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Mandarin Chinese |
| In Chinese if you change the tone you change the meaning. There are 4 main tones - for the 5th tone see "Tones". Listen to these examples and repeat them, first across the rows then down the columns: |
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High 1 = ¯ |
Short rise 2 = ´ |
Short
fall |
Fall |
|
| ma (mother) |
ma (numb) |
ma (horse) |
ma (scold) |
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| bi (force) |
bi (nose) |
bi (write) |
bi (must) |
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| o (moan of pain) |
o (is that so?) |
/ | o (I see) |
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| shu (book) |
shu (which one?) |
shu (potato) |
lu (road) |
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| yu (mud) |
yu (fish) |
yu (house) |
lu (green) |
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| ze (wealth) |
he (why?) |
ci (this) |
e (burp) |
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| / | er (son) |
er (ear) |
er (two) |
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We
follow the Chinese government's Pinyin spelling. The
tone is identified by an accent or by the tone number (1-5), for example:
"hé", "he´", or "he2".
Strange:
there's no single "e" sound in Chinese. "u" is
as in French 'tu'. 'u' is always "u" after j, q, x and
y. Otherwise it ryhmes with 'who' except after L or N, where either may
occur.
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Our warmest thanks go to ...
| Speaker | Geographical origin | Date of recording | Approx age |
|
Wang
Kui |
Mianyang,
Sichuan Mianyang, Sichuan |
April
13th, 2002 April 13th, 2002 |
35
34 |
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