[wisty]

From what I can tell, Chinese will often drop tones, just as English will drop vowels (substituting most vowels for a schwa - a kind of "e" or "uh" sound) if the meaning is not too ambiguous.

People who learn Chinese often fret about getting the tones right. The tones just aren't that important - Chinese speakers can generally guess the meaning, though they will think you sound like a 4-year-old if you don't pronounce tones correctly. IMO, getting the vowels and consonants right is harder (and more important).

Seriously, here's the pairs you will confuse:

d / t - d is unaspirated

j / zh - j is a "cjsch" sound (a bit like "Asia") while zh is a "j" sound

q / ch - q is a "bright" (slightly whistled?) ch; ch is a "dark" ch)

x / sh - x is a "bright" sh and sh is a "dark" sh

c / s - c is a "ts", s is just s

b / p - b can sound a little closer to p than in English and p is more aspirated

g / k - g sounds a little close to k, while k is more aspirated

Then there's the vowels, which are really hard. Learning four tones is comparatively easy.

If you don't get the consonants almost 100% correct, people will simply not be able to tell what you are saying. If you don't use tones, they can usually understand, as long as you use simple words (which face it, you will).

[smugengineer69]

This is completely wrong...Do not listen to this person. I have studied Chinese my entire life and I can assure you, tones are extremely important. Tones are not "dropped", even in fast speech. The problem is actually that the above poster cannot hear them.

This idea, that tones are not important, is an extremely widespread misconception, and as I see it, relates to three factors:

1) the general poor quality of western Mandarin education, which allows foreigners to get by without properly learning tones because teachers are too nice to say anything about it,

2) The idea that Mandarin and English are massively and irreconcilably different has led to general ignorance about the language, which in turn leads to amateur-level hacks becoming "experts" by merely knowing more than the absolute minimum about the language, and

3) general politeness shown to foreigners in large Chinese tourist destinations.

Once you get beyond novelty party Chinese, you realize that to be properly understood it is absolutely imperative that your tones are correct. Or, barring that, that you make an effort. And even then it requires greater effort from the hearer to run through the often massive number of possibilities to find the correct utterance.

Please, if you are considering learning Mandarin, don't listen to anyone who tells you that tones do not matter. The above post betrays a fundamental misunderstanding about how the language is spoken.

[gbog]

"This is completely wrong"

"Do not listen to this person."

Please tone down a bit.

Moreover, I agree with grand-parent: tones should not be held as the most important part when studying Mandarin. It is not.

Tones are completely different from one part of China to the other. In Sichuanhua, a horse is MA4 (down), while it is MA3 (down-up) in Beijinghua and in Putonghua. Quite the opposite. Beside these differences, Sichuanese can be understood in Beijing.

I have been 8 years in China, I work in a Chinese company, I listen, speak, read and write Chinese (not perfectly, but good enough). I never cared that much about tones. I cared about understanding what is said and being understood.

Having enough vocab is the main issue. Knowing the different syntactic sugars used in Mandarin is another. Perfect pronunciation of Putonghua tones is of much lower importance.

[smugengineer69]

Yes, there are regional variants of Modern Standard Mandarin, but the ways in which these deviate from the proscribed standard are predictable and in fact generally internally consistent. Note, this is a separate matter from the dialects themselves, which are usually not mutually intelligible with Mandarin, although they influence the regional character of the Mandarin itself spoken there.

The thing is, subtitles are everywhere in China (Watch any movie or newscast), because it is difficult if not impossible to understand dialect speakers, and beyond that, to understand the non-standard mandarin that has been influenced by the these dialects.

The problem with the sentiment "I can get by just fine without tones"(obvious paraphrase) is that "get by just fine" and "without tones" are both statements that need further qualification.

I maintain my central point: Tones are obviously important in a tonal language, and the extent you can be understood without using them is determined almost entirely by the skill of the listener, as well as their acquaintance with other non-standard speakers and/or foreigners.

The reason for my tone in these posts is that I think this sort of attitude speaks badly for all foreigners studying Chinese. It betrays a sort of borderline arrogant exceptionalism that says "I can learn Your language, but on my terms. And in English, there are no tones". The reality is that Chinese speakers have come to expect very little from foreigners who are studying their language...and ironically this just continues the cycle, and these cocksure foreigners receive affirmation for simple, atonal phrases that native speakers must work hard to understand.

[stdbrouw]

Wisty says not pronouncing tones makes you sound like a 4-year old. That doesn't really seem equivalent to telling people that tones are irrelevant. Chillax! :-)

[mc32]

When you listen to chinese songs, there are no tones. People still understand the songs. One cannot sing tones.

[morganls]

In Thai [also tonal] people definitely sing tones. The tone is a deviation from the baseline, either up or down or falling or rising or whatnot. So even if you're singing high, you can do a low tone. May be different in Chinese [or just some Chinese music].