Tone - Starting on the right foot

My Daughter 5 years old
Originally uploaded by 486word.com

While there are many advantages to being self taught, one of the disadvantages is that the learner tends to pick and choose what's important to him/her. In my case,I decided that learning tones per se really didn't matter that much - as long as I mimicked what I heard acurately.

That was not a good idea.

It's way way WAY better to learn your tones as you go, and to be (or rather, have your teacher/native speaker friend be) vigilant about your pronunciation. I had to spend a lot of time learning tones and how to speak correctly long after I started studying, and I can tell you that it's not the way to go.

I managed to improve my tones (thus elevating my Chinese) after the fact with lots of practice and constant repetition. It was work, it's still work, but it's worth it. I spend a lot of time listening and repeating. I listen and repeat the dialogues from my book, Very Practical Chinese while I'm doing housework. I listen and repeat Youtube clips. I also started writing out paragraphs (once I had finished the dialogues) to make sure I knew the proper pinyin/tone for each character. I learned the hard way that mimicking a native speaker is important, but knowing the tones that you're trying to mimick is of vital importance; otherwise, there's a strong likelihood that when you try to "mix and match" your sentences, you'll screw your tones up. Remember... (this is your mantra!) Tone Is Everything. (well, almost everything!)