How to learn Chinese tones as an adult: what research shows (video)
Train your ear first, practise two-syllable words, keep the third tone low and get feedback on your voice. The evidence for each step, plus a tone lab.
Chapters
- 0:00Start
- 0:20The short answer
- 0:39Why tones are hard
- 1:52Ear first, then speak
- 2:19Practise in pairs
- 2:40The third tone and tone 2
- 3:25Light tone and tone changes
- 4:14Feedback and shadowing
- 5:18How long, and a plan
- 6:17Where SayMei fits
Transcript
Start
Adults who have never studied Mandarin can already tell its tones apart better than chance. So why do tones feel so hard? Because the hard part comes later: storing each tone as part of the word. From SayMei Guides, by Mei Lin: how to learn Chinese tones as an adult, and what the research shows.
The short answer
The short answer: yes, adults can learn Mandarin tones. Train your ear first, then your mouth, and practise two-syllable words. In one study, eight listening sessions over two weeks raised tone identification by 21%, and the gain held six months later.
Why tones are hard
Why are tones hard? English uses pitch across whole sentences. So your ear has never filed a syllable's pitch as part of the word. Take 16 English speakers with about 11 years of Mandarin. On single syllables, they named tone 2 correctly 77% of the time. Native listeners: 93%. But fake words that differed only in tone? Just 35%, against 91%. So can context save you? Researchers flattened the pitch of Mandarin sentences. In a quiet room, native listeners still understood 94%. In noisy babble, natural speech scored 80%, and flattened speech fell to 60%. Context rescues you at a quiet table. In a busy restaurant, it can't. Mandarin has four tones, plus a light one called the neutral tone. Tone 1 is high and level: 师, teacher. Tone 2 rises from the middle: 时, time. Tone 3 is low: 始, to begin. Tone 4 falls from the top: 视, to look at. And the light tone has no shape of its own.
Ear first, then speak
So start with your ears. In a 1999 study, eight learners trained for eight sessions over two weeks. Their tone identification rose 21% on the trained words, 18% on new words and 25% on new voices. Six months later, the gain was still 21%. But across 25 years of studies, the effect on speaking was about half as big. So say every word out loud from week one.
Practise in pairs
Next, practise in pairs. Tones change shape next to each other. In one study, new learners learned tones less well in two-syllable words. So drilling single syllables is a start. Saying 明天, tomorrow, and 电影, movie, trains tones the way you'll actually use them.
The third tone and tone 2
Is the third tone low or dipping? Usually low. It dips and rises only on its own or at the end of a phrase. In 好吃, tasty, the first syllable falls and never rises. In 你好, hello, it climbs, because the next syllable is also tone 3. Yet 14 of 15 beginner textbooks described tone 3 as falling and rising. Tone 2 and tone 3 are the pair to watch. Tone 2 turns up early, after a small dip. Tone 3 sinks further and turns late, if at all. Listen for the turn. And use more of your range: native Chinese speakers use a pitch range about 1.5 times wider than English speakers do in English.
Light tone and tone changes
What about the light tone? It's short, with no shape of its own, and its pitch follows the syllable before it. It sits low after tone 4, as in 谢谢, thank you. In one study, learners' light tones were mainly too long. So say 妈妈, mom, and shorten the second syllable until it nearly disappears. Then learn three tone changes on day one. When two third tones meet, the first one rises, so 水果, fruit, starts like tone 2. One, 一, changes before a fourth tone, as in 一样, the same. And not, 不, changes too, as in 不是, is not. Dictionaries keep writing the original tones, so learn the spoken forms by ear.
Feedback and shadowing
Can a screen help? In four small studies, seeing your own pitch curve improved tone accuracy. And how you're corrected matters. In a 14-week course with 41 learners, beginners whose teacher simply repeated the word back correctly improved their tones more than those given explicit correction. And automatic checkers? SayMei's free Tone Checker checks one word at a time. In our test of 4,344 recordings, it named the intended tone 84% of the time, but only 66% on tone 3. Every test voice was computer-generated, and we haven't measured it on human learners yet. So use apps for repetition, and a human for diagnosis. Shadowing can help: you speak along with a recording, a split second behind it. In a study of 14 beginners, four weeks of shadowing improved tone accuracy in free speech. And in a study of 106 people, pitch gestures, like a hand that rises for tone 2, improved tone identification.
How long, and a plan
So how long does this take? Adults new to tonal languages improved in four days, an hour a day. But using tones automatically in real words takes years. And the claim that most learners master tones in two to three months? I couldn't find a study that supports it. And you're almost certainly not tone deaf. The old figure of 4% came from a single 1980 estimate. A test of 20,000 people put it at about 1.5%. Even people who have it learned new word tones in a training study. Here's a six-week plan, at 10 to 15 minutes a day. Week one, hear single tones. Week two, tone pairs. Week three, say words and check them. Week four, the low third tone and the three changes. Week five, the light tone and shadowing. Week six, speak with feedback. Keep a fixed list of ten words, and re-test yourself once a week.
Where SayMei fits
Where does SayMei fit? Our free tools cover listening and single-word checking: a pinyin chart, a tone-pair trainer, the Tone Checker and a tone sandhi checker. Mei Lin gives you spoken practice. None of it replaces a teacher's ear for persistent errors. What to do next? Test your ear today with the tone 2 versus tone 3 round. Say every word out loud. Keep the third tone low. And ask a teacher to check the same words you practise every day. You can talk with Mei Lin for free: your first lesson is 10 minutes, with no account and no card. The tone lab and every study are on the page at saymei dot app.