When I first started learning Chinese, everything I read made a big deal about how Chinese is a tonal language and how important the tones are to the meaning. Its true to some degree. For example:

栗子 (chestnuts) and 李子 (plums) without tones are both pronounced lizi.  The two words can be distinguished only by the tone of the first character.

Another example is 买 (buy) and 卖 (sell) both of which are pronounced mai but with different tones.

So, the tones are really important, right?

Wrong.

In reality characters rarely appear alone. So, 买 will more likely appear as 购买 or in some other combination. That, coupled with the sense of the words around them will make it clear which word you mean. For example, lets use lizi, described above in place of the English words in two sentences:

I love to roast lizi.
The best thing about lizi is how juicy and sweet they are.

Which lizi is being used in each sentence? I think its pretty clear that the first is about 栗子 (chestnuts) and the second is about 李子 (plums).

So, you don’t have to make yourself crazy trying to get all the tones perfect. Its impossible anyway, it will take you at least a year of studying Chinese before the tones become clear to you.  And, you will be understood even if you butcher the tones completely, so long as you get the sound of the words right.

Why do you even need to learn the tones at all then? Its simple, you know the poeple whose foreign accent you laugh at or have to struggle a bit to figure out exactly what they’re trying to say? You can understand them, but it takes more work and they sound funny. Chinese are using to hearing the words pronounced a certain way, if you don’t pronounce the tones right, you will sound strange and be hard to understand, but you will still be able to get your point across.

The more and more you listen to Chinese the clearer the tones will become to you and you will start hearing where you pronounce things wrong and be able to correct in.  But don’t let trying to get the tones perfect or even close stop you from building vocabulary.   Once you build enough vocabulary and get practice listening, you will naturally hear where your tones are wrong and begin to correct it.

Good luck in your studies.  I’d love to hear your thoughts about this.  Please leave me a comment below  if you have the time.