What have I gotten myself into?
So. I purchased my Chinese book yesterday. Good god. What HAVE I gotten myself into? A tonal language dear readers. TONAL!
Visit this page for a moment to understand. Under the Chinese Tones section, click on the info in the Pinyin column to hear the four tones.
Basically the sound “ma” pronounced in four different tones means four COMPLETELY DIFFERENT THINGS.
At least I’m not learning Cantonese. There are 7 or 8 tones. Some say 9.
This is going to be hard. Really hard. REALLY HARD.