Similar Tones in Chinese

My teacher told me that 冷暖氣機, leng3nuan3qi4ji1, if spoken of a different tone will have another meaning of which it is lewd or bad meaning, but she didn’t tell me what the bad meaning was, she just told me “別隨便說這個,要不然意思是很錯的。。” But been wondering what is it?

Hmm… can’t think of something that’s only a couple of tone differences away from lengnuanqiji… If you read qiji almost the same way, making it sound like jījī, then it sounds like the slang for male genitalia. Wonder if she is talking about that.

By the way, in most daily speech, there’s a tonal sandhi for 冷 in 冷暖, where instead of the third tone, leng takes on the second tone. If a person is trying to be hyper accurate, that person will use two third tones together, but when using it in regular speech that tonal sandhi pops up. Some people in Taiwan also say it like nengnuan, instead of lengnuan, which is a non-contiguous complete regressive assimilation, I think.

I think jiji is the word. Lol thanks!

That’s what I find the most difficult in Chinese, not the tones but the sounds and words similar to each other. When someone talk fast and say “miracle” 奇蹟 how are you supposed to catch it when it sounds similar to 氣機, or 機器 (machine) or 經濟 (economy), 親戚 (relative) etc…
context helps a lot of course but it is still a nightmare and I feel I am still miles away from getting used to these subtle differences.

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The more listening you do the easier it will get. It might be worth remembering that for native speakers the tone isn’t a subtle difference–it’s as prominent as if you used a different letter in an English word.

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It also helps to grasp the general context of the whole sentence thus you know which word does the talker is referring to

That is a difficulty, but actually for a Chinese speaker learning English it is similar. I think ship, chip, sheep, cheap, is a famous one in English, but there are loads; think of any random short word and there are like five other words that sound very similar: Cork, Crock, Creak, Croak, Crank, Crack, etc… Like you said context helps, and - like tempogain said - it gets easier.

True. My wife laughs sometimes when I tell her two characters sound alike, for her they don’t. I hope I’ll get there eventually

@Liam_Og
Can’t disagree either, I went through the same difficulties when trying to get fluent in English (what I found hard with English was the so many different accents especially the UK ones (there is no hope in understanding the Scouse accent for instance).

My wife does that, too. I will say something, or try to, the. She will correct me. I swear she says the exact same thing!
I’ve just settled in the fact I will never nail it. As long as I can communicate on a basic level, I’ll be happy. I’ve got 3 languages and bits of 2 more in my head. I can’t squeeze another in there! Apologies to Eddie Izzard, but I don’t hunk I can live at that speed!

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Just last week, I tried (a bit unsuccessfully) to explain to a coworker the pronunciation differences between “beach” and “bitch”.

Use it to your advantage: everytime you go to order a jipai, make sure to pronounce it with first tone on both instead of 1st/2nd. You’ll be wrong and generate huge embarrassment, but it will be a great way to generate memorable moments and conversations.

Ji1pai1? What does it mean?

It’s very difficult to explain that to them because naturally chinese phonetics doesn’t have prolonged vowels and short vowels like /ee/ and /i/

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It sounds like “vagina” in Taiwanese.

My co-works keeps saying virgins instead of versions, and I have to give my best poker face.

At the same time, I can’t say “wheat thins” without tripping.

I just did it now, tried to say “eat bamboo shoots” and wound up saying “eat grandchildren”.

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