Was It Easier For You To Learn Thai If You Knew Previous Tonal Languages? E.g. Mandarin, Cantonese

[ucbrian]

Was it easier for you to learn Thai if you knew previous Tonal Languages? e.g. Mandarin, Cantonese, etc...

http://www.phonetik.uni-muenchen.de/...tikul/tone.pdf

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tone_(linguistics)

Just wanted to know if knowing previous tonal languages has assisted you in the perception and production on Thai tones / words / sounds.

[uhuh]

yes

having learned tones once helped a lot when learning Thai

[kikenyoy]

Yes, it will make a big difference. If you really want to learn Thai then I would recommend learning Cantonese and Vietnamese first. Combined they have 15 tones. Thai only has 5 so learning it will be 3x easier.

[joorakee]

I had been learning Mandarin Chinese for about a year before I started my adventure with the Thai language and yes, it was helpful because I had only one more tone to master - the falling one. Not that I pronounce them perfectly...

[DavidHouston]

I had been learning Mandarin Chinese for about a year before I started my adventure with the Thai language and yes, it was helpful because I had only one more tone to master - the falling one. Not that I pronounce them perfectly...

Are the tones in Central Thai identical in contour and expression to the tones in Mandarin Chinese?

[jamles]

I had been learning Mandarin Chinese for about a year before I started my adventure with the Thai language and yes, it was helpful because I had only one more tone to master - the falling one. Not that I pronounce them perfectly...

Are the tones in Central Thai identical in contour and expression to the tones in Mandarin Chinese?

I'm no expert but I would say, no. The tones are similar but not identical. The high tones and falling tones are most similar. The Mandarin 3rd tone has a more pronounced initial falling tone before rising than the Thai rising tone. Mandarin has a neutral tone that some regard as a 5th tone that could be compared to the Thai middle tone but the Mandarin neutral tone seems to be more variable depending on context (the preceding tone). Mandarin does not have a low tone equivalent.

[OldChinaHam]

I usually adopt a jocular tone when learning Thai.

Also, having learned Mandarin, it is not the Thai tones which are difficult, it is remembering which words have which tones and when. Having learned another tonal language will not help you with this memory nightmare. You must just listen to the language as it is spoken, and spend about 4 or 5 years until you sound less like the foreigner that you are.

[leosmith]

I went from Thai to Mandarin. Mandarin tones 2, 3 and 4 have some similarities to Thai high, rising and falling respectively. There is no Mandarin tone 1 in Thai, and no Thai low tone in Mandarin. And although you'll probably be understood if you make your no-tone, or tone 5 in Mandarin, like the Thai mid tone, they are not terribly similar. Thai mid tone tends to fall a little, whereas Mandarin tone 5 is unstressed and often takes on sandhi. Thai doesn't have sandhi, but Mandarin does. Mandarin doesn't have long and short vowels, but Thai does. The length of a Mandarin syllable is dependent on what it's tone is.

This being said, if you pronounce Mandarin tones 2, 3 and 4 like Thai high, rising and falling, you will sound pretty bad. However, having experience with a tonal language will definitely help when learning another. It's a hard concept for a non-tonal native to wrap her mind around. Once she has done it, doing it again is much easier. Much like slamming Whalen.

[joorakee]

I had been learning Mandarin Chinese for about a year before I started my adventure with the Thai language and yes, it was helpful because I had only one more tone to master - the falling one. Not that I pronounce them perfectly...

Are the tones in Central Thai identical in contour and expression to the tones in Mandarin Chinese?

Maybe not identical, but very similar, especially to the 2nd, 3rd and 4th tone in MC. I once had a Chinese friend (from the Beijing area) listen to a CD attached to a Thai textbook and according to what she said, the Thai tones sounded familiar to her - except for the falling one.