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[–] Whitemail 0 points 2 points (+2|-0) ago 

I know a little bit of Mandarin Chinese, and the beginnings and endings of syllables are so limited that you can make a list of them without it being a mile long. All syllables end in n, ng, r (thick Chinese r), or various vowel sounds. Apparently, it was so limited that they came up with the idea of quadrupling the possibilities by adding a tonal system to their speech that works as follows:

  1. High pitched like the "may" in a hesitant "maaaaaybe."

  2. Rising like a surprised "what?"

  3. Generally low pitched like the uh in "uhh, I think so." When using a third tone alone, it is a drop with a slight raise on the end (nothing in English like this).

  4. Starting high and dropping like an annoyed "What?" or an emphatic "no!"

Of course when speaking with tones you shouldn't be so dramatic and emotional, but those are some English-speaker hints to get your voice in the right place. There are also some rare examples of no tone words represented by 0 if need be. Also, the no tone is sometimes used when doubling something like in xie4 xie0.

This presents a problem for Chinese singing, so they end up dropping the tones for music. Generally, Chinese people like the words on the screen when they're listening to music instead of having every syllable be 4 unknown possibilities.

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[–] ZombiesAreNigs 0 points 1 point (+1|-0) ago 

To add to this although slightly off topic, context can pretty much indicate what words are what without knowing the tones, which is helpful for those just starting out and don't have tones memorized for most words. Also be thankful it's mandarin and not cantonese that is the #1 spoken language in the world. That dialect has 8 tones... no thanks lol.