德国人学汉语的声调问题

Abstract

Using methods of experimental phonetics, this paper tries to analyze the problems of phonetic tone production of German students learning Modem Standard Chinese, mainly focusing on tones of monosyllables and disyllabic sequences. The results show that after studying for a certain period of time, German learners of Chinese prove able to master the phonetic tone realization of monosyllables, but still show difficulties to differentiate between the second and the third tone. The tone production in disyllabic sequences seems to cause even greater difficulty, especially regarding the tone of the sequence's first syllable. For example, the first tone of a first syllable in a disyllabic sequence may drop a little; the second tone of a first syllable often changes into a low dropping tone. The third tone, however, mostly is not changed, whilst the fourth tone poses another problem as its decrease range is often too small; this sometimes makes the fourth tone sound like an even tone. The fifth (or silent) tone is in fact "not silent" but also possesses a tonal range and shape, which German learners of Chinese have difficulties to grasp correctly. This analysis reveals the order of difficulty for German learners to master the tones of Modem Chinese: The easiest tone to learn is the first tone, followed by the fourth, the second and third tone. Regarding the tones of a monosyllable, tonal shape seems more difficult than tonal range. As for disyllabic sequences, tonal range seems more difficult than tonal shape.