I’m 25% Thai 25% Lao and 50% Vietnamese. I’m a US citizen, was born in Boston,MA and have been raised all my life here in US. I’ve always been intrigued to learn & study about different nationalities, languages & cultures. However, at the moment, I’m only fluent in 5 of the 8 languages that I can speak & understand. In my opinion, having the ability to be able to speak different languages, is just a rare valuable gift!!!
Thank you so much for these amazing and informative videos Stuart. You are my greatest inspiration in learning languages. As for a Burmese native speaker, I can speak fluently ofc but I couldn't understand the Burmese vowel and tonal system. We haven't learnt this clearly in our high school so I was very confused.(Btw, we have now the new high school curriculum and they have included the section of vowel and tonal system.) Please do more videos about tones and vowels and please also include Burmese. I want to discuss with you about languages if possible one day. Now, I am learning Thai and also willing to learn Mandarin one day. Thank you.
We’ve got to protect Stuart at all cost, this man is specialllll… thank you stuart for all of the amazing and informative videos. I love the way you break things down in simple terms for us to understand tones. Always felt there was a connection between ‘Xieng’ in Thai/Lao and ‘Tieng’ in Vietnamese. You confirmed it. How is it possible for Vietnamese and Tai languages to have almost the same set of loans from Chinese and still be from two different language families? It’s puzzling to me. Basic words such as cat/meo found across Tai languages also found in Vietnamese. It’s almost as if Vietnamese speakers were once Tai speaking or possibly heavily influenced by Tai speakers. Vietic sounds so different from Mon-Khmer. Too often I have mistaken Vietnamese as Thai in public
I don't see contents like these that much. I really like these contents since it is so interesting to watch as a language learner. Keep up with the content!! ^^
You are even more knowledgeable in tonal languages than many scholars! The in-depth understanding and the ability to learn all these languages are mind-blowing to me.
no I wasn't buckled up; I was practicing my Korean penmanship but I went along for the ride anyway, despite planning to just take a look and watch later! Really cool stuff. Mimicking native speakers of Mandarin (in both "proper" and colloquial speech) was enough for me to realize tones are more than just pitch - if I hear native speakers always adding a certain vocal quality to a tone, why shouldn't I? And since I'll likely be exploring Vietnamese more, it was great to see how they related to the Mandarin tones. Maybe I missed it either by skipping Thai-focused parts or simply because I couldn't divert enough attention, but I didn't get why the high rising tone in Vietnamese is a Qu tone - are all tone categories able to vary so much in pitch, and it's simply that *usually* they "freeze" into a certain way? Like, you said the Qu tone comes from aspirations at the end that usually make the voice pitch down, but Vietnamese takes one of them so high. Is that rare or common? Is it because they have 2 such tones and so it diverged into low and high / ying and yang? If a language has only one such tone is it always yang down or is it possible to only have an ying qu tone? Similarly, are these all from Sinitic mechanics/habits/etc., or is it a universal/human thing that these qualities often affect pitch in the way they do? For example, would tonal languages from other parts of the world have relations to this chart or would they be on their own different system?
Thanks Stuart Jay. This is very very interesting video. This is interconnecting the missing link between these asian languages. It's eyeopenning to me that the tones we hear basically are the manifestations of the ping shang qu ru in the underlaying layer, where each of the language and dialect has their own mapped manifestation, what become their normal positions, what become the creaky ones, what become the breathy ones, what are the stopped ending ones. So like mandarin chinese has creaky of low creaky tones (mandarin 3rd tone), while in burmese it's mapped to sharp going down tone for that creaky voice. and while mandarin chinese has for the normal voice: high flat tone (mandarin 1st tone) for the yin, and rising tone (mandarin 2nd tone) for the yang, the cantonese has high flat tone (cantonese 1st tone) as the yin and falling low tone (cantonese 4th tone) as the yang. Map summary for mandarin chinese: - ping: yin: 1st tone / flat high tone, yang: 2nd tone / rising tone - shang: low tone / 3rd tone - qu: falling tone / 4th tone - ru: mixed since mandarin has no longer possive stops
If you look at this Wikipedia page, there's a great comparative chart of the distribution of the 4 classes across many languages / dialects en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_tones_(Middle_Chinese)
It's my first time to hear Ping Shang Qu Ru concept actually from this video, like i was listening to this again and again to understand what is this Ping-Shang-Qu-Ru actually. So interesting knowing how languages evolve through times. it was also popping into my mind when i was listening this, how Yoruba actually evolves becoming a tonal language we today know 😃, the do re mi.
Just a few corrections on Burmese, in the order of tones that you presented. Tone 1 is a flat monotone and need not be stressed at all. In fact most Burmese "tones" or more accurately pitches do not need to be stressed since Burmese is a syllable timed language. Tone 2 is described correctly except it doesn't have a nasal pronunciation. Tone 3 does not have an aspiration towards the end and need not be stressed. Aspiration is indicated by a little tail on consonants called "hat htoh". Tone 4 is not even a tone. Tone 4 is a huge linguistic blunder, the ending consonants in Burmese are the result of poor romanization. Burmese does NOT pronounce any end consonants. End consonants are used to change the vowels inside the syllable. Like pɪ́ and pɛ́. They all come in the default tone 1 or tone 2. In summary, Burmese only has 3 "tones" that are actually just pitches. You also need not worry about getting the tone right since it is a pitch-register language. As long as the follow up pitches are correct, you sound basically native.
The questions remains the same, how to produce and remember the tones for each word in Chinese. No explanation about throat and mouth positions with the help of diagrams.
when you are mentioning about aspiration at the end and affect the tone to fall, it reminds me words ending with ห์, which all those words have falling tone in opposite of the same or similar word without it. e.g. ดำริห์ now spelled as ดำริ but the tone is still the same while ริ has a rising tone, อุตสาห์ now spelled as อุตส่าห์, พาห์(พ่าห์) เทห์(เท่ห์) เลห์(เล่ห์) สมุห์
Sir, you reference other works on pitch contours yet you provide no reference to those works. I'm not finding them but surely you understand the importance of a footnote and can guide me to your omitted references?
I'm not sure what this video is trying to say - I understand how it explains the origins of tone in this language area and some correlations, but I don't see how it affirms that each language has the same tone system, nor how this influences the way in which I should approach pronouncing tones
I watched this hoping to get a better understanding of tones, and while I feel like I can tell that you're smart and know what you're talking about, I really have trouble understanding the specifics of your point. I get that you say tone is not about pitch, but you never really clearly explain what it *is* about - something about pitch combined with other voice qualities, or something about the throat? It sounds like at the start you're saying pitch contour is completely irrelevant, but then you keep showing pitch diagrams and talking about how pitch changes in the different tones - so it sounds like it does matter to some degree? I would also find it really helpful to have more examples, just to really show that what you're saying is true and really all that matters is these voice qualities and you can pronounce vowels with whatever pitch contour you want. (Again, assuming that I'm understanding your point correctly)
of course, only using the native terminology and never ever including the tone marks they use in Pinyin or the Vietnamese Latin script - that really helps the beginners like myself. no it doesn't. tried to Google it what these "entering" and "departing" tones correspond to in standard modern Chinese, and only got even more confused. i of course congratulate you on your ability to navigate all that with such ease, but it ain't helpful at all.
i do think Jay is doing the best Thai lessons on the web but i still dont like the commercial totally monetized hardcore attitude to the money making methods used - i find the obvious intent to monetize it aggressively detracts from what is otherwise high quality content. Jay thinks about words and language in a very similar abstract way to me. Which is why both of us are polyglots. Unfortunately most students do not have this unorthodox thinking method and hence will never master the language like a natural polyglot can. Hence it is a waste of time trying for most people. Languages are not something everybody can succeed in learning i am afraid. Sad but true. Only few peolple get to be multilingual with fluency
Neutral-tone, or the so-called fifth tone is not a tone. Its pitch is decided by the previous syllable. If you only think pitch, then the natural tone have four different “tones”.@科幻动画Science fiction cartoon
@科幻动画Science fiction cartoon 嗯 is a corner case. I do not know how to category 嗯 in 平上去入. 嗯 is absent in 康熙字典. But this corner case is interesting. Some dictionaries (e.g. 國語辭典) record 嗯 as ˙ㄣ(neutral tone), while other dictionaries (e.g. 新華字典) record 嗯 as having three different tones: ㄫˊ(second tone, when used to express question) , ㄫˇ (third tone, when used to express surprise), and ㄫˋ(fourth tone, when used to express agreement). So even without a previous syllable, the neutral tone of 嗯 is still special that it can be considered as three different patterns in pitch. I think at least one of the following statements is true: 1. Neutral tone in Mandarin is not a tone. 2. Neutral tone in Mandarin is a tone, but a special one, not the same kind of the other four tones. Personally I prefer the first statement, but of course this depends on how we define the concept of "tone".
no...I mentioned that in this clip. The original pronunciation as is preserved in Cantonese is actually rising. Mandarin shifts it. In the clip I use both pronunciattions
I’m 25% Thai 25% Lao and 50% Vietnamese. I’m a US citizen, was born in Boston,MA and have been raised all my life here in US. I’ve always been intrigued to learn & study about different nationalities, languages & cultures. However, at the moment, I’m only fluent in 5 of the 8 languages that I can speak & understand. In my opinion, having the ability to be able to speak different languages, is just a rare valuable gift!!!
So ha ne do you lite queeto jel?
So you're both smart and gorgeous. We need more people like you in the world
Thank you so much for these amazing and informative videos Stuart. You are my greatest inspiration in learning languages. As for a Burmese native speaker, I can speak fluently ofc but I couldn't understand the Burmese vowel and tonal system. We haven't learnt this clearly in our high school so I was very confused.(Btw, we have now the new high school curriculum and they have included the section of vowel and tonal system.) Please do more videos about tones and vowels and please also include Burmese. I want to discuss with you about languages if possible one day. Now, I am learning Thai and also willing to learn Mandarin one day. Thank you.
I’m so impressed by your skill and presentation of language. Native Thai and American English speaker. 🙏🏻😃
We’ve got to protect Stuart at all cost, this man is specialllll… thank you stuart for all of the amazing and informative videos. I love the way you break things down in simple terms for us to understand tones.
Always felt there was a connection between ‘Xieng’ in Thai/Lao and ‘Tieng’ in Vietnamese. You confirmed it.
How is it possible for Vietnamese and Tai languages to have almost the same set of loans from Chinese and still be from two different language families? It’s puzzling to me. Basic words such as cat/meo found across Tai languages also found in Vietnamese. It’s almost as if Vietnamese speakers were once Tai speaking or possibly heavily influenced by Tai speakers. Vietic sounds so different from Mon-Khmer. Too often I have mistaken Vietnamese as Thai in public
Lol
I don't see contents like these that much.
I really like these contents since it is so interesting to watch as a language learner. Keep up with the content!! ^^
You are even more knowledgeable in tonal languages than many scholars!
The in-depth understanding and the ability to learn all these languages are mind-blowing to me.
no I wasn't buckled up; I was practicing my Korean penmanship but I went along for the ride anyway, despite planning to just take a look and watch later!
Really cool stuff. Mimicking native speakers of Mandarin (in both "proper" and colloquial speech) was enough for me to realize tones are more than just pitch - if I hear native speakers always adding a certain vocal quality to a tone, why shouldn't I? And since I'll likely be exploring Vietnamese more, it was great to see how they related to the Mandarin tones.
Maybe I missed it either by skipping Thai-focused parts or simply because I couldn't divert enough attention, but I didn't get why the high rising tone in Vietnamese is a Qu tone - are all tone categories able to vary so much in pitch, and it's simply that *usually* they "freeze" into a certain way? Like, you said the Qu tone comes from aspirations at the end that usually make the voice pitch down, but Vietnamese takes one of them so high. Is that rare or common? Is it because they have 2 such tones and so it diverged into low and high / ying and yang? If a language has only one such tone is it always yang down or is it possible to only have an ying qu tone?
Similarly, are these all from Sinitic mechanics/habits/etc., or is it a universal/human thing that these qualities often affect pitch in the way they do? For example, would tonal languages from other parts of the world have relations to this chart or would they be on their own different system?
Amazing video!!
It was very interesting since I studied or want to study all of these language languages.
Thanks a lot :)
Intresting 9:54! It reminds Thai ใกล้ = near,ไกล = far, both words pronounced as klai, but with different tones, and have opposite meanings.
Thanks Stuart Jay. This is very very interesting video. This is interconnecting the missing link between these asian languages.
It's eyeopenning to me that the tones we hear basically are the manifestations of the ping shang qu ru in the underlaying layer, where each of the language and dialect has their own mapped manifestation, what become their normal positions, what become the creaky ones, what become the breathy ones, what are the stopped ending ones.
So like mandarin chinese has creaky of low creaky tones (mandarin 3rd tone), while in burmese it's mapped to sharp going down tone for that creaky voice.
and while mandarin chinese has for the normal voice: high flat tone (mandarin 1st tone) for the yin, and rising tone (mandarin 2nd tone) for the yang, the cantonese has high flat tone (cantonese 1st tone) as the yin and falling low tone (cantonese 4th tone) as the yang.
Map summary for mandarin chinese:
- ping: yin: 1st tone / flat high tone, yang: 2nd tone / rising tone
- shang: low tone / 3rd tone
- qu: falling tone / 4th tone
- ru: mixed since mandarin has no longer possive stops
If you look at this Wikipedia page, there's a great comparative chart of the distribution of the 4 classes across many languages / dialects en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_tones_(Middle_Chinese)
It's my first time to hear Ping Shang Qu Ru concept actually from this video, like i was listening to this again and again to understand what is this Ping-Shang-Qu-Ru actually. So interesting knowing how languages evolve through times.
it was also popping into my mind when i was listening this, how Yoruba actually evolves becoming a tonal language we today know 😃, the do re mi.
Just a few corrections on Burmese, in the order of tones that you presented.
Tone 1 is a flat monotone and need not be stressed at all. In fact most Burmese "tones" or more accurately pitches do not need to be stressed since Burmese is a syllable timed language.
Tone 2 is described correctly except it doesn't have a nasal pronunciation.
Tone 3 does not have an aspiration towards the end and need not be stressed. Aspiration is indicated by a little tail on consonants called "hat htoh".
Tone 4 is not even a tone. Tone 4 is a huge linguistic blunder, the ending consonants in Burmese are the result of poor romanization. Burmese does NOT pronounce any end consonants. End consonants are used to change the vowels inside the syllable. Like pɪ́ and pɛ́. They all come in the default tone 1 or tone 2.
In summary, Burmese only has 3 "tones" that are actually just pitches. You also need not worry about getting the tone right since it is a pitch-register language. As long as the follow up pitches are correct, you sound basically native.
that's why i was so confused when he compared the tones 🫡
this is the best explanation
Stuart, you're such a genius
The questions remains the same, how to produce and remember the tones for each word in Chinese. No explanation about throat and mouth positions with the help of diagrams.
Absolutely genius video
Gawwwwdamnnn brother 👏👏👏👏🔥🔥👍👍👍👍🔥🔥🔥
Don’t worry about subscribers. This is an important century to learn Asian languages. The whole world is up for a change
why was I not taught this at uni, why why why why why
thank you so much
when you are mentioning about aspiration at the end and affect the tone to fall, it reminds me words ending with ห์, which all those words have falling tone in opposite of the same or similar word without it. e.g. ดำริห์ now spelled as ดำริ but the tone is still the same while ริ has a rising tone, อุตสาห์ now spelled as อุตส่าห์, พาห์(พ่าห์) เทห์(เท่ห์) เลห์(เล่ห์) สมุห์
Sir, you reference other works on pitch contours yet you provide no reference to those works. I'm not finding them but surely you understand the importance of a footnote and can guide me to your omitted references?
you're a master
Burmese 18:10
I'm not sure what this video is trying to say - I understand how it explains the origins of tone in this language area and some correlations, but I don't see how it affirms that each language has the same tone system, nor how this influences the way in which I should approach pronouncing tones
*Video starts at: **6:15*
I watched this hoping to get a better understanding of tones, and while I feel like I can tell that you're smart and know what you're talking about, I really have trouble understanding the specifics of your point. I get that you say tone is not about pitch, but you never really clearly explain what it *is* about - something about pitch combined with other voice qualities, or something about the throat? It sounds like at the start you're saying pitch contour is completely irrelevant, but then you keep showing pitch diagrams and talking about how pitch changes in the different tones - so it sounds like it does matter to some degree?
I would also find it really helpful to have more examples, just to really show that what you're saying is true and really all that matters is these voice qualities and you can pronounce vowels with whatever pitch contour you want. (Again, assuming that I'm understanding your point correctly)
Man now I want you to research tones in Bodo language after watching this.
None of the links work for your course tones masterclass
burmese was squared in Bagan period
I don't know whether this is correct or not, but it seems like the Píng has 2 dots inside that have to be turned upside down and go outward.
that's a stylised way of writing it ... different 行書 forks could write it either way... inner strokes fanning in or out
I speak burmese. His tone for ကား is wrong. ကား sounds more like the first tone of Mandarin. The rest is correct.
Burmese is becoming less tonal than the other languages mentioned.
I've started studying Burmese a few days ago and I can't differentiate between the low tone and the high tone, they sounds the same to me.
@@burmesenurse im a native burmese and linguistic. but i cant understand how are those sounds different. actually we have no high and low.
of course, only using the native terminology and never ever including the tone marks they use in Pinyin or the Vietnamese Latin script - that really helps the beginners like myself. no it doesn't. tried to Google it what these "entering" and "departing" tones correspond to in standard modern Chinese, and only got even more confused. i of course congratulate you on your ability to navigate all that with such ease, but it ain't helpful at all.
where is the Hmong-Mien language family?
RIP
Can you speak Burmese 😁I just want to know
Plz make a video in Burmese tone.
Bhante, im a native burmese and linguistic. but i still dont know how burmese tones work. it is so different to other tonal languages
OMG!!!!😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
คุณ ออกเสียงผิดภาษาพม่า
i do think Jay is doing the best Thai lessons on the web but i still dont like the commercial totally monetized hardcore attitude to the money making methods used - i find the obvious intent to monetize it aggressively detracts from what is otherwise high quality content. Jay thinks about words and language in a very similar abstract way to me. Which is why both of us are polyglots. Unfortunately most students do not have this unorthodox thinking method and hence will never master the language like a natural polyglot can. Hence it is a waste of time trying for most people. Languages are not something everybody can succeed in learning i am afraid. Sad but true. Only few peolple
get to be multilingual with fluency
You are wrong at 0:00. 上 in 平上去入 is pronounced at shǎng, not shàng
Cantonese has 6 tones, Mandarin has 5 tones then. Cantonese is traditional Chinese, Mandarin writing system was invented since 1949.
@科幻动画Science fiction cartoon then Cantonese has more than 9 tones..
People arguing about "the number of tones" just shows they didn't even listen a minute into the video
@@ikkue ahhahahaha
Neutral-tone, or the so-called fifth tone is not a tone. Its pitch is decided by the previous syllable. If you only think pitch, then the natural tone have four different “tones”.@科幻动画Science fiction cartoon
@科幻动画Science fiction cartoon 嗯 is a corner case. I do not know how to category 嗯 in 平上去入. 嗯 is absent in 康熙字典. But this corner case is interesting. Some dictionaries (e.g. 國語辭典) record 嗯 as ˙ㄣ(neutral tone), while other dictionaries (e.g. 新華字典) record 嗯 as having three different tones: ㄫˊ(second tone, when used to express question) , ㄫˇ (third tone, when used to express surprise), and ㄫˋ(fourth tone, when used to express agreement). So even without a previous syllable, the neutral tone of 嗯 is still special that it can be considered as three different patterns in pitch. I think at least one of the following statements is true: 1. Neutral tone in Mandarin is not a tone. 2. Neutral tone in Mandarin is a tone, but a special one, not the same kind of the other four tones. Personally I prefer the first statement, but of course this depends on how we define the concept of "tone".
When it comes to tone of Chinese, the character "上" should pronounce as "shăng" in Chinese...
no...I mentioned that in this clip. The original pronunciation as is preserved in Cantonese is actually rising. Mandarin shifts it. In the clip I use both pronunciattions
เก่งเกินนนน👍👍👍
🙏🇹🇭✌️
🙀👍🏾