Learning Tones- Listening, Speaking, Tips, and Tricks~
Ahh Chinese tones, what always scares people off. So lets see if we can't make this a tad bit easier hmm?
Step 1: Learn what the 4 tones are. I have made a post on this it should me under the tag tones if you simply want to search for it. But for now a quick review.
Basically your voice rises/lowers in the direction the tone mark goes.
Step 2: Get a basic understanding of how the tones sound. Now let me explain this to you, if English(or probably any other non-tonal language) is your first language you likely will not completely be able to differentiate between all of the tones since it isn't something your ears are yet trained to look for, this takes a good deal of time and training, that training primarily from EXPOSURE.
There are a couple pinyin charts in apps and such that will play each specific vowel in that tone(with a few different letter combinations)for you to start getting a feel for it. I also noticed that occasionally I think different vowels with different tones sounds different than a different vowel under that tone, so just feel it out some first.
*It there are times you notice are harder for you to differentiate in hearing you will likely struggle more with these tones in speaking as well. For example I struggle with 1st and 4th and am great at 3rd whereas 2nd is passable.
There are also some YouTube videos of people speaking in each tone to listen. And pleco will say words outloud, just whatever works for you.
Once you feel a little comfortable and like you have a basic foundation you can move on to the next step.
Step 3: Practicing Speaking.
So there aren't a ton of reasons that really focus on speaking the tones per say. It is more overall speaking than specifically tone practice. There are quite a few resources that have you repeat what it says. My personal favorite is the Pandarow app, you speak some of the phrases it has been teaching you, and actually grades it 0-100. The only thing is I have noticed that sometimes it doesn't hear you the best, so when you retry for a better score it usually just needs you to speak a bit clearer or enunciate a bit more.
I know that ChineseSkill has an app called SpeakChinese, I have yet to try that one. I really need to though.