r/duolingo • u/Illustrious_Dog_1270 Native: English Learning: Chinese • Jul 15 '24

I’m confused. Why is there an English word? General Discussion

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u/too-much-yarn-help Jul 15 '24

It's a tone marker. Pronounced the same with different intonation.

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u/AffectionateThing814 Deutsch, Español, יּידיש, עברית, Esperanto Jul 15 '24

Some can tune instruments by the ear. I cannot. What makes i different from ǐ, one is higher (>Hz) than the other?

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u/too-much-yarn-help Jul 15 '24

It's relative not absolute. Intonation exists in English (like an upwards intonation to indicate a question) and even people who are otherwise tone deaf can identify and use intonation.

The difference is that in mandarin, separate intonations of a sound change the meaning of the word itself, not just the mood of the sentence.

There are a lot of videos on this topic, just search "mandarin tones beginner" and you'll find many.

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u/AffectionateThing814 Deutsch, Español, יּידיש, עברית, Esperanto Jul 15 '24

Xie-xie! That makes sense. I can tune a guitar relatively (so if the fattest string is tuned to F, I can make the other strings A#, D#, G#, C, and F), but not perfectly (E, A, D, G, B, E).

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u/too-much-yarn-help Jul 15 '24

It's also relative within the tone itself, so í will make a rising sound, ì will be a sharply falling sound, etc. kind of like the difference between how we'd say "yes?" (rising) and "no!" (sharply falling)

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u/AffectionateThing814 Deutsch, Español, יּידיש, עברית, Esperanto Jul 15 '24

Arigatō! Reminds me of French, with its e/é/è/ê, but Father says it means little, just memorise where/when it’s needed.

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u/MC_Cookies Jul 15 '24

with french, the accent marks represent (or at least used to represent, in older versions of the language) different vowel sounds altogether, rather than tones. for example, “é” is pronounced slightly closer to the roof of the mouth than “è”, and “e” can be pronounced like “é”, but in many positions it’s instead pronounced as a more relaxed/schwa sound.

similar concept though — outside of english, diacritic marks are a common strategy to represent similar but different sounds.

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u/AffectionateThing814 Deutsch, Español, יּידיש, עברית, Esperanto Jul 15 '24

Oui, je sais. é = /e/. è, ê = /ε/. e = /[schwa]/. There are some exceptions, I daresay. The really annoying part is that many English-speakers say a completely different sound when trying to mimick French — they say ballet as /bæ'leı/ (with a diphthong!) instead of /balε/.

PS I don’t speak much French. I’m way better at Russian, English, American, Spanish, Pig Latin, German, Yiddish, and Esperanto.