Chinese Through Tone & Color: A Unique Visual Method for Learning Over 100 Basic Chinese Characters [With 2 CDs] (Chinese Edition)
by Nathan Dummitt
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Book Summary Information
Author: Nathan DummittEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); Chinese (Published)
Published: 2008-03
ISBN: 0781812046
Number of pages: 244
Publisher: Hippocrene Books
Book Reviews of Chinese Through Tone & Color: A Unique Visual Method for Learning Over 100 Basic Chinese Characters [With 2 CDs] (Chinese Edition)
Book Review: Why Tones Are Important
Summary: 5 Stars
In the pronunciation of any human language, risings and fallings of pitch, called "intonation," can be used to convey meaning. If someone asks you to jump off the Brooklyn Bridge, you might say "What?!" in a rising tone to express your shock at the suggestion. Then, after absorbing the message and deciding to reject it emphatically, you might say "No!", using a falling tone.
Chinese does this as well, but in addition uses the same kinds of differences in pitch in the same way it uses vowels and consonants--to tell which word you are using. Just as, in English, the difference between i and e makes all the difference between bit and bet, so in Chinese a rising or falling tone makes all the difference between tú `chart' and tù `vomit'.
Infants in China absorb these tonal patterns without noticing that they are doing so. Second-language learners of Chinese cannot do that. If you assume that all you have to do in learning Chinese is to get the vowels and consonants right and let the tones "come naturally," you will cripple your oral Chinese for life. Decades of experience in Chinese language teaching have shown that students who make this assumption form bad habits from the start and often never recover.
The cost of bad tones is usually not that you are misunderstood literally. Chinese people are smart enough to figure out from context whether you mean "chart" or "vomit". The cost is that your voice sounds extremely abnormal--almost if you had a severe birth defect or were on drugs. It is certainly not the voice you would want to use if you were trying to negotiate a business deal, discuss human rights, or make a personal friend.
To get a sense for how bad tone-free Chinese sounds, you can compare it to vowel-free English. Try this experiment: Choose any simple English sentence. Then choose any vowel, at random. Decide whether you want it to be a "short" or "long" vowel. Now, say your chosen sentence using only that vowel sound, for every single syllable. How weird do you sound? Would your listener understand your meaning? (Probably.) Would that person be inclined to like you or trust you? (No way.)
It is extremely important, therefore, that a second-language learner of Chinese consciously master tones. Once good habits are formed, it becomes no longer necessary to pay conscious attention, but the beginning stages are crucial. In Chinese Through Tone and Color, Nathan Dummitt presents the radically innovative suggestion that beginners might associate Chinese tones with specific colors--red for one tone, orange for another, and so on. For the psychology of the beginning learner, this approach has the important advantage of making the tone seem part of the very nature of a word--not something added optionally, as intonation can be added in any languages. The method also makes tones impossible to ignore. Every time you see a word, or even think it, the color will remind you of the proper tone.
American grade schools and high schools have been adding Chinese-language programs at a record pace in recent years. Many of these programs, although based in the best of intentions, do not teach tones well. I look forward to seeing the results that Chinese Through Tone and Color might make. It could be that this book will make a major contribution to the second-language learning of Chinese.
Perry Link
Princeton University
More Chinese Through Tone & Color: A Unique Visual Method for Learning Over 100 Basic Chinese Characters [With 2 CDs] (Chinese Edition) reviews:
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Summary of Chinese Through Tone & Color: A Unique Visual Method for Learning Over 100 Basic Chinese Characters [With 2 CDs] (Chinese Edition)
This title includes a book and a CD. Most linguists believe that writing was unveiled in China during the latter half of the 2nd millennium BC Despite the many thousands of written characters however, there are approximately 1,700 possible syllables in Mandarin, compared to over 8,000 in English. As a result, there are many homophones, distinguished in written Chinese by the use of different characters to represent each one. Not all the characters are pronounced using the same tone, so to Chinese ears they sound different. To Westerner ears, however, they all sound the same. It is even possible to write a test in Chinese using only one syllable, pronounced with different tones. The well known story by Chinese linguist Zhao Yuanren - Story of Shi Eating the Lions - uses nothing but the sound 'shi'. This book offers a new, intuitive method for more effectively mastering spoken Mandarin Chinese. It assigns a colour to each of the four tones in Mandarin, creating a psychological, synaesthetic resonance between written characters, colour and sound. Sample sentences and grammatical patterns are printed in colour to reinforce the association between tone and colour. With practice, each character generates a colour association, and the tone for the word can therefore be recalled immediately and effortlessly - a true asset to any beginner learning Mandarin. Designed as an engaging introduction to 100 primary characters, the book also contains an audio CD of the lessons and tones, as well as downloadable files and artwork for mp3 players or computers. Compact, well designed and innovative, it is perfect for a student interested in mastering spoken Chinese while simultaneously studying the written characters.Chinese Books
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