].
2. Structural types
2.1. Relatively syllable structure words stand out
connected (fixed, single),
free (unfixed, variable) stress.
The associated stress in all words of the language falls on certain syllable
relative to the beginning or end of a word:
1 syllable: Czech, Slovak, Latvian, Finnish, Hungarian, Chechen;
2nd syllable from beginning: Lezgin;
- penultimate syllable: Polish, Swahili, Mountain Mari, some. Indonesian;
Last syllable: Armenian, Persian, Tajik, Udmurt [Zinder, p. 259; LES, s. 24; Shaikevich, s. 37].
If the stress is associated with the end of the word, then when adding a syllable, for example, with declension, the stress remains on the same syllable from the end:
Polish: człówiek – człowiéka ‘person – person’;
Kyrgyzstan: kalá – kalada ‘city – in the city’ [Reformatsky, p. 198].
Sometimes the terms “bound” and “fixed” are used differently. In this case, the associated stress is divided into
1) fixed – having a single permanent place (Czech, Hungarian, Estonian, Polish);
2) limited (semi-connected) - having a certain localization zone.
For example, in ancient Greek. and Latin, the position of stress was related to the length of vowels, but was counted from the end of the word form:
Lat.: natūra ‘nature’ – naturālis ‘natural’;
Nēbŭla ‘fog’, ratĭo ‘mind [LES, p. 531].
In the Ossetian language, the stress falls on the first syllable if it is strong (long), and on the second syllable in other cases [Shaikevich, p. 37].
Free stress can fall on any syllable (Russian, Lithuanian, Mordovian, Abkhazian). For example, in Russian:
- kitchen, pine, dairy, businessman, pasteurize etc.
Moreover, in each word and in each grammatical form, the place of stress is usually strictly fixed: only kitchen is possible, but not kitchen. Oscillations like cottage cheese - cottage cheese occur only in isolated cases. I
According to Larry Hyman, who surveyed 444 languages,
- in 33% of languages the stress is free,
- in 25% the stress falls on the initial syllable,
- 20% – for the final one,
- in 18% – in the penultimate [LES, p. 24].
2.2. Relatively morphemic structure words differentiate
movable (transitionable),
fixed (constant) stress.
Movable stress can move from one morpheme to another
a) when inflecting: city - city-á (the emphasis moves from the root to the ending); b) during word formation: city - foreign-city-n-ii - city-sk-oy - zá-city.
Stress and tones. Intonation (Korean)
In Russian the stress is free and flexible. Such an accent can play a) additional or b) independent grammatical role:
A) table - table, write - write(a change in the place of stress accompanies a change in the ending);
b) windows - windows, rivers - rivers, cities - cities (stress is the only thing that distinguishes forms with different grammatical meanings).
Movable stress is not necessarily shifts in all words and forms. For example, in Russian, 96% of words have a fixed stress:
a) peas - peas... b) peas, peas, dazzle.
In languages with bound stress it can also be movable. This is characteristic of languages in which grammatical morphemes are attached before or after the root. When adding an affix consisting of at least one syllable to a word, stress automatically transferred:
Polish: pólski – polskégo;
Kazakh: kalá – klalar ‘city – city’;
Czech: vézt – dovézt ‘to carry – to deliver’ (é is a long vowel, and the stress is on 1 syllable) [Zinder, p. 259].
A. A. Reformatsky [p. 198] believes that fixed stress can be
Single and
- various places: ital. cása ‘house’, libertá ‘freedom’, témpera ‘tempera’ (a type of mineral paint),
récitano ‘they speak / recite by heart’ (4 syllables from the end).
However, with this understanding, this term turns out to be superfluous: in fact, we are talking about the fact that the stress falls on any syllable in a word and does not move when the word changes (cf.: [LES, p. 206]).
Table No. 2. |
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Fixed |
Free |
||
(associated with a specific syllable) |
(can be on any syllable in a word) |
||
motionless |
movable |
motionless |
movable |
(does not move |
(can move |
(does not move |
(can move |
when it changes |
to another morpheme |
when it changes |
to another morpheme |
when changing a word) |
when changing a word) |
||
(Swahili: accent |
Polish, Kazakh |
Russian : |
Russian : |
on the penultimate |
peas - peas... |
||
syllable, and affixes |
pea, |
||
join |
pea, |
||
before the root) |
stun |
||
Prefix you- |
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over-emphasizes |
|||
on oneself in verbs |
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perfect form |
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More often they talk about movable stress in relation to languages with free stress. Fixed accent movement occurs automatically, not associated
With morphemic composition of the word, and thereforecannot play a grammatical role.
In the history of language, types of stress subject to change. Thus, in the Slavic languages there was a transition
From musical stress to dynamic: (Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Polish);
From free to bound (Czech, Polish) [LES, p. 531].
Stress and tones. Intonation (Korean)
2.1.2. Functions of word stress
1. Constitutive, or derivational– stress, like phoneme, is an obligatory element of the sound appearance of a word. Word recognition, especially in difficult communication conditions, is closely related to the correct perception of the stressed syllable, because when the place of stress changes, in particular due to reduction, the phonetic appearance of the entire word can significantly change:
Weather [p Λ gód] – weather [póda] – weather [pgΛ dá] [Zinder, p. 259].
2. Culminative ( vertex-forming) function. Stress is the most common means of organization phonetic integrity syllables forming
word [LES, p. 531; Bondarko et al., p. 116].
Another means of phonetically combining a word is synharmonism. In languages
With synharmonism often casts doubt on the existence of word stress.
3. Distinctive (significative, distinctive ) the stress function is found in minimal pairs of words and forms like:
- bullets - saw, cry - cry, flour - flour;
- hands - hands, grass - grass, lakes - lakes;
English cóntrast ‘contrast’ – contrást ‘to contrast’.
This function is secondary to the constitutive one, because
1) the distinctive function can be realizedonly in languages with different accents;
2) the constitutive function is inherent in stress in any word, and the distinctive is realized only in a few words(forms) with the same phonemic composition;
3) the number of minimal pairs that differ in the place of stress is small.
4. Delimitation (delimiting ) function - it is often attributed to associated stress. According to some scientists, it is imaginary. Fixed stress on the first or last syllable indicates which syllable it is, but not exact border between the words [Zinder, p. 249; Maslov, p. 77; Bondarko et al., p. 119].
2.1.3. Languages without word stress
1. Languages without word stress include
- Paleoasian languages(languages of the north and northeast of Asia and North America), for example, Chukchi [LES, p. 530].
- Tungus-Manchu languages: Evenki, Even [Zinder, p. 262].
2. Many researchers believe that there is no word stress inFrench: the emphasis is not on a single word, but rhythm group (measure)[Zinder, p. 262].
3. In tonal languages there is no stress, but tones. These are syllabic languages in which morpheme equals syllable, and often coincides with the word.
This is how most languages of Southeast Asia (Chinese, Burmese, Vietnamese, etc.), and many languages of Tropical Africa and Central America work.
Each syllable is characterized by a tone. In non-monosyllabic words, all vowels in the word are toned, i.e. Each syllable in a word is marked in its own way. There is no contrast between tone and its absence, there are only different ways of toning a syllable [Bondarko et al., p. 116; EDD, p. 344; Kodzasov, Krivnova, p. 187–188]. In languages with stress, as a rule, one syllable is emphasized, and not all.
The tone can have a variety of phonetic characteristics: voice pitch, its change, intensity of syllable elements, voice quality, syllable duration, and often some other characteristics (pharyngealization, glottal stop) [Bondarko et al., p. 116].
In Chinese, there are usually 4 tones: 1 – high, level,
Stress and tones. Intonation (Korean)
2 – high ascending,
3 – low descending-ascending,
4 – descending from the highest to the lowest level. Sometimes they talk about a neutral (zero) tone.
Syllables with the same sound composition, but in different tones are different words:
Da 1 ‘to build’,
Da 2 ‘answer’,
Da 3 ‘beat’,
Da 4 ‘big’.
There are 6 tones in Vietnamese: |
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– tall, straight |
ba1 ‘three’ |
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– low, slightly descending |
ba2 ‘woman’ |
||
– high intermittent |
'garbage' |
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– low descending-rising |
'old woman' |
||
– high rising |
'hug' |
||
– low sharply falling |
‘at random’ [Bondarko et al., p. 116]. |
||
Emphasis historical can develop from tone. This path is assumed, for example, for Indo-European languages:
tone → musical stress → dynamic stress [LES, p. 531].
2.2. Syntagmatic and phrasal stressSyntagmatic stress- this is the highlighting of the last stressed syllable in the syntagma:
Yesterday in black
Phrase stress- this is the intense emphasis of the last stressed syllable in
Yesterday evening // when the clock struck ten // brother arrived ///
Phrase stress forms
- completeness of the phrase and
- its communicative type: narrative, interrogative, exclamatory.
Along with phonetic types of stress, logical, or semantic, stress is also distinguished. Its purpose is to semantically emphasize (update) the most important word in a given speech situation in a statement:
- We'll go to the country on Saturday.
We will go to the dacha on Saturday.
We will go to the dacha on Saturday.
We will go to the dacha on Saturday.
Only in the first case does the logical stress coincide with the phrasal stress.
Any component can be actualized in a sentence, even one that usually does not have verbal stress:
The letter is not on the table, but in the table.
3. Intonation
Intonation (Latin intono ‘I pronounce loudly’) is a set of interconnected rhythmic and melodic characteristics of speech: melody, intensity, tempo of speech and timbre of pronunciation.
Together with stress, intonation forms prosodic system of language[LES, p. 197].
Intonation components:
1) melody (raising and lowering the tone in a phrase) – main component of intonation; melody in each language has its own pattern [Reformatsky, p. 191];
Stress and tones. Intonation (Korean)
2) intensity: the strength or weakness of the utterance; Wed different intensity of speech at the rally and in the room [Rosenthal, Telenkova, p. 97];
3) tempo: speed of pronunciation of speech elements (sounds, syllables, words), flow rate, duration of sound in time; for example, towards the end of the utterance the pace of speech slows down; segments containing secondary information are pronounced faster than informationally significant segments [LES, p. 508];
4) timbre: sound coloring of speech, giving it emotionally expressive shades: playful, gloomy intonation, intonation of mistrust, etc.) [Rosenthal, Telenkova, p. 98]; The timbre of speech should not be confused with the timbre of the voice (soprano, contralto, baryon, bass) and the timbre of sound [Reformatsky, p. 191].
Some scientists include intonation components
5) pauses - breaks in sound: the presence or absence of intraphrase pauses, which can highlight individual parts of a phrase or divide a phrase into half-phrases ( The crows were sitting // on an old birch tree.) [Reformatsky, p. 191];
6) rhythm: the ratio of strong and weak long and short syllables is in itself a fact of tact, but within a phrase it gives it rhythm [Reformatsky, p. 191], and also
7) stress, with the exception of verbal.
3.1. Basic functions of intonation
The functions of intonation are divided into
- linguistic,
- non-linguistic[Bondarko et al., p. 128].
1. Linguistic functions of intonation
Intonation is an essential feature of a sentence:
1) formalizes the statement as a whole (cf. intonation of completeness and incompleteness of a sentence);
2) distinguishes between types of utterances from the point of view of goal setting (communicative type): intonation of narration, question, motivation;
3) transmits syntactic relations between parts of a sentence or sentences: cf. intonation of enumeration, introduction, explanation, comparison, etc.;
4) expresses emotional coloring: Wed exclamatory intonation.
2. Non-linguistic functions– this is, for example, the ability of intonation to convey a) the individual characteristics of the speaker:
- his psychological state,
Temperament;
b) sociolinguistic peculiarities:
- communication situation,
Speech style
- normativity – non-normativity of speech [Bondarko et al., p. 128; Girutsky, s. 77].
3.2. Intonation types
The melody of a phrase forms its intonation pattern, which underlies the intonation model of the phrase - intonemes, or intonation structure. Intonema is the basic unit of intonation. The number of intonemes is limited, and their system is specific to each language [Kodukhov, p. 137; Girutsky, s. 76].
Intonemes are associated with certain syntactic constructions.
When classifying intonation types, two approaches are used: 1) from content to form,
Stress and tones. Intonation (Korean)
2) from form to content.
Currently, both approaches are widespread in the scientific and practical literature [Bondarko et al., p. 129].
1. When approaching from content to form classification is given basic values, transmitted by intonation means, and then described intonation means, which are used in passing each of these values.
In the Russian language, the following intonation types are distinguished: 1) narrative intonation, 2) interrogative intonation, 3) incompleteness intonation,
4) intonation of emotional emphasis (exclamation).
These basic intonation types make up minimal paradigm, on the basis of which the entire variety of prosodic organization is built.
2. When approaching from form to content researchers are based on actually phonetic characteristics and try to classify those
implementations that occur in a particular language.
For example, the French phonetician P. Delattre identified 10 main models of intonation [Kodukhov, p. 137].
An example of an approach from form to content is the classification of Russian
intonation structures (IC), created by E. A. Bryzgunova . It first describes the characteristics 7 IR , and then the values to which these ICs are associated are described.
Table No. 3. |
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Basic implementation |
Values |
||||||||||
– – – – – |
narration |
||||||||||
These are their customs. |
gain |
statements, |
disagreement |
||||||||
objections. |
|||||||||||
question with a question word |
|||||||||||
expression of will |
|||||||||||
What are their customs? |
|||||||||||
question without a question word |
|||||||||||
What are their customs? |
incompleteness, repetition of question, high degree |
||||||||||
manifestations of the symptom |
|||||||||||
_ _ _ _ / – – – – |
Formulation of a question related to the previous one |
||||||||||
What about them? What are their customs? |
statement; incompleteness of the statement; |
||||||||||
expression of a high degree of manifestation of a trait; |
|||||||||||
gain |
values |
regrets, |
|||||||||
What customs do they have! |
|||||||||||
preferences when expressing will |
|||||||||||
decor |
unfinished |
syntagmas; |
expression |
||||||||
manifestations |
sign, |
||||||||||
What customs do they have! |
|||||||||||
clarifying question, confusion |
|||||||||||
impossibility or denial |
|||||||||||
What customs do they have! |
|||||||||||
[Bondarko et al., p. 130].
Literature
Bondarko L. V., Verbitskaya L. A., Gordina M. V. Fundamentals of general phonetics. SPb.: Publishing house St. Petersburg State University, 2000. VII. Syntagma and sentence. Intonation characteristics. WITH. 121–132.
Stress and tones. Intonation (Korean)
Vendina T.I. Introduction to linguistics. M.: Higher School, 2001. Stress and its types. pp. 80–83. Intonation and its elements. pp. 83–84.
Girutsky A. A. Introduction to linguistics. M.: TetraSystems, 2001. Stress and intonation. pp. 72–77.
Zinder L. R. General phonetics. M., 1979. Chapter VII. Prosody. pp. 257–280.
Kodzasov S. V., Krivnova O. F. General phonetics. M., 2001. 3.5. Acoustic characteristics of supersegmental sound means. pp. 183–193.
Kodukhov V.I. Introduction to linguistics. M.: Education, 1979 (2nd ed. - 1987). § 26. Syllable, stress, intonation. pp. 132–134.
LES – Linguistic Encyclopedic Dictionary. M.: Soviet Encyclopedia, 1990. Accentology. pp. 24–25; Emphasis. pp. 530–531; Intonation. pp. 197–98; Prosody. pp. 401–402.
Maslov Yu. S. Introduction to linguistics. M.: Higher. school, 1997. Ch. II. Phonetics and phonology. § 8. Prosodic phenomena. pp. 72–81.
Reformatsky A. A. Introduction to linguistics. M.: Aspect Press, 1997. § 34. Emphasis. pp. 196–200. § 53. Method of stress. pp. 305–308. § 54. Method of intonation. pp. 308–310.
Rosenthal D. E., Telenkova M. A. Dictionary-reference book of linguistic terms. M.: Education, 1985 (or other publications).
Shaikevich A. Ya. Introduction to linguistics. M.: Academy, 2005. § 13. Emphasis. pp. 36–40.
EDD - Encyclopedia for children. T. 10. Linguistics. Russian language. M.: Avanta+, 2000. Stress and syllable. pp. 342–344.
ERYA – Russian language. Encyclopedia. M.: Great Russian Encyclopedia - Bustard, 1997. Accentology. pp. 22–24; Intonation. pp. 157–158. Emphasis. pp. 574–575.
There are no letters or alphabet, which plunges people accustomed to the opposite state of affairs into a stupor. Instead, there are a huge number of hieroglyphs, each hieroglyph representing one syllable. Some words consist of one hieroglyph, that is, they are pronounced with one syllable.
Other words include two or more hieroglyphs and the presence of several syllables. You won’t know how to use this or that hieroglyph unless you memorize it first. There are really thousands of hieroglyphs, but they are repeated.
There are hieroglyphs that are more common in everyday speech; they are usually the first to be remembered. To remember a hieroglyph, you need to write it many times. Only in this way will the hand reach automaticity in its reproduction.
You also need to remember the pronunciation and hieroglyph. Especially for those who want to learn their language, the Chinese came up with an equivalent called “Pinyin”. At the same time, not everyone in China knows pinyin, mainly education workers.
New characters in Chinese textbooks are signed in pinyin in parentheses after themselves. It is also necessary to remember the tone that the vowel has in the hieroglyph. Usually there are 4 tones, but upon closer examination a fifth one can also be identified.
4 tones in pronunciation
Tone refers to the intonation with which a particular vowel is pronounced. In words of two or more hieroglyphs, each vowel has a different tone, which can cause confusion for beginners. You can briefly look at each of the tones.
The first tone is indicated by a straight line, the intonation is even. This tone can be sung on one note. The second tone looks like a Russian accent; it gives the word a slightly interrogative intonation.
The third tone is one of the most difficult to pronounce. It has the appearance of a tick and conveys a sound reminiscent of immersion in a sound hole. It is not easy to describe in words the subtleties of pronunciation of the third tone, so it is better to listen to the audio for clarification.
The fourth tone looks like a mirror image of the stress, and it gives the word a kind of affirmative intonation. Many also distinguish the fifth tone, which is an incomplete third. In this case, the third tone is pronounced halfway.
Same pronunciation
Another problem in learning Chinese: without knowing the context by ear, it is very difficult to understand what is being said. Many characters with different spellings have the same pinyin. Tones may vary, but few Chinese people are scrupulous about maintaining distinct pronunciation.
Thus, spoken Chinese is very difficult to understand. It is necessary to master a fairly rich arsenal of hieroglyphs and related contexts. To successfully master all the nuances and subtleties, it is best to immerse yourself in the natural language environment.
Have you ever met someone on YouTube or in real life who speaks amazingly good Chinese? The first feeling will probably be admiration and surprise. Admiration then gives way to doubt: how did they achieve such an incredible level of knowledge of the language?
Just a few years ago, the Northern Chinese language was shrouded in an aura of mystery. It was considered an exotic language, undoubtedly difficult to learn. Foreigners, like the Chinese themselves, thought that mastering Northern Chinese was truly an unattainable goal. Then came Dashan.
This short documentary shows how Dashan shocked audiences with his impeccable Chinese on a television program that was watched by nearly half a billion people. As a result, Dashan became an instant celebrity in China.
Much has changed since that distant 1988 and the number of foreign students who have come to terms with the Chinese language and living in China has been growing very quickly in the last 20 years. And now it is no longer considered unusual to meet a foreigner in Mainland China. However, many students continue to struggle when it comes to speaking Chinese, and this is mainly due to an aspect that is considered "essential" from a Westerner's perspective: Intonation in Chinese.
When it comes to talking about intonation, two things immediately come to mind:
1) Why is intonation so difficult to perceive in Chinese? The difficulty of learning intonation in Chinese Usually they suggest looking at the diagram, listening to the corresponding sound and trying to repeat it. This approach seems logical: the student starts with the basic building blocks (syllables) and then moves on to words (which can be one-, two-, or three-syllable) and finally to complete sentences. In engineering and computer slang, one should talk about the “bottom-up” method: a wall is built starting from the foundation, brick by brick. Although the developed methods seem to be adopted very successfully among students, learning Chinese is not possible with a simple algorithm. They say: “A good beginning is half the battle.” Unfortunately, everything is not as simple as it seems. (If you want to read more about this issue, my friend Vlad wrote an excellent blog about it). Ma che hai fatto oggi? ==> Mā chē hā-ī fàt-to ŏg-gí? Ma dove sei andato? ==> Mā dō-vē sē- ī ā-ndàtó? Imagine the gigantic effort of pronouncing a whole sentence by toning each individual syllable. Things get much more complicated when it comes to thinking about a sentence, in which you also need to remember every key. And even if you are strong at pronouncing tones, the sentence will still sound "robot" to a native speaker. The reason for this is that the sentence is not a simple aggregation of individual sounds. When we speak, all the individual components follow the overall intonation of the sentence, and a "tonal shift" occurs. This "tonal shift" means that the pronunciation of the syllables that make up words change depending on the position occupied by that word in a sentence. In Italian (as in other languages), the same word has different tones if it is at the beginning or end of a sentence. La polenta * E un Cibo Tipico dell"Italia del Nord. ("Polenta" is a typical NorthenItaly dish) As you can see, the word "polenta" at the beginning of a sentence sounds like the first third of the second tone, while it becomes the first fourth-fifth (neutral) tone when at the end of the sentence. Some tips on how to learn Chinese tones The bottom-up approach has suddenly become a top-down approach: one begins by speaking as a whole, just a sentence, and then moves down to its individual components. 1) Read the introduction to phonetics: It's always good to know that Chinese is a tonal language anyway, and that it has 5 tones (4 + neutral). This will always be a good reference. Additionally, at an early stage, one must immediately learn how to pronounce consonants, paying particular attention in differentiating retroflex consonants (eg, zh, ch, shi) from normal ones (Z, J, S), and aspirated ones (P, T) from not those atmospheric (B, D). 2) If you have a general understanding of Chinese phonetics, start looking at very simple sentences. Listen to the sentences dozens of times, and repeat them with your eyes closed, without looking at the tones that make up the individual words. In addition to tones, it is important to note that Chinese also has a general pitch (way of sentence flows) that must be taken into account. There is a very interesting video on YouTube by my friend Marco on this topic. Marco explains that Chinese breaks are introduced at certain positions in a sentence. These breaks, which I represent with the symbol "/", give one sort of guide on how to pronounce a Chinese sentence other than tones. It is part of the phonetic analysis approach to pronunciation and step that I use to teach languages to my students (via Skype and face to face) 1) Finally, after learning how to listen, you should just start listening...! Do this for at least half an hour a day, preferably an hour, and when you are ready, try spending even more time on this activity. This is the key to speaking natively like Chinese. Starts with audio and corresponding script. conclusions (*) In 2006, Harold Goodman, author of three audio courses, created an approach to the color-code of Mandarin tones. In addition to the colors, each tone also has an accompanying gesture. For example, for sound, the thumb moves in a straight, lateral direction, points the index finger upward for, the index and middle fingers form a V sign to indicate the third tone (ǎ), and so on. This approach was tested with student volunteers at Theus and they seemed to recall the tones very well. For more information, please contact:
2) Is there a suitable way to study?
Let's look at the first problem. It is necessary to emphasize again the following: Chinese is an intonational language. This not only means that intonation makes up words, but also that the meaning of the words themselves rests on intonation.
In non-intonation languages such as Italian or English, intonation exists. We are not aware of this simply because the meaning of words does not depend on their variation. Thus, in theory, the same intonation could be used to visually represent the syllables that make up words in non-intonation languages.
The very first thing you will encounter when you start speaking Mandarin is intonation. The following diagrams clearly demonstrate the 4 “pitches” of sound in the Chinese language.
Now, imagine that you want to learn Italian and your teacher suggests the above-mentioned bottom-up learning method. So, it all starts with the sound quality of syllables and then moves on to words and sentences. After tedious explanations and diagrams, imagine practicing on the following sentences:
Mi Piace la polenta. * (I love polenta.)
Obviously, such an approach to learning Italian would be a disaster. No one, fortunately, dares to take such an approach. However, even taking into account the large differences between Italian and Chinese, this is the only approach adopted in the vast majority of Chinese courses, whether in universities or private schools. Now, is there an alternative to all this?
Very often, Chinese characters combined with tones cause many language learners to give up quite quickly. At the same time, more than one and a half billion Chinese, as well as a huge number of foreign students, are fluent in Chinese, proving that it is quite possible to learn the tones of the Chinese language.
We are accustomed to believing that children master language better and faster, and we attribute such success to the flexibility of the mind, which we, adults, have already lost. Someone may disagree with the formulation “flexibility of mind,” but in the learning process the main circumstance is often missed: children’s perception of a foreign language is different from ours.
Children hear entire sentences. They don't start with single words. They simply hear the phrase and then recognize its individual parts themselves. As adults, we tend to think that we can understand the structure of language by analyzing each aspect of it, and thus lose sight of the whole picture. We adults have retained the ability to hear, but have almost lost the ability to listen.
To regain this ability requires patience and some open-mindedness.
Having started learning Chinese the traditional way, after just a few months I realized how important it is to listen to entire sentences. This idea occurred to me the first time I used a computer program in which a native speaker says a sentence and you have to repeat it. Then the program compares both proposals and evaluates your option in points - from 1 (very bad) to 7 (excellent).
Even though I was being judged by a machine with all its flaws, the exercise was interactive and fun, and before I knew it, I had tried over 300 hundred sentences this way. I repeated sentences without even thinking about the tones.
Based on my experience I would like to suggest that one follow these simple steps:
3) Then consider individual words, and try to focus on them when they are "embedded" in a sentence. If necessary, write down a list of words until you recognize them.
4) move on to more complex sentences (main clause + relative clause / conditional clause, etc.)
Quality at the beginning followed by quantity at a later stage is a great way to achieve excellent pronunciation!
Chinese tones are undoubtedly a challenge, but they can be extracted with the proper approach. The one I suggest is simple: consider the entire sentence and listen to it, try to figure out how it sounds as a whole without focusing on the tones. You will find that this is an effective approach to acquiring tones naturally.
- http://www.michelthomas.com/learn-mandarin-chinese.php
- MANDARIN_CHINESE.pdf