Just as those learners who study in Chinese language school all know, there are totally four tones inChinese language. Some students are wondering which tone is the easiest to learn. As matter of fact, this question can’t be answered generally because different learners have various feelings on the tone learning. Most people think the first tone and the fourth tone are much easier to articulate because the first tone is level without change in pitch while the fourth one is the falling tone changes from the high to the low.
However, it is not true for the learners from Thailand. The first tone in Mandarin is the just the most difficult one for them. But for those who come to Vietnam, the falling tone is really difficult to articulate correctly. Both Thai language and Vietnamese are tone languages. In addition, the numbers of tones are all more than that in Mandarin. In this sense, the learners from Thailand and Vietnam should be able to learn tones in Chinese language, which is proved to be just the opposite.
It seems really strange. As a matter of fact, the reason is really simple that the tones in their mother tongues as well as the experience they gained have great influence on learning another language. Those who study Chinese should know that Thai people fail to learn the first tone in Chinese because there is no level tone in Thai language that coordinate with that in Chinese. as a result, they replace the first tone in Mandarin by articulating the similar tone in Thai language.
If the teachers want to help them overcome this difficulty, they should help them by pointing out the reason of the difficulty and then remind the learners of adjusting the tones accordingly such as raising the tone level. In addition, it might be help to articulate the level tone in Chinese with the same way of the forth tone in Thai language.
However, the reason that the learners from Vietnam fail to study tones better is because that there is no high fall tone in Vietnamese. Therefore, they often pronounce this tone in Mandarin with the way of the low fall tone in Vietnamese. The foreigners who study Mandarin online also have difficulty in the tones in Mandarin Chinese. The most effective way of correct pronunciation is to find out the reason and adjust properly and accordingly.