shanghai status:
singing.
The Chinese truly have themselves a beautiful language. The fact that meaning is derived from, or based on, tone is absolutely incredible. Just like a song or a dance is based on the sequential order and precise production of certain notes or steps, so the Chinese language cannot be performed or understood without the sequential order and precise production of its 4 fundamental tones (with variations ad infinitum). You don't know how much this helped me when I actually got it. Let me put it this way: If you wrote a song and I came up to you and tried to sing your song but made up my own melody, how would you react? Probably by making a weird face and saying, "What's wrong with you?" Or, the same way the Chinese react to me when I attempt to speak to them, "Ting bu dong." (lit. I hear you but I don't understand you).
*the correct title of this blog should actually be "learning to sing". :)
The Chinese truly have themselves a beautiful language. The fact that meaning is derived from, or based on, tone is absolutely incredible. Just like a song or a dance is based on the sequential order and precise production of certain notes or steps, so the Chinese language cannot be performed or understood without the sequential order and precise production of its 4 fundamental tones (with variations ad infinitum). You don't know how much this helped me when I actually got it. Let me put it this way: If you wrote a song and I came up to you and tried to sing your song but made up my own melody, how would you react? Probably by making a weird face and saying, "What's wrong with you?" Or, the same way the Chinese react to me when I attempt to speak to them, "Ting bu dong." (lit. I hear you but I don't understand you).
*the correct title of this blog should actually be "learning to sing". :)
posted by Prague at 10:33 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home