>> Combine this with the use of tones, and you get a pretty complicated mess. You can't use tones to communicate things like irony, anger or doubt. You have to play on volume. You're losing a lot of expressiveness and subtlety in the process.
This seems a bit like linguistic relativity. Native speakers don't have problems with tones. It is a challenge for second language learners of Chinese who don't speak a tonal language. Likewise, stress patterns in English are a challenge for second language learners but native speakers don't struggle with it.
There is a lot of word play in Chinese. Just because a syllable has a raising tone does not mean it is the exact same pitch as another syllable with a raising tone later in the phrase, rather the syllables follow the same pattern of starting from a lower pitch and go to a higher one. You can also make vowels longer or shorter.
>> Things in Chinese are heavily relying on context.
That's the case for most languages. What does 'hit' mean in English?
He hit me. Give me a hit. That show is a hit. He hit a tree with his car. I hit a new high. The boss ordered a hit on him. Tomorrow we will be hit by a storm. They hit it off well. She hit on him. That hits close to home. Let's hit the road.
This seems a bit like linguistic relativity. Native speakers don't have problems with tones. It is a challenge for second language learners of Chinese who don't speak a tonal language. Likewise, stress patterns in English are a challenge for second language learners but native speakers don't struggle with it.
There is a lot of word play in Chinese. Just because a syllable has a raising tone does not mean it is the exact same pitch as another syllable with a raising tone later in the phrase, rather the syllables follow the same pattern of starting from a lower pitch and go to a higher one. You can also make vowels longer or shorter.
>> Things in Chinese are heavily relying on context.
That's the case for most languages. What does 'hit' mean in English?
He hit me. Give me a hit. That show is a hit. He hit a tree with his car. I hit a new high. The boss ordered a hit on him. Tomorrow we will be hit by a storm. They hit it off well. She hit on him. That hits close to home. Let's hit the road.