Tones

In Mandarin, words that have the same pronunciation can have different meanings depending on how the word is said. The "tone" of a word describes how the pitch changes as the word is spoken.

Tones are a vital part of speaking Mandarin. You might have a huge vocabulary, you might know your grammar by heart….but get your tones wrong, and no-one will understand a word you say.
People studying Mandarin often find tones the most difficult part of the language, at least at the beginning. But because MandarinTube teaches through real life situations you'll be able to see how tones are used in everyday speech - which will help you understand and use tones properly from the very beginning of your studies.

So let's start by taking a look at the basics.

We've made it as easy as possible There are four "tones" in Mandarin, each represented in pinyin by marks above the words. The absence of a tone also has meaning.
For example, the word "ma" can have a number of different meanings depending on how it is said.

Word with tone	Description of tone	Description of tone	Name of tone
mā	Mother	The straight line over the word indicates that the word should be said with a flat and unchanging high tone.	1st tone
má	To bother	The mark going up above the word indicates the word should be said in a rising tone.	2nd tone
mǎ	Horse	The down and then up mark above the word indicates that the word should be said with a falling and then rising tone.	3rd tone
mà	To scold	The down mark above the word indicates that the word should be said with a falling tone.	4th tone
ma	Grammatical marker used in a question.	When a word has no tone or mark above the word it is said to be neutral and is pronounced in an abbreviated manner with no emphasis.	Neutral

Using tones 1, 3, 4, and 5 in order we can form the sentence: mā mà mǎ ma?
This sentence asks the question: Did mother scold the horse?

The following diagram shows how the tones are pronounced in relation to each other.

Pronunciation Hint:

Tones is variation in pitch by which a syllable can be pronounced.All Chinese pinyin are marked with one of four tones.The four tones are as follows:

1^st tone-singing tone;high,flat,continuous

2^nd tone-rising;similar to the intonation used to ask a question in English,like”oh?”

3^rd tone-dip tone;falls and then rises

4^th tone-falling tone,sharo like when you holler”boo!”

These tones are incredible important.If you get them wring,people will not understand what you are saying.Many syllables in pinyin have dramatically different meanings depending on the tone.take for instance the pinyin construction bao:

First tone:bāo包wrap

Second tone: báo薄thin

Third tone：bǎo保guarantee

Fourth tone: bào抱hug

So as you can see, if you’re not carful you will accidentally tell soneone that you want to hug them,when in fact,you just want to give them a guarantee.

Change of tone
The tone of a word sometimes changes when used in a sentence depending on the tone of the word that precedes or comes after it.
Rule 1: If a 3rd tone is followed by a 3rd tone, the first 3rd tone becomes second tone.
Example: The word for "hello" in Mandarin is: nǐhǎo which literally means "You good." When these two words are pronounced separately, they are both pronounced using the third tone. When they are used together to form the word "hello" ni takes the second tone and hao remains in third tone.
Note that the word nǐhǎo is still written with two third tones, but it is said with the the nǐ in second tone.
Rule 2: If a 3rd tone is followed by any tone other than the 3rd tone (covered by rule 1) the 3rd tone changes to a "half 3rd tone." A "half 3rd tone" is one that falls, but does not rise.
Example: ni mamma
Rule 3: The word "bu" is 4th tone, but when it is followed by another 4th tone, it becomes 2nd tone.
Rule 4: Rules concerning the word "yi."
The word "yi" is 1st tone when used as part of a number (yi, er, san, ... shiyi).
The word "yi" is 4th tone when preceding 1st, 2nd, or 3rd tones. (yi ge ren)
The word "yi" is 2nd tone when preceding a 4th tone.