Hi, everyone,

I'm an "alternative learner" of Chinese. I have no textbook, no teacher/tutor, no classroom experiences. I have Skritter and memrise and a couple more good apps, tons of good web sites, listen to podcasts to hear real-world prosody, and a couple good grammar books.

I haven't been able to find an answer to this question: How important is changing a syllable in a compound from its normal tone to fifth tone? For example, 还是 is in Skritter as hai2shi5. If they were separate, hai2 shi4. If in the "real world," I mistakenly pronounced 还是 as hai2shi4, how bad is that mistake? Will I be misunderstood? Will I be understood but sound like a beginner? Or is it a minor variation that would go unnoticed? (I see variation in drop/keep of final tone in varying references: maybe it's not even standardized?) There are many examples on both sides, 高兴 keeps xing4, but 小姐 drops jie3 to jie5. 电影 keeps ying3, but 地方 drops fang1 to fang5. Etc., etc.

I have extreme difficulty remembering whether the second character of a two-character word drops its tone to neutral or keeps it. Any tips, tricks, hints out there? (Same problem with 2nd and/or 3rd character of a 3-char word/phrase.) Is it meaningful enough that I should be marking it "Forgot" (as I have been doing) if I get the change/no-change in tone wrong? Or is this a "So-so" because it doesn't make that big a difference or there are differences in usage anyway? Or does it really not matter that much or is not standardized in the real world and I should just count it correct and move on?

Thanks!!!
-DG

P.S. I am not, btw, asking about tone sandhi, the fixed rules of tones changing based on their phonological environment, e.g. ni3hao3 -> ni2hao3 or bu4shi4 -> bu2shi4. Those are clearly important, but are also regular and relatively easy to remember.

Generally you wouldn't be misunderstood, especially if your pronunciation is good otherwise, but a native speaker will notice it. I make this mistake sometimes and my tutor always corrects me, as she does when I mix up other tones.

Whenever I mix up the tones, my girlfriend has no idea what I am saying. She equates tonal mistakes to saying a completely different word in English. Readers, and listeners become lost.

I somewhat disagree with the above, you can make mistakes with tones and still be understood. Even advanced learners make such mistakes. In fact, Chinese speakers do it too, though most often it happens with children.

People can guess what you are saying through context, especially if the other words you have spoken are pronounced well and in the correct tones. However, the more mistakes you make, the harder it is for listeners to understand and the more you will sound like a beginner.

The goal should always be to reduce mistakes, in my opinion. Mixing fourth tone with neutral IS a mistake and it is definitely worth correcting. I personally think it's a less dramatic mistake than mixing, say, fourth and third tones. . . but I'm not sure what a native speaker would think.

As for when to use neutral tone, I think this just has to be memorized. If you have the chance to hear and speak Chinese more it will become more natural to you. For example, I never thought about 还是的是 being neutral in tone, but when I think about it, that's how I pronounce it.

If you like grammar, there are some "rules" on neutral tone sandhi, for example if second syllable is repetition drop to fifth (太太), second syllable doesn't add to meaning drop to fifth (里头), overlapping meaning of syllables drop to fifth (衣服) etc. - should be in your grammar books. But wouldn't waste too much time on learning fifth and remembering which words drop to fifth, you will naturally drop to fifth as speech becomes more natural and you imitate speakers around you. Some chinese speaking areas (e.g. taiwan) don't drop to fifth that much, and is no problem with people understanding them, so don't waste your time on this is my thought.

I think it depends a bit on the specific word how bad the mistake is. When I was in China my teacher seemed to indicate that 还是 could sometimes be acceptably pronounced as hai2shi4, perhaps depending on the context, but she wasn't very clear and moved on quickly. 厉害 is a word I've frequently heard pronounced 'wrong' by native speakers (i.e. li4hai4 rather than li4hai5), but whether they were doing this deliberately for emphasis or some other reason I'm not entirely sure. Then there are examples which have different standards in mainland China and Taiwan - iirc 先生 is xian1sheng5 on the mainland and xian1sheng1 in Taiwan - so if you say xian1sheng1 on the mainland you're just going to sound Taiwanese, and vice versa.

Thanks, everyone, for your thoughts and experiences. It sounds like the upshot is that final-syllable drops to neutral are somewhat predictable (thanks, ricksh) but vary geographically and even in a given locale are not 100% clearly defined. I think ricksh's advice makes the most sense - this will come naturally with a developing "ear" for Chinese, so don't spend too much time on it now. Practical result: I think I'll switch to marking words "so-so" (instead of "forgot") if the _only_ mistake I make is on the final syllable drop/no drop. I'll still strive to get them right, but I'm not going to beat myself over the head with them any more. ;-)

And just so it's clear -- this is NOT about "tone" in general. Clearly, tone is a major semantic component and critical to comprehension. If I miss the actual tone of a character, I always count myself wrong. In fact, I saw a link somewhere recently whose headline was that tone carries more information in Chinese than vowels do. I'll have to try to track that down...

I would like to add that I agree with ricksh and KingWang. In general you will be understood, but it varies word by word. In Taiwan fewer tones are dropped so I generally asume that a tone is not dropped if I don't know for sure and I can list some observations of when I am being misunderstood. And I cannot take the proper tone dropping from skritter as it only follows the standard pronounciation, therefore I often resolve to trial-and-error:

My personal top three in ascending importance is:
-tone dropping is important on words like 哥哥. It's not that you won't be understood in context, but it will sound very unnatural and people might have to stop and think.
- if the second syllable is 子 but doesn't mean child or son then it's very important to change to 5th to be understood, e.g. 電子，包子，瓜子⋯
- knowing when to change to fifth on words with two third tones is very important. I had the biggest problems when saying dumplings: 水餃 and 餃子

I want to add on to what Herakles said, also living in Taiwan. He makes very valid points but my experience has varied ever so slightly, and I would almost have to compare where we live in Taiwan to see why it varies.

For example, if I say 哥哥 as 2 first tone characters, I will never be looked at strangely, and I have never changed the second 哥 to the fifth tone.

Having a 5th tone on the 子 I agree with, but knowing the proper tone will save you a lot of frustration when confusion occurs.

And now, I have to add my own personal rant. You can check books and memorize rules all day long, but get outside and make the mistakes, get misunderstood, listen to a native speaker and try to copy them. Eventually you won't even have to think about the tone, and to me that is the kind of fluency I am striving for. However, you can never do that until you go outside and make the mistakes, same as we did in our native tongue, and they same as Chinese speakers do.

Now, if you want a real test of tones in Taiwan, try your hand at a little Taiwanese ;)

Edit: In regards to 餃子, I thought that was fifth tone on the 子 regardless... Every time I see 餃子 though, it is just a fried dumpling, so calling it 鍋貼 has never led me wrong. Now I am curious about it and I will ask a few people later.