强迫qiang2 or qiang3

Danceashes,

When I first started learning Chinese I found the tones really hard, so I focused on learning how to pronounce the different "words" represented by pinyin correctly, hoping that Chinese people would be able to put aside the fact that my tones suck and figure out my meaning from the context....enormous failure.

The tones are super-important. In mainland China, there are so many different accents that as foreigners we may have a really hard time understanding someone from a certain city. Generally speaking, though, two Mandarin speakers with different accents can understand each other quite well...largely, because of the tones.

I can't tell you how many times I've pronounced a word with what I thought was perfectly clear pronunciation, giving examples and getting only blank stares...until the listener says, "Oh! You mean..." and repeats EXACTLY what I said, but with the correct tones.

Don't get discouraged, though, even though the tones may seem a bit overwhelming at the beginning. Try to be aware of them, LISTEN to lots of Chinese, and eventually they will become much easier.

Oh, one more thing I did at the beginning...try imitating the shape of the tone mark as you practice saying words. So, for example, for 妈ma1, raise your chin and move it in a straight line from left to right as you say "maaaa." Looks kinda funny, but once I got my Chinese friends trained, it actually helped them understand me better...;)

To explain the joke, the first phrase says:

"wo3 ke3 yi3 wen4 ni3 ma?"

Can I ask you? (wen 4th tone)

The second says:

"wo3 ke3 yi3 wen3 ni3 ma?"

Can I kiss you? (wen 3rd tone)

But, have you ever heard that joke? Someone pronounced '问wen4' as 'wen3', '我可以问你吗' is misunderstood by '我可以吻你吗'. It's terrible, isn't it?

So I think good tone pronunciation is much more important than you thought.

Oh, thanks. I'll have a try.