Learn Mandarin Chinese – How to Pronounce 4 Tones (Lesson 1)

An introduction to the sound system of Mandarin, as well as to its written representation in Pinyin. Become multilingual today with Lenguin’s comprehensive language courses. ║ Let’s Get Multi ╚════════════════════════════════════════ Take one-on-one Chinese lessons ►► http://lenguin.com/chinese1on1 Practice what you learned in this video ►► http://lenguin.com/yt Subscribe to get multi! ►► http://lenguin.com/yt/subscribe Watch the entire course free ►► http://lenguin.com/yt/chinese ║ Support ╚════════════════════════════════════════ ♥ ♥ Want to help us grow? We want to make lots of courses. ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ Help us reach that goal, visit ► http://lenguin.com/support ♥ ♥ ║ More ╚════════════════════════════════════════ Next Lesson ► http://youtu.be/GzEf6GHxGdQ ♫ Listen to the Lenguin soundtrack ► http://lenguin.com/ost ║ Connect ╚════════════════════════════════════════ Follow us on Twitter ► http://twitter.com/LenguinPenguin Like us on Facebook ► http://fb.com/LenguinPenguin Pin us on Pinterest ► https://pinterest.com/LenguinPenguin ║ Sections ╚════════════════════════════════════════ Display 1 – 0:40 – The 4 Tones Display 2 – 1:39 – Different Words Display 3 – 1:53 – Horse Mother Display 4 – 2:04 – Range Display 5 – 2:20 – High – Low Display 6 – 3:00 – Rising – Falling Display 7 – 3:19 – The 4 Tones Display 8 – 3:45 (Tone 1) Display 9 – 4:45 (Tone 2) Display 10 – 5:54 (Tone 1 – Tone 2) Display 11 – 6:29 (Tone 3) Display 12 – 7:37 (Tone 1 – Tone 3) Display 13 – 8:13 (Tone 2 – Tone 3) Display 14 – 9:18 (Tone 4) Display 15 – 10:18 (Tone 1 – Tone 4) Display 16 – 10:26 (Tone 2 – Tone 4) Display 17 – 10:47 (Tone 3 – Tone 4) Download the Displays here ► http://lenguin.com/learn/chinese/tones/video-displays ║ Credits ╚════════════════════════════════════════ Producer – Fame Ketover Writers – John Harvey, Lucille Barale, Roberta Barry, Thomas Madden, Susan Pola Script Supervisor – Fame Ketover Chinese Speakers – Chuan Chao, Ying-chih Chen, Hsiao-jung Chen, Eva Diao, Jan Hu, Tsung-mi Li, Yunhui Yang Original Music – Fame Ketover Editor – Fame Ketover Special Thanks – Check our Patreon Page to have your name listed here Stock Imagery – Wikimedia Commons, Shutterstock © 2015 Fames Games, all rights reserved. The Lenguin name and penguin mascot are trademarks of Fames Games. ║ Lesson Transcript ╚════════════════════════════════════════ Full transcript ► http://lenguin.com/learn/chinese/tones/video-transcript Partial transcript ————————— Hi, I’m Fame Ketover of Lenguin.com, and this is Mandarin Chinese. Get ready because we’re going to be talking about tones. Listen to these four Chinese tones, which we’ll do in their traditional order. Again Ok, so you’re an English speaker, you’re probably like, they just said the same word in four different ways. Well, not quite. See, in English, I could say, “Ma???”. And that’d mean like, “is that you, mom?”Then I could say, “Ma!!”. Which would mean perhaps, “mom, you’re embarrassing me!!!”. But in both cases the word “ma” is refering to the same thing. But, things work differently in Chinese. The way you say the word, determines which word it is. Now listen again to what we said are different words in Chinese. Again To a speaker of Chinese each of these words is perfectly distinguishable from the others. The different tones keep them apart the same way that in English different consonants set off “ma” from “pa” and different vowels set off “ma” from “me”. So giving a word a wrong tone can be just as disastrous as giving it a wrong consonant or vowel. For example, if you say this: mǎ, when what you meant was this: mā, you basically just called your mother a horse. So, let’s take a look at the visual representation of each tone. The vertical scale covers about an octave. Just which octave it is, of course, depends on your voice. Now this is a somewhat greater range than you would use in English. Since the top of the range will seem slightly too high for comfort and the bottom’s going to seem slightly too low. The first tone, or high tone, word “mother” and the third tone, or low tone, word “horse”, will help you locate these extremes. Have a listen: Again, “mother” and “horse”, high versus low. People often equate Chinese tones to notes on the musical scale. And like you just heard, the distinctive difference between the two tones is that one is high and one is low.