ever wonder about the tones of chinese - how they sound, what they are?
you can hear examples for the four tones of mandarin and the six tones of cantonese. especially notice that tone three of mandarin has an archaic trait: it has what is called creaky voice. if you compare the clear sound of tone one to the tightness of the throat the speaker has during tone three, you can hear it. cantonese has lost this, which made my experience with cantonese-speaking asian-americans learning mandarin amusing. cantonese has no creaky tones, so they always made tone three clear. tibetans from lhasa also have this problem, and learning lhasa tibetan in beijing required hours of practice relaxing my throat while pronouncing the low, even tone of that language. i still fight with not tightening my throat...
anyway, it's a neat resource innit?
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