大家好朋友们
I recently learn chinese grammar starting from dou, yiyang, chaobuduo, etc. But what makes me curious, was people (I mean chinese speakers) is always using grammar properly?
furthermore, i found its quite difficult to differentiate tones. i kept wrong on guessing tone. Some words might sound funny if you take the wrong tone. Does tone really matter in conversation?
Hi Michael
1 As a Chinese native speaker, I'd say 『dou yi yang 』and 『cha bu duo 』are basically the same in oral chinese. If you have to know the difference, when people say 『cha bu duo 』,that means there's still a little bit difference between those two things they mentioned, they're not exactly the same.
2 Tones are important in chinese. It does matter in conversation. Different tones could mean totally different things. That's why we (chinese from different provinces) can't even communicate, although we all speak chinese. Because there're so many dialects that make us confused, not to mention the foreigners.
Tones
Yes, people can understand you with a wrong tone but not all people will understand you. If you have a strong accent from your mother tongue influencing your Chinese, the listener has to tune in to your version Chinese. If they have no experience of hearing your type of accent, they will go "huh". This will be made worse if you have the wrong tone.
If you speak most of the sentence with a correct tones and then get the tone wrong for a few words, yes, you can still be understood because of the context of the sentence. But there can still be amusing errors. 气管炎vs 妻管严
Now, you might say both Chinese teachers and overseas Chinese can understand your tone errors you so you get a bit lazy on learning the tones. However, those people are very experienced in listening to second language learners and can still pick up the meanings. When you meet Chinese people who have less international exposure, you will definitely realise how important the tones are and your deficiencies. As well as learning tones of individual words, repeat them in short phrases of sentences that you might use normally. That helps reinforce the correct tone but it's difficult to get it 100% right.
I guess the answer would be yes. When people talking to foreigners who are trying to speak their languages, they would always try their best to understand what is being said,even the tone was wrong.
dear yannick..
i know, but can people actually understand what I am saying even when they know the tone was wrong ?
