Mandarin Chinese tones – sound only approach

Mandarin Chinese tones – sound only approach

By Vladimir Skultety M.A., B.A.

I would try to talk about and build on a concept I wrote about in my earlier posts – to try to develop a system, in which students would remember Mandarin words without consciously knowing what tones or tonal combinations are in them and pronounce them correctly using less effort.

As the topic is quite complex, I would first like to go back to 2 earlier articles I wrote about tones and develop the thought from there.

Post from 11.30.2011 (edited):

When I first came to Taiwan, I remember being tired after even a 10-15 minute Mandarin conversation. I was unable to use the words I had learned before effortlessly even after I’ve used them a hundred times in conversation practice. Each time I wanted to use these words I had to make at least some effort in recalling them and constantly think of the tones, which was very tiring.