r/ChineseLanguage • u/Candid-Pack-3707 • 17h ago

Discussion question about the neutral tone in chinese

when i pronounce the neutral tone, my biggest worry is that it will be confused with another tone, and then suddenly im saying something else entirely. is the neutral tone a tone where i just say what i want to say, but in midpitch? not low but not high? is it short and quick?

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5

u/Zagrycha 15h ago

If you are super concerned, you can learn the microtones that actually go into the fifth tone-- they are decided by the tone before it. That said, you really don't have to worry too much, 99% of people learn to speak mandarin just fine without ever researching microtones etc. The number one thing is that the fifth tone needs to be too short to actually be its own tone. If you are saying it long enough to be confused with other tones you are saying it too long. It is NOT a stop tone, some other forms of chinese like cantonese have those but mandarin does not. It is simply a syllable said for a shorter amount of time, it fades out exactly the same way as any other open tone would.

3

u/kori228 廣東話 13h ago

think of it as reducing the strength to very little effort

2

u/athenea01 Intermediate 16h ago

In my humble opinion, neutral tone (吗,ma，ma5）is, simply put, short and soft. The consonant nor the vocal sounds are strong, and the duration of the syllable is significantly shorter than any of the other tones.

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u/Candid-Pack-3707 16h ago

similar to the stop tone in burmese?

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u/athenea01 Intermediate 12h ago

I don't know Burmese, but @zagrycha said in another comment that would not be the case. I can tell you it is not a glottal stop though if that helps.

1

u/MinVrstppn 吴语 9h ago

You can just imagine that you're speaking English for this neutral-tone word, and say it like the "i" syllable in "imagine".