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Tones & Pronunciation

Master Chinese tones
语句语调：新信息重读
New information gets sentence stress
xīn xìnxī zhòngdú
Focus stress: new info stressed
快速语音中的弱化
Weak syllables in fast speech
de/le/me/ne often reduced
了/的/们 are often unstressed in natural speech
语篇语调：列举 vs 结论
List intonation vs conclusion intonation
rising for list
falling for conclusion
那个…(discourse filler)
um… / uh… (filler)
nàge…
那个 used as hesitation filler in speech
书面语 vs 口语发音
Written vs spoken pronunciation
formal vs colloquial
Careful speech vs connected speech differences
语音借词：咖啡、比萨饼
phonological loanwords
kāfēi
bǐsàbǐng
上海话影响：n/l 合并
Shanghai dialect: n/l merger
nà vs lā merge in Shanghainese Mandarin
Dialect interference in Standard Mandarin
啊 (a) 的变体：呀/哇/哪
allomorphs of sentence-final 啊
ya / wa / na
啊→呀 after i/ü; →哇 after u/o; →哪 after n
感叹句中音域扩大
Expanded pitch range in exclamations
duōme piàoliang A!
Emotional speech: wider tonal range
朗读语调 vs 自然对话
Reading aloud vs spontaneous speech
careful tones vs connected speech
Tones are more precise when reading than speaking