Re: Chinese/japanese Pronounciation

On Wed, May 01, 2002 at 07:32:59PM -0400, Steg Belsky wrote:
[snip]
> > This is the low tone (tone #3) in Mandarin.
>
> > T
> -
>
> I thought #3 was the falling-rising "\/" one... unless i'm completely
> misremembering the Mandarin tone system...
That's tone 2. The Mandarin tones are, respectively:
#1:     33 (level)
#2:     23 (low rising)
#3:     21 (low falling -- though to my ears it's low level)
#4:     52 (high falling)

The Hokkien tones (my idiolect) are, in no particular order since I can
never remember which numbers are which:
        33 (level)
        35 (high rising)
        11 (low level)
        13 (low rising)
with various clipped/non-clipped variations, which to my ear sounds
identical. Taiwanese and mainland Hokkien appears to have high falling
instead of high rising. In fact, Singaporean Hokkien also has high
falling; I'm not sure why on my home island of Penang this tone has
mutated into a rising tone. But it sure makes it easy to spot foreigners
pretending to be one of the Hokkien-speaking locals ;-)


T

--
Why waste time learning, when ignorance is instantaneous? -- Hobbes

Reply