Re: IPA tones

From: "H. S. Teoh"

> OK, I think I'm *really* missing something here. Mandarin first tone, for
> me, is a medium-pitched, flat-contoured tone; second is middle or low
> ascending, third is low-pitched, flat tone, and fourth is high-pitch
> (definitely higher than first tone) descending. Either I'm hallucinating,
> or something isn't right here??
The sacrosanct Li & Thompson weighs in on Mandarin:

1st tone: 55
2nd tone: 35
3rd tone: 214
4th tone: 51

> Hmm, strange. I would consider Hokkien's 7th tone to be similar
> (allophonic even, if that's correct terminology) to Mandarin's 3rd tone.
> Like I said, I think I'm missing something BIG here, 'cos what you're
> saying seems so contrary to what I observe. OK, for Hokkien it's
> understandable, because I know that my dialect of Hokkien isn't exactly
> the least divergent from the original mainland Hokkien -- having picked
> up local Malay words, influences from Malenglish (Malaysian-English
> pidgin), etc.. But for Mandarin, something isn't right because I have
> friends from Beijing and I know how they pronounce it.
There's some slight variation between my Taiwan and mainland Hokkien
dictionaries, but pretty close (where there's a difference, I'll put the
mainland in parentheses).

1st tone: 44
2nd tone: 52 (53)
3rd tone: 21
4th tone: 32
5th tone: 24
7th tone: 33 (22)
8th tone: 43

Kou