David McMullin (mcmullin@musicians.today)'s status on Wednesday, 20-Mar-2024 13:49:58 JST

@KydiaMusic @mattly
I speak Mandarin, badly, at a roughly intermediate level. And Mandarin has just 4 tones, so it’s not as complicated as many other languages. So I’m no expert but I can answer this. The tones are really pitch contours, and they are relative, not fixed. You could usually understand enough from context probably to know what people mean even if you don’t register the tones. 1/…