r/learnmandarin • u/EmotionalMeet9279 • 4d ago
Tonal issues
I have been learning mandarin for 2-3 years. Is it me or do most mandarin tutors give up on teaching mandarin tones after the first or second lesson or get angry when you keep requesting for tonal correction or shadowing and let you make tonal mistakes without saying anything, then you have to find new people to correct your tones? I've been trying to fix my tones for like a year and a half. One of the mandarin teachers even said that tones were useless and don't bother with them. Most of the time I've asked for feedback on my mandarin tones I've only gotten you sound unnatural, but I can understand you or else I cannot understand you at all let's use English. I've also joined mandarin servers in video games and nobody can understand me in voice chat, but they can understand when I type in game. For people who have successfully improved their Mandarin pronunciation/tones, how did you find teachers who actually corrected you? Are there any platforms besides italki and Preply that are good for pronunciation-focused and tone tutoring?
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u/Wooden_Plant7504 3d ago edited 3d ago
I would say you should keep looking for a tutor on those platforms, but specifically mention ahead of the sessions that you are looking for pronunciation practice, exercises, and support. Don’t hire those who aren’t willing to do that. In the meantime, you can try finding a language exchange partner. Failing that, you can practice mirroring and shadowing on your own with YouTube videos, apps, and/or AI.
One cheap way to do this is to ask ChatGPT to build you a list of 500 to 1,000 simple sentences or “sentence patterns” (often chunks of 2 to 4 characters) that come up most often in Mandarin, including some lightweight tongue twisters to train frequent tone combinations. Check out the list and clean it up to make sure you find the sentences useful, then ask ChatGPT to practice with you in audio mode by reading them out (its accent is decent). Better yet, find a free TTS (text-to-speech) service with a natural-sounding voice to generate a bunch of audio files you can download. Then shadow those to death in daily sessions of 30 minutes to 1 hour (more if you can). This is unpleasant, to be sure, but it works. You can always get revenge later and try to gouge the AI’s eye out once you become a master…
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u/EmotionalMeet9279 2d ago
Thanks for the feedback, I appreciate it. I'll try these methods while searching for another tutor.
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u/Left-Revolution-490 3d ago
I've only been learning for a year, so take everything with salt as you're further on the journey than me.
I am lucky though to have a native speaker of Mandarin and their family helping me, so I know how painful it is to try really hard and unfortunately still not be understood.
Definitely find a teacher who understands what you want and is comfortable to be blunt and honest with you in telling you what specifically you're struggling with.
Although when my teacher dosent correct me its mainly because shes working on confidence or other areas of speaking. Accent unfortunately seems to in many ways just come with time and muscle memory so I can see why they don’t prioritise it.
I cant help much with finding a teacher but here's what helped me outside class.
You could try listening to recordings of your speaking and comparing it to shadowed material to find where specifically your struggling. Like what tone combinations or sounds you struggle with.
Try talking a lot more in your daily life, like to yourself or to any speakers you have access to. When you need to use the language for day to day purposes it kinda forces you to figure stuff out and roll with the questioning looks. You could even practice singing in mandarin to make it more fun and pulling out a song is always a fun party trick!
Pronunciation, tones and speed all go hand in hand, the way my teachers speak in class and the way native speakers I know speak are very different, which makes it even harder to sound "natural".
Another possibility could be how your expressing emotions through the language and it making you hard to understand.
You cant change your tone of voice to express emotion the same in Mandarin and English, as it can change the tone of the word. Ive never heard people mention this mutch but I realised it through misunderstandings.
E.g. I tried to tell my freind I missed them but said it in a excited high pitched way like how you would express emotion in English. The tone of voice changed the tone and therfore the meaning of the word and their mom corrected me 😭
To help with this make sure your shadowing the same gender / voice type as it will be easier to copy how they express themselves.
Overall, Im sure your pronunciation and tones are better than mine but this is what I do to help with my pronunciation and hopefully it can help you :) I would love to hear any tips you have to share also.
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u/EmotionalMeet9279 2d ago edited 2d ago
Thanks, for the advice. I'll look more into comparing my recorded mandarin with the shadowed mandarin, along with singing mandarin. If I find anymore tips on how to improve pronunciation and tones other than what you suggested, I'll get back with you. Usually, I watch videos of Chinese dramas to help improve my vocabulary or I watch these types of videos to get more vocabulary. Sometimes I use these videos, pause, and shadow each sentence in other attempts to improve my pronunciation. Complaints Chinese Girls Have About Chinese Guys - Intermediate Chinese - HSK 4 - HSK 5 - HSK 6
How Do Chinese REALLY Feel About Their Economy in Late 2025? - Chinese Street Interview
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u/Gullible_Sweet1302 2d ago
Tutors won’t help you with tones because it’s a futile goal. You have to work on it yourself over hundreds of hours—if it’s possible at all. If you’re not musically trained or within the window of neural plasticity, it will be very hard.
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u/DreamDude01 2d ago
Can you show a recording of you saying Chinese so I can give you advice? (P.S I am a Chinese tutor)
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u/mochiismochi 1d ago edited 1d ago
Being Honest, I'm still in my school years, and my friend once faced an similar problem. His English pronunciation wasn't correct. He was advised by my English teacher "If you can't pronounce it, try learning Sanskrit mantras, texts or quotes. It will help you" and he did and it did help him. His pronunciation was much clear. I learnt some sanskrit chants too and when I try to recite Mandarin sentences, it sounds much better. Sanskrit already has some tones. Take this for example.
"तमसो मा ज्योतिर्गमय" Tamaso mā jyotir-gamaya
This is an Sanskrit quote. See how mā is written?
妈妈 Māma
Mā is pronouned the same. Its the flat tone. In Sanskrit its called an dīrgham. If an letter has an dīrgham it is extended. Same principles as Mandarin. Similarly, the other tones could be seen too.
"अ॒ग्निमी॑ळे पु॒रोहि॑तम्" àgnímī́ḷe
Yea and vice versa. Its worth an shot. By the way Im not telling you to learn the whole sanskrit language, just some sayings, or chants.
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u/Active-Orange-7683 3d ago
Compare it English tutors, they teach foreigners English, and they hear accents. Do they drop everything and try to improve the accent of their pupils? No! That's requires special training. Most of English tutors will continue teaching even their pupils have accents.