How to practice speaking Mandarin tones quickly?

February 3, 2020 7:34 AM

I'm learning Mandarin right now. I'm doing well at learning vocab and grammar, but I'm not great at physically enunciating strings of tones; my throat often feels tired after doing so for only a little bit. Are there recorded drills or some other way that I can practice this part? I read somewhere (so it may be apocryphal) that in schools in China, younger students spend time reciting the different initials and finals with varying tones to strengthen their diction, which sounds like the kind of thing I'm looking for.
posted by miltthetank to Writing & Language (10 answers total)

Tone is just pitch, except for third tone, which is also pronounced with creaky voice. You use pitch and creaky voice in English, just not in the same way, so Mandarin tone isn't making any extra physical demands. If your throat is feeling tired, I wonder if you're doing something else.

The FSI Mandarin course starts with tone drills that you might find useful. It's very old fashioned, but it really focuses on listening and producing tones at first, so it might be kind of what you're looking for.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 7:58 AM on February 3, 2020

I agree with Kutsuwamushi that it's odd your throat is getting tired, and I wonder if it would be worth getting yourself a session with a voice coach. Their whole shtick is helping you not hurt or exhaust the parts you speak and sing with. In particular, they are good at helping you find out where you're holding extra tension in your mouth or throat, which is a common thing to do unconsciously when you're working on something new and complicated with your voice.

Once they see what you're doing, they can come up with the sort of exercises that you're looking for, personalized to the specific problems you're having. You might also end up scheduling regular lessons so they can check in on your progress and make corrections.

Since you're speaking and not singing, it would be good to find a voice coach who works with public speakers. You might not need a voice coach who actually speaks Mandarin — just like someone who's singing an opera in Czech doesn't need a voice teacher who speaks Czech. Anyone who knows stuff about speaking voices can watch what you're doing and comment on your technique.
posted by nebulawindphone at 9:01 AM on February 3, 2020 [2 favorites]

(Sorry, got cut off...) But it might be that someone who speaks Mandarin would be more helpful faster if you were able to find someone.
posted by nebulawindphone at 9:15 AM on February 3, 2020

something like this or *this?

I did the drills you described as a kid at school learning Mandarin... can't find a thorough video of the drills online so far though. weird that such a video doesn't seem to exist on english youtube.


*her 2nd and 3rd tones are not very distinct though
posted by aielen at 1:08 PM on February 3, 2020

Left-field suggestion: recite Classical Chinese poetry. It's a typical activity for kids. There are a lot of recordings on Youtube and it's more interesting than drills. (e.g. Jing Ye Si)
posted by airmail at 4:23 PM on February 3, 2020

Response by poster: aielen's second link is the most what I'm looking for, I think. I'm picturing something like the vocal equivalent of those worksheets where you practice cursive letters, one at a time over and over again.
posted by miltthetank at 5:35 PM on February 3, 2020

There are free tone drills in the Pronunciation and Romanization section of FSI's free Chinese course. (Download mp3s and pdf)

Pimsleur's Mandarin course is useful for pronunciation, including tones. It's hella expensive to purchase, but your local public library might have it.

There are lots of free audio drills for DeFrancis' Beginning Chinese, but you'd need to buy a hard copy of the text. It looks like it's pretty cheap used.

You might also check out the free audio-based Coyote Chinese. (I've never used it and cannot vouch for it.)
posted by bertran at 10:05 PM on February 3, 2020

actually it seems like it would be sort of easy to make a bunch of tone drill videos playable on youtube. maybe i can try making some if i have time this week lol. miltthetank is there any particular format / sounds / etc you would want in an ideal drill/video?
posted by aielen at 10:59 PM on February 3, 2020

I have it on very good authority that Mandarin learners at FSI are not encouraged to practice tones without feedback from a native speaker. Doing drills incorrectly can cement bad pronunciation. That said, current practice at that school is to use visualization charts of the various tone combos (ends up being a matrix of 16 tone combos, plus four other neutral tone combos. And 3/3 looks like 2/3, etc, so it’s really fewer than 16). The chart was developed in house and is not available online, but the images on this website look similar to what they’ve made. Good luck in your studies!
posted by eulily at 10:20 AM on February 4, 2020 [1 favorite]

My experience with Mandarin learners is that there is a tendency to over-enunciate the tones in a really harsh way. That would be hard on your throat and also be a mispronunciation - like if every time you said "sh" you did a long drawn out hissing noise. The only way I know to get over it is hearing and repeating a lot of Mandarin phrases, practice with exposure together. If you don't have good access to a teacher, some of those tapes (like Pimsleur or Rosetta Stone) where you try to repeat what you heard might be an ok start, and also just practice listening to spoken Mandarin and identifying the tones yourself.
posted by Lady Li at 10:03 PM on February 4, 2020 [1 favorite]