::headdesk:: chinese. argh.

[permetaform]

TONE SHIFTS.

dude, no WONDER I was getting so confused with the accents. asklhdfukjh.

Comments

[andmydog.livejournal.com]

Chinese breaks my head. Why do all the fascinating languages have to be so damn complex?!

[permetaform]

but it's so pretty! _{would it be facinating if it's not complex? ;D}

[permetaform]

Latin? ::ganders.quails.ducks:: heh, see, with chinese at least all I need to learn is how to write it; with Latin, god, I think I would turn into one big puddle of "buh?"

[penm.livejournal.com]

Mandarin. I used to take Oriental studies in grade three and gave up because it was too hard. I wish I'd stuck with it. I want to learn so badly now but I'll never have a native accent.

Can you speak cantonese?

[permetaform]

nope, mainland. Actually some of it might've filtered in if you're around family who speak it often...I'm trying to teach myself more of it and finding that I knew more than I thought I knew. =)

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

Japanese does my head in more than enough, I don't think I'd ever consider trying Chinese!

[permetaform]

XD You sorta know half of it already, no?

[franzeska]

Yeah, but Chinese grammar is massively easier than Japanese grammar. (For a speaker of English anyway.)

[ninhursag.livejournal.com]

Urgh. Yeah, I guess Chinese is pretty much out of the question for those of us who are mostly tone deaf.

[permetaform]

heh, you know, I wonder now if people from cultures with tonal languages are less tone deaf than people from other cultures. o.0

[kokkoryuha.livejournal.com]

... Having heard Sinhalese (the language of Sri Lanka), this sounds almost easy 0.o (Our friend spoke to us in his native language and it seriously sounds like a bunch of "aws" strung together... And then I went "0.o")

(And yet, Japanese makes sense to me... And I'm excited about learning it)

[permetaform]

I don't think I've ever heard Sinhalese before, which actually would be interesting, 'cause do their language derive more from India or from Indonesia and the other islands?

and, ooo, you're learning japanese?

[tehshiny.livejournal.com]

Heh. People used to tell me that English is the hardest language to learn due to all the exceptions and I'd tell them "Try learning Mandarin." >:D

[andtheafterglow.livejournal.com]

SERIOUSLY!!

also, hello wifey. :D

[permetaform]

but but but, verbs. and idioms. eeeesh.

[andtheafterglow.livejournal.com]

i've been studying chinese for about a year now.. it's brutal, but i really, really love it. :)

[permetaform]

i've been studying chinese for about a year now.. it's brutal

XD for some reason that's hightly appropriate and funny all at once

[coloredink.livejournal.com]

Ah ha ha ha I didn't know about the tone shift thing at all until I took Chinese at Cal last year. And then I was like, "Oh. Oh yeah." It's one of those things I've always done automatically without realizing there were "rules" for it. I didn't realize how hard little things like that would be for people who weren't native speakers.

[permetaform]

dude, I *am* a native speaker and got SO CONFUSED studying the accents 'cause they made no sense when I was trying to pronounce the silly thing. THIS IS WHY. ::headdesks:: _{so confused, BUT NOW THERE IS LIGHT! BWHAHAHAHA!}

[wintersweet.livejournal.com]

HAHAHAHAAHsuck. Yeah. I know.

I hate the way native speakers can't understand me when I get the tones wrong. >_< Reason #6398 that I'm kind of switching to Japanese.

[permetaform]

o.0 Japanese isn't tonal?

[majinkarp.livejournal.com]

Yeah, this is in our Chinese textbook--it's called tone sandhi. Sandhi or not, I still can't even distinguish the third tone when I hear it.

[permetaform]

well, heh, considering it's usage, I can barely think of a usage where the third tone is isolated anyhoo. It's half and half, the merciful goddess of accents...::wry grin::

[guede-mazaka.livejournal.com]

You didn't get the tone shift thingy? Seriously? I mean, I don't speak Mandarin that well, but that sort of shift just seems to flow naturally with how you breathe. When my tutor got around to telling me, it sorta seemed like a 'duh' rule to me. It's impossible to pronounce three third tones in a row as three third tones unless you talk really, really slowly.

[permetaform]

Well, I got it on a spoken level, but I was learning the accents to help me learn how to write in Chinese and I got horribly messed up each time I tried to apply what I know of Chinese to what I'm learning to write Chinese...