Can tone-deaf people learn Chinese?

Answer 1

I take chinese, which is a tone language. It can be hard for me, and I am not tone deaf. Tone-Deaf is very rare among asians, excpecially chinese people.

A tone deasf person could learn it though. Beause of the text in talking, most of the time people would know what you are talking about. Aftre 4 years of chinese, tones still trip me up. I know people who dont even use them in class.I think most chinese people would just assume you have a bad accent.

Tones are very tricky.

Answer 2

i think it would be very very hard, if not impossible. if you pronounce a word with the wrong tone you can give it an entirely different meaning, and if you are unable to hear the differences between the tones you won't be able to get what chinese are trying to tell you. i've been learning chinese for 2 years now (I'm being taught by a native speaker) and one of the first things I was told was how a false pronounciation can reverse the meaning of a sentence. for example, if you want to say "can i ask you a question" and you use the wrong tone, you ask "can i kiss you". and the other way round ;)

Answer 3

If you really try hard you can learn it!

Just practice alot. I am learning Chinese, it is very hard but you need to hear chinese being spoken, listen to movies and music.

I would chose mandarin rather than cantonese because more poople speak mandarin and cantonese has like 6-9 tones.

have fun!