Hi there,

I have been learning a heap of "...边“ and "...面“ words in the last week.
But i nearly go crazy on learning the tones.
While my book says that 边 is pronounciated with 1st tone in combination with all the words listed at the page i am just learning, skritter says that the "边“ in 北边，东边 is pronounciated with 1st tone, while “边” in 南边 and 西边 aren't really pronounciated (5th "tone" in skritter).

Such differences over 20 different "...边“-words make learning more difficult, but okay, i thought "this may be a problem on learning chinese, not a problem by learning chinese with skritter.", so i exported all those "...边“ 20 characters to write them down on a paper in a structured way. That helped me knowing which 边 is pronounciated how.

10 minutes before writing this post, i logged in to skritter to do my daily exercises. The last tones skritter asked me for were the tones for "北边“. Since yesterday i knew "ha, thats tone 1!", but skritter said: "No."
Really, the notes i wrote down are.... outdated?

How can that be? I mean, it's possible that i did a mistake while writing down the words and tones on paper, but i am pretty sure i did it right.
My book, http://dict.leo.org and http://de.mdbg.net/handedict/ tell me to pronounce 边 in "南边“ and "北边“ with 1st tone, skritter says something different. And it seems to change its opinion on that from time to time.

Am i wrong? Are those web-dictionaries wrong? Is skritter wrong? Is china wrong?

Please don't interpret this as a furious complaint. I am only a bit confused, since i don't speak much chinese with chinese people, so i nearly don't have any experience how bad it is to all those pronounce position-words wrong.

Greetings from Aachen, Germany

Chinese Pera-kun says that 边 in 北边 is first tone, while nciku says it's neutral. This is probably an inconsistency in Chinese rather than in Skritter.

I have also noticed several words in Skritter where the tone has changed over time. Presumably this is because the Skritter Gods have decided to use a "more correct" pronunciation?

James

Listening to chinesepod.com, I have heard John Pasden (sinosplice.com) emphasize that traditionally the tones are marked in writing pinyin with the tone assigned to the character even if the accepted pronunciation is different from that.

I have run into the inconsistency on skritter that you have mentioned with 边 and 面 as mentioned, and have assumed that it is "explained" by the fact that sometimes it is marked as the tone of the character and sometimes is marked as a "real" pronunciation.

It would be nice if it were consistent one way or the other, but difficult to say which is better, as it is rooted in inconsistency between the written and spoken language. For us learners, I suppose it would be easier to have it always go in the direction of real life speech, but it may also be important to understand the way the pinyin is used in China.

I've complained about alternative pronunciations from time to time, and I think it's on the "fix eventually" list. Apparently, there's no easy way to make it accept different tones at the word level right now, so you get to whatever random selection is in the database. They can't do everything at once...

@arp: One of the problems with writing the tones "as in the character" vs. "as pronounced" has to do with tone sandhi. Many of the words from Chinesepod, for example, came over to Skritter without proper sandhi, so you would get all sorts of wrong tones on 一 and 不.

Another issue is that characters legitimately change pronunciation when they are combined in different words. For example, 票 can take first, third, or fourth tone depending on what word it's in. However, within a certain word, it needs to take the tone that goes with that word.

James

Sorry about leading you astray, jacekg--it was just inconsistency on our part.

For compounds ending in -边 or -面, you can choose to say it neutral or you can keep the character's original tone. I'm not sure if it's all compounds like that or just most, but we've been slowly standardizing on changing them all to neutral tones, as more sources and experience indicate that's what's usually said in the mainland.

Taiwan tends to use less neutral tones, so I bet they're usually not neutral there--but we have to choose and so choose mainland pronunciations over Taiwanese ones.

But I've been saying I'm going to do this, and now I've just done it: if 边, 面, 里, 上, 下, 来, 去, or 起 has a neutral tone in a word and you write the full tone, it will accept it. Now Skritter will quit fussing about your neutrals and you can pick kànshangqu or kànshàngqù, běibian or běibiān.

There are probably tons of other characters that could frequently go either way, so let me know here or send feedback from the practice page when you see them. For example, 咳嗽 could be késou or késòu, so I'll add 嗽 to that list. I _think_ the same can go for 方 (bǐfangshuō vs. bǐfāngshuō).

Characters like 了, 不, 的, 得, and most other characters, which only turn neutral in certain words (like 妈妈 -> māma or 衣服 -> yīfu), will still require the neutral tone in the word.

It works. Very nice. :-)

Thank you!

Thanks - I've had the same issue with a lot of those 边 ones and I've been just marking them right and feeling a bit guilty. Now I don't feel guilty anymore!

Perfect timing -- I added those words very recently!

Thank you! This seems like a good compromise; at least I can now use the tones I learned when studying Chinese. But in general I think that Skritter as a "writing" site should lean towards the writing standard, and not be too focused on spoken Chinese (at least when they are in apparent conflict).

I get this too - even in person. For example 朋友 is either peng2you5 or peng2you3 depending on the textbook and/or speaker (I even have one text that says it differently in the same book); Northerners tend to use the neutral tone and Southerners tend to use the third tone.

Some words have different meanings in different parts of the country too. For example, 咱们 zan2men5 means "us" inclusive of the speaker but in the north people use it sometimes to refer to themselves (e.g. 咱们家 - my family). I had figured Skritter was right and that I was making a minor mistake with the tones for 。。边 and 。。面 but I was marking myself correct anyways because I was sure that people would understand me either way.