Tonal languages, side by side

The Mandarin used in Taiwan. Same four contour tones as Mainland Mandarin, plus a light neutral tone — taught with Zhuyin (Bopomofo) alongside Pinyin.

Fun fact: In Taiwan you often see 注音符號 (Zhuyin) on kids’ books and dictionaries. Tone 3 is frequently realized as a low dip rather than a full fall–rise in casual speech.

Tâi-gí — the everyday Southern Min language of Taiwan. Rich tone sandhi makes citation tones and spoken tones feel like two systems. Practice the citation shapes first.

Fun fact: Tone sandhi is famous here: in a phrase, almost every syllable changes tone except the last. That’s why the same word can “sound different” depending on what follows.

Six contrastive tones in modern Hong Kong Cantonese (Jyutping numbering). Checked syllables (ending in -p/-t/-k) reuse tones 1, 3, and 6 with a short clipped shape.

Fun fact: Cantonese keeps more Middle Chinese tone splits than Mandarin — which is why it can feel like “more tones,” even when some are short checked variants.

Five tones on live syllables. Thai writing encodes tone with consonants classes and tone marks — listening practice still starts with clear contour shapes.

Fun fact: The same spelling rules that look intimidating also make Thai tones surprisingly regular once you learn consonant class + live/dead syllable.

Northern Vietnamese has six tones, written with diacritics on the vowel. Southern varieties merge hỏi and ngã — still learn all six shapes for reading and northern listening.

Fun fact: The ngã tone has a distinctive glottal “break” or creak in the middle — more than pitch alone. Listening for voice quality helps.