{"id":8345,"date":"2019-10-22T07:22:55","date_gmt":"2019-10-22T07:22:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chinesemoment.com\/chinese-reading\/kiss-me-or-ask-me-is-a-question-wen-huan-shi-wen\/"},"modified":"2019-10-22T07:22:55","modified_gmt":"2019-10-22T07:22:55","slug":"kiss-me-or-ask-me-is-a-question-wen-huan-shi-wen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chinesemoment.com\/mm\/kiss-me-or-ask-me-is-a-question-wen-huan-shi-wen\/","title":{"rendered":"KISS me or ASK me is a question! \u543b\u8fd8\u662f\u95ee?"},"content":{"rendered":"
A foreign visitor got lost on the street, he approached a girl and spoke to her in Chinese: “Miss, wo xiang w\u011bnw\u011bn ni.<\/strong>..”. <\/p>\n

The girl was so angry and replied to him: “You are so rude! You attempt to KISS<\/strong> a stranger on the street?”<\/p>\n

“No, No, No! Wo xiang wènwèn<\/font> ni — zhege difang zenme zou<\/strong>. I want to ASK<\/strong> you how I can get to this place.”<\/p>\n

See? The foreign traveler’s Chinese pro<\/em>nunciation made the girl confused. KISS me or ASK me is a question and trouble too! Remember: \u95ee wèn (ask) <\/strong>is the 4th tone, but \u543b w\u011bn (kiss) <\/strong>is the 3rd tone.<\/p>\n

Chinese has four pitched to<\/em>nes and a “toneless” tone (\u0101→  á↗  \u01ce∨  à↘). The reason for having these to<\/em>nes is probably that the Chinese language has very few possible syllables — approximately 400 — while English has a<\/em>bout 12,000. For this reason, there may be more homopho<\/em>nic words , words with the same sound expressing different meanings, in Chinese than in most other languages. Apparently to<\/em>nes help the relatively small number of syllables to multiply and thereby alleviate but not completely solve the problem. Learning Chinese in context, therefore, is very im<\/em>portant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Tone<\/strong><\/td>\nMark<\/strong><\/td>\nDes<\/em>cription<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1st<\/td>\n\"KISS<\/a><\/td>\nHigh and level.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
2nd<\/td>\n\"KISS<\/a><\/td>\nStarts medium in tone, then rises to the top.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
3rd<\/td>\n\"KISS<\/a><\/td>\nStarts low, dips to the bottom, then rises toward the top.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
4th<\/td>\n\"KISS<\/a><\/td>\nStarts at the top, then falls sharp and strong to the bottom.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Neutral<\/td>\n\"KISS<\/a><\/td>\nFlat, with no emphasis.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

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