Don't Speak Chinese, Sing It -
Tips for foreigners learning to speak Mandarin Chinese

Edward Tsang 2008.02.12

Who am I?
I must clarify that I am not a linguist. I interact with many foreign friends, many of them want to learn to speak Chinese. Here I share my tips which some of my friends found practical.

Chinese is a tone language
There are basically four tones in Mandarin Chinese (nine tones in Cantonese, for anyone brave enough to attempt). Even if you get the pronunciation perfect, speaking it in the wrong tone could get you seriously misunderstood. For example, if you want to say "she forgot", but spoke it in the wrong tone, you might have said "she died"; "I want to ask you..." could be mistaken as "I want to kiss you...". I am sure you can think of all sort of comic or disastrous consequences following such misunderstandings :)

Singing Chinese
The best way to speak Mandarin is to SING it. Sing it to any key signature that suits you. It's the relative tone that matters. Sing the four tones as: mi re so1 so^so1.

"Speaking" Chinese by email
Writing Chinese characters take a lot of practice.

What if I am tone-blind?
It's the relative tone that matters, so even if you sing it completely out of tone, you would still be understood as long as your singing is not miles away.

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