Tones! Those Damn Tones!
I am making ok progress in Vietnamese. Granted, I’ve only had two 1 1/2 hour lessons so far. I’m pretty solid in the sounds of each letter and a couple of the letter combinations, but the tones….well, let’s just say they continue to elude me.
I have three of the tones down just fine. The rising tone and the repeat (as I call them) tones are pretty easy and I usually apply those correctly. The falling tones are a different story. Whenever I try words with the falling tones my tutor says I’ve either just kept the tone flat or even made it rise sometimes. Every now and then she’ll tell me I got it, but I cannot reproduce it on demand. Anyone have any suggestions on training my mouth to consistently create a falling tone while saying a word? It sounds silly, but for some reason I just can’t get it, yet.
Distinguishing the tones while someone else is talking is also kind of hard. I’m sure it will take a lots of listening to get to the point of understanding a native speaker.
March 25th, 2008 at 3:42 PM
The tones took me a long time, so if you’re already getting some of them, you’re not doing too bad!!
One bit of advice, if I may. Think musically and find your “dau khong” and work from there. There has to be a reason they call them tones.
Good luck!
March 25th, 2008 at 7:28 PM
Damn I bought a CD set in hopes of tackiling this too but from what you are telling me I will never be able to do it!!! I think I will resort to plain old English.
March 27th, 2008 at 11:01 PM
That is really cool though, I didn’t know you were having lessons. That is awesome!
April 11th, 2008 at 12:33 AM
It takes time to master the tones. I know it’s hard but do not give up. Lori is right. To master the vietnamese tones you have to actually sing them. The same problem for us when we learn english, its intonation and stress. For example in english you pronounce “table” think of it musically it actually is “thấy” “bồ” not “thây” “bồ”. Am I right?
April 12th, 2008 at 1:55 PM
I hope this link will help you out:
http://www.languagehack.com/2007/11/13/vietnamese-pronunciation-guide-with-audio-samples-of-the-six-tones/
Jonathan reply on April 13th, 2008:
Thanks! My tutor noticed something about my pronouncing the . tone. For instance the word for bicycle (xe dap) I pronounced correctly, but the word for rice seedling (ma) I’m having a lot of trouble with. She said I’m pronouncing the . tone correctly when there is another letter after it, but not when it ends the word.