Mnemonics for Chinese Tone Pairs

For many English-speaking students of Chinese, the fact that tone contours can make the difference in meaning between one Chinese word and another is a major stumbling block. A simple example:

鱼跃 yúyuè with 2^nd/4^th tones (rising, then falling) means “dive.”

预约 yùyuē with 4^th/1^st tones (falling, then high-level) means “reserve.”

So one must remember the tone contour of a word as well as the rest of the pronunciation or risk being misunderstood (sometimes disastrously).

My mnemonic system for Chinese character pronunciation includes the tone of the character as part of the system. Individual characters in Mandarin have one of four tones, which some grammarian creatively named 1^st tone, 2^nd tone, 3^rd tone, and 4^th tone. We’ll leave a description of the individual tones for another time, but note the diacritical marks used to mark each tone:

1^st tone: ā

2^nd tone: á

3^rd tone: ă

4^th tone: à

The diacritical shapes roughly represent the pitch contour of the respective tone (rising for 2^nd, falling for 4^th, etc.)

In an ideal world, remembering the tone for each individual character would allow you to predict the tone contours of compound words made of two or more characters. Unfortunately, the tones of Chinese syllables appear to mutate spontaneously when combined with other syllables. This does not happen every time, but it happens often enough to pose difficulty.

For example, in the word

当年 dāngnián “that year”,

the character 当 is pronounced dāng, with a 1^st (high level) tone, whereas in the word

当天 dàngtiān “that day”,

the character 当 is pronounced dàng, with a 4^th (falling) tone. (This is all assuming my dictionary knows what it’s talking about.) The function of the character appears to be identical in both words, so why the change? If there are rules controlling this, I haven’t figured them out yet.

So we need a way to remember the tone contours of words consisting of more than one syllable—particularly two-syllable words, which are the most common. I created a set of standard code words based on the Major system for memorizing numbers. In compound words, a syllable may have one of five tones, because certain syllables of compound words lose their normal tone, becoming a “neutral” tone. A neutral-tone syllable is pronounced quickly, with a pitch slightly lower than a preceding 1^st or 2^nd tone, and slightly higher than a preceding 3^rd or 4^th tone. The English word “basket” is normally pronounced with a fairly good approximation of 1^st tone followed by neutral tone. In Pinyin the neutral tone is indicated by the absence of any diacritical mark. For example: duōme is 1^st tone followed by neutral tone.

For the purpose of memorization, I assigned the digit 5 to neutral tone. The Major system uses a consonant sound to represent a single numerical digit. In particular:

t, d, or th represents 1;

n represents 2;

m represents 3;

r represents 4;

l represents 5.

Other consonant sounds (with the exception of w, h, y) represent other digits, but the foregoing is is all we need for this purpose. Vowels of a word represent no digit. Take as an example the word “root”. The r represents 4, the t represents 1, and the oo represents nothing; thus this word serves to encode the digit sequence 4-1.

The goal now is to choose a word representing each pair of digits describing the tone pattern of a Chinese disyllable. Take as an example the previously-mentioned yùyuē (tones 4-1). To represent this I need a word with the sequence of consonants r followed by t, d, or th; I choose “rawhide”. 

Why not the forementioned “root”? I prefer to use a two-syllable word and try to get used to pronouncing it with the particular tone contour that it represents:

ràwhīde

As this sinks in, it eliminates one step of the decoding process: the word directly represents the given tone contour.

The code word is put to use by mentally linking it with the term that it applies to; recall that  yùyuē means “reserve”. I can use a sentence like:

I reserved one of the special rawhide plane seats.

And then henceforth I use “rawhide” whenever necessary to represent the tone contour of any word with a 1^st/4^th tone pattern, such as the previously mentioned dàngtiān “that day”:

That day we rode until our hides were raw.

This sentence then helps me recall that 当天 is pronounced with 4^th and 1^st tones.

Here, then, is the list of code words for all two-syllable contours (note that, as always, it is the sounds that encode digits rather than the written letters):

Tones	digits	consonants	word
āā	1st/1st	t-t	tattoo
āá	1st/2nd	d-n	Houdini
āă	1st/3rd	t-m	atom
āà	1st/4th	t-r	otter
āa	1st/5th	t-l	hotel
áā	2nd/1st	n-t	nightie
áá	2nd/2nd	n-n	onion
áă	2nd/3rd	n-m	Nemo
áà	2nd/4th	n-r	wiener
áa	2nd/5th	n-l	in-law
ăā	3rd/1st	m-d	meadow
ăá	3rd/2nd	m-n	Mona (Lisa)
ăă	3rd/3rd	m-m	mummy
ăà	3rd/4th	m-r	hammer
ăa	3rd/5th	m-l	mullah
àā	4th/1st	r-h	rawhide
àá	4th/2nd	r-n	rhino
àă	4th/3rd	r-m	harem
àà	4th/4th	r-r	warrior
àa	4th/5th	r-l	oriole

The principle can be extended to three or more syllables; for example, the tone contour 会员卡 huìyuánkă “membership card” can be encoded as digits 4^th/2^nd/3^rd and the consonant sequence r-n-m, “uranium” for example. As the string of digits gets larger you will need to resort to phrases of two and more words. I haven’t tried to standardize the code words for more than two syllables at a time.

(A completely different approach: using the digits of the Major system is nothing more than a convenience which makes it easier to commit the system to memory. Once you've made the mental connection, any word can serve to represent any concept, although something concrete and visualizable is better. An alternate approach would be to choose for each tone contour a specific Chinese word exemplifying the pattern; for example, àā  could be represented by 牧师 mùshī  “pastor.”)