Elementary | Which tone was that again?

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Hi there, elementary learners. You're listening to ChinesePod. I'm John. So Jenny, today we've got an elementary lesson and it deals with a problem that many learners have. It's those pesky tones. 对,就是这个 tones, 声调。 Yeah, and you're going to make mistakes. It is unavoidable. The only way to avoid mistakes is to not speak, which we do not recommend.

Yeah, that would be a catastrophe. Yes, you must speak. So if you're going to get your tones wrong, which you will, then you need to know how to deal with the corrections. Now, first of all, like John says, you will get some tones wrong. Yep, that's all part of the fun.

It doesn't matter because your teachers or your Chinese friends or language partners, they will be very happy to help you. Right, and you can turn the whole thing into a learning experience if you can talk about the mistakes in Chinese.

So that's where this dialogue comes in. 好,那 let's listen to this dialogue. We have a tone emergency here. Alright, three times, here it comes. 对话第一遍 老师,周末我要去化学 什么? 我要去化学 哦,你是不是想说我要去滑雪? 对 老师,可以再说一遍吗? 滑雪 第几声? 滑是第二声,滑 我要去滑雪。 很好。 第二遍。 我要去滑雪。 哦,你是不是想说我要去滑雪? 对,老师。 可以再说一遍吗? 滑雪 第几声? 滑是第二声,滑。 雪是第三声,雪。 滑雪 滑雪 周末我要去滑雪 很好 第三遍 老师 我要去滑雪。 什么? 我要去滑雪。 你是不是想说我要去滑雪? Ski? 对,老师。 可以再说一遍吗? 滑雪 第几声? 滑是第二声,滑。 雪是第三声,雪。 滑雪 滑雪 周末我要去滑雪 很好

All right, now we're going to translate this. It's a little bit awkward because some of this stuff is wrong, right? But that's okay. You'll understand and then we'll go through everything. 好。 Teacher, on the weekend, I'm going to chemistry. 老师,周末我要去化学。 Teacher, on the weekend, I'm going to chemistry. 老师,周末 我要去化学。什么? What? 什么? What? 什么? 我要去化学。 I'm going to chemistry. 我要去化学。 I'm going to chemistry. 我要去化学。 你是不是想说我要去滑雪? Skiing. Are you trying to say that you want to go...

Are you trying to say that you want to go 滑雪 skiing? 我要去滑雪, skiing. 对,老师,可以再说一遍吗? Right. Teacher, could you say it one more time? 对,老师,可以再说一遍吗? 可以再说一遍吗? Yes. Teacher, could you say it one more time? 对。 老师,可以再说一遍吗? 滑雪。 Skiing。 滑雪。 Skiing. 滑雪 第几声? Which tone? 第几声? Which tone is that? 第几声? 滑是第二声 滑 是第三声 雪 滑雪 滑 is second tone 滑 雪 is third tone 雪 skiing 滑是第二声 Hwa is second tone. Hwa is third tone. Hwa is skiing. Hwa is second tone. Skiing. On the weekend, I'll go skiing.

Skiing. On the weekend, I'm going skiing. Very good. 很好。 Great. 很好。 Okay, wow, I felt like we...

Repeated that stuff so many times. So we hope these tones are making a bit of an impression. It's going to take some time and lots of exposure, but eventually you will get it if you stick at it. Now, in Chinese, there are many words with similar sounds, which can make things quite confusing, right? Right, especially these words that are exactly the same except for the tones. 对呀, and they mean completely different things.

So today the wrong word was the word that means chemistry, right? 是的。 化学。 All right, so that's fourth tone and second tone. 对。 化第四声。 Okay, fourth tone, second tone. So when he gets the tone wrong and the teacher understands that he's getting the tone wrong, what does she say? 老师说,你是不是想说? 我要去滑雪, skiing. 你是不是想说? 我要去滑雪, skiing. Okay, so let's look at the way she asks this. She starts off the sentence with... 是不是 对 你是不是想说

So, do you or not want to say? Alright, so this in Chinese is a way of verifying some information. 对, and we do that by using 是不是。 Yes or no,对吧? 是不是? Yeah, is it or not? So it's a way of verifying, like, I think this is what's going on, but could you tell me if this is correct? 对。 Now let's have a few more examples. All right. 你是不是? Okay, so is it that you don't have time to study Chinese? So if you're asking the question this way,

you're guessing that the person doesn't have time to study Chinese. Yes, exactly. Now, 是不是 is followed by a verb, usually. Okay. And more than just a verb, right? Kind of like a whole sentence. 对,对. Now let's have one more short sentence. 你是不是喜欢滑雪? 你是不是喜欢滑雪? Now let's have a short sentence. 你是不是很饿? OK, so you're really hungry, aren't you?

So you're doing something that makes me think you're really hungry and I'm verifying this guess of mine. So often the way you ask someone is 你, and then 是不是, and then the rest of the sentence. followed by a verb. It doesn't have to be, right? For example, 你是不是很饿? Yeah, it's actually the predicate. We're not going to get too grammary on you. Grammatical. All right, so after that, they talk about skiing, right? Now, I think you know by heart what the tones are now. 滑是第二身。

Okay, second tone. Okay, third tone. Now, when you're trying to get these tones straight, you're going to need lots of repetition, right? 对, so if you want someone to repeat what they've said, you can say 再说一遍,再说一遍. Okay, so literally this is again say one time. 对。 So 再 is fourth tone, right? And then 说 first tone 一遍 Okay, that's a tone change, so it's become second, fourth 再说一遍

Now if you do have a Chinese teacher, this is going to be a very useful phrase. I know a lot of my students use that with me. And you don't have to use it only with your teacher. You can say it to anybody. Okay, now we also learned a very useful question, especially if you're a teacher. You want to know which tone it is, right? So literally, number which tone? 对。 So tone number one, tone number two. 第几声? 那几就是 how many? Right.

So which number tone? That's fourth tone, third tone, and first tone. You're going over every tone, John. Tones are important, right? And it's also very topical, right? Yeah. Okay, so D. Now, there are four tones plus a neutral tone in Chinese. Yeah, can we just hear those names of the tones? I'm not going to translate them because it will be pretty obvious you're going to do them in order, right? 好 第一声 第二声 第三声 第四声 轻声 OK, so the last one was the neutral tone, right? 对 轻声

QING, that's Q-I-N-G, first tone, right? 对, QING就是 light Okay Like subdued The light tone

Okay, I think that pretty much covers all the material in this lesson. Let's go over it three more times now. Our first question is, how long will it take you to become an intermediate Chinese speaker using the ChinesePod app? Is it A. The rest of your life? B. You should already be an intermediate speaker? C. Three months? Or D.

ChinesePod has an app? That is incorrect. The correct answer is C, three months. That's right. Head over to ChinesePod.com now to register for your access to over 4,000 lessons. Get the ChinesePod app now on Google Play or the App Store. 我要去滑雪。 什么? 我要去滑雪。 你是不是想说我要去滑雪, ski? 对,老师。 可以再说一遍吗? 滑雪 第几声? 滑是第二声,滑。 雪是第三声,雪。 滑雪 滑雪 周末,我要去滑雪 很好 第二遍 老师,周末,我要去滑雪 我要去滑雪。 你是不是想说我要去滑雪, ski? 对,老师,可以再说一遍吗? 是第三声 雪 滑雪 滑雪。 周末,我要去滑雪。 很好。 第三遍。 老师,周末,我要去化雪。 什么? 我要去滑雪。 你是不是想说我要去滑雪? 对,老师,可以再说一遍吗? 滑雪。

第幾聲? 滑是第二聲,滑。 雪是第三聲,雪。 滑雪。 滑雪。 So Jenny, in this lesson, one of the grammar items we learned was about When to use the 是不是 question. And how to make the question, right? Yes. So can we have an example of that one more time? 好。 你是不是想睡觉? So you want to sleep, don't you? You want to go to sleep. Okay, now in the dialogue, we have this 是不是 question. And then the answer is... Alright, now if the question is 是不是, shouldn't the answer be 是 or 不是? Now the answer to 是不是 could be 是 or 不是

That's the most intuitive. But it could also be 对 or 不对. Okay, so there's more than one way to answer this question. Yes. Now 对 means correct, but often it means yes. So it functions in the same way as 是. Okay, so there's a little bit of overlap there. Just stay focused on where you're trying to communicate and it should make sense. 对。

Okay, so that's all we've got for the content for this lesson. But we want to remind you guys that on ChinesePod, we have a lot of resources for mastering the pinyin. We have a whole series of lessons on tones. You might want to revisit if you haven't heard them in a while. Right, and we also have a whole series on pinyin, and we have a pinyin chart that lets you hear every syllable in Chinese in whatever tone you want.

I've also found that a good way to practice tones is to pick a syllable, pick a one-character word, and just read it out loud to yourself in different tones. Right, because sooner or later you're going to run into that syllable with that tone, most likely. 对, and that way you also train yourself to hear the differences between each tone. Right, if you can pronounce it yourself, then you can recognize it when you hear it. 是的。

好,那这样, let's pick a syllable and use that as the ending for our lesson,好吗? All right, I'll pick one. How about 对? 好, 对, 对 There you have it. All right, so if you have any questions, of course, you can come to ChinesePod.com and ask us. 对, and of course, ChinesePod teachers will also help you practice tones. Yeah, you can put these phrases to use. Hao, thanks for listening. See you next time. 再见!

As usual, ChinesePod provides an extensive selection of learning materials for this lesson on its website. You can access this lesson directly with the lesson number 1436. So just go to www.chinesepod.com slash 1436 and you will find a transcript, vocabulary, and much more. The link again, www.ChinesePod.com slash 1436.