One of the common mistakes made by my (non-Chinese lineage) Mandarin students over the decades that I’ve been teaching — whichever level, whatever the age of the student — is getting the tone wrong almost every single time for the same character, no matter how many times they might’ve encountered that character before. The same student can pronounce the same character in as many different ways as the number of times they come across it.
There was a student who once said, during a tone drill session, “Why do you keep correcting my tones?!? I’m saying it exactly as you are.” He couldn’t hear the difference.
This puts me in mind of a British TV double act in the 70s and 80s called Morecambe and Wise, a kind of comic variety show, with Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise.
One of their sketches featured André Previn as the conductor with Morecambe as the pianist who kept missing his cue because he (Morecambe) was very tall and couldn’t see Previn through the propped up lid of the piano when the cue came.
After a few more times of this, Morecambe started to play Grieg’s Piano Concerto, all out of tune. Previn said, “You’re playing all the wrong notes!” Morecambe said, “I’m playing all the right notes, but not necessarily in the right order.”
I’ve now taken to telling my students this story, adding: “You think you’re saying the right tones, but they’re all in the wrong places.” They love this version. We all get a laugh out of it.
(London)
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